To The Editor:

The beginning of the school year is always an exciting time, whether you’re a student or a member of the faculty. This year, however, my excitement for the new semester is tempered because I begin the year without a friend and adviser.

Dr. Donald Ryan, a long-time teacher and former adviser to the student newspaper here at Pace, passed away earlier this summer. I realize that none of the students will know who Don was and that much of the faculty may have turned over since he last taught at Pace.

Yet, I felt compelled to write this to gain some measure of closure regarding his death. Don, along with Bob Klaeger and Howard Livingston, were the go-to instructors when I was a student at Pace in the mid-80s. If you wanted to work and wanted to be pushed academically you took this trio.

I don’t remember exactly how many times I took each of them but they all helped shape my life in one way or another. In Don’s case, he taught me that when I was a smart-ass teenager I wasn’t really all that smart. As an adult, he counseled me on students and classes in addition to simply being a dear friend.

You could sit down and have a beer with Don and discuss movies and music, books and baseball and come away with a better understanding of each subject. As I grew older and leaned on him more, I realized more than ever how special he was.

Don introduced me to the world of newspapers when I was a freshman at Pace and it’s a world in which I have made my living for the last 25 years. I can’t say that I had Don on my mind at all times during the last quarter of a century because that just isn’t true. However, he helped lay the foundation for my career and the thousands of stories I have written over that time can all be traced back to my first class at Pace – a journalism class with Don.

I am friends with Don’s son Paul, also a Pace grad, and my sense of loss certainly pales in comparison to what he and his family have gone through this summer. Yet as August drew to a close, I found myself wanting to speak with Don more and more just to talk about the new semester (and complain about how bad the Mets are) only to catch myself when I remembered it wasn’t possible.

Don meant a great deal to me and I miss him terribly. I only hope that I can have a similar impact on my students as we begin the new school year.

Prof. Kevin Czerwinski

Media and Communication Arts