“I applied for this position, and the professor here who was in charge, seeking someone, thought I was a student of his. They thought I was one of his students. So I got here and he said, ‘Oh, I don’t know who you are,’ and he said, ‘Well, let’s give him a shot anyway.’”

Professor George Pappas, Esq. has been a professor at Pace University since it was known as Pace College, teaching for 50 years come 2019. He started at Texas University in 1969 as an adjunct professor, and had applied to several places as a grad student looking for teaching opportunities. He is an English and Modern Language Studies professor in the Dyson College of the Arts.

“I remember when I started out as a French major, and then I switched to Spanish, I started the first foreign language club, and then a Spanish club came up, I remember being president of that,” says Pappas of his experience as a Pace student. “I used to work at the Post Office while I was going to Pace, and I also, to get tuition money, I worked at Stouffers, y’know washing dishes and stuff and all the guys spoke Spanish.

“So I said ‘y’know what, they keep talking about me and I don’t know what they’re saying’ so I became somewhat obsessed with it, but I went to a high school where I was able to take five years of Latin and four years of French, so I was kind of pushed into an appreciation for the languages, especially Latin and French, and then I got a liking for Spanish with Cervantes.”

Already an established language professor, Pappas decided in the late 1980’s to pursue another academic avenue.

“I think in the 80’s, I got involved with some of the professors oven in Lubin, Professor Kraus, he retired a few years ago, we worked in a tax office down in Manhattan,” says Pappas. “I had always kinda had a hobby doing income taxes on the side. I went to Pace and got a Master’s in Tax on top of my BA, I got a Master’s in Spanish down in Texas, and then after that, I said ‘you know what maybe I’ll just go to law school and see what that’s like.’, just for the hell of it.”

For the untrained eye, Law and Modern Languages can seem quite separate from each other, but they share some similarities, according to Pappas.

“When I get students that say they’re gonna major in Law, or something like they wanna be lawyers, I tell them ‘first, learn how to write- get over to the Communications department and learn how to write well’, because otherwise, you’re dead,” says Pappas. “take a Law course, take an Accounting course, take courses that might help you, but you’re going to get all that that you’ll need in Law school. You need to get in there with the ability to read cases and write well in terms of your responses and your briefs- that’s the name of the game.”

The road to academia wasn’t always so clean-cut for Pappas though. From a prospective Naval Reserve Officer to a Post Office worker, Pappas hasn’t been reticent to embrace change.

“They gave me a shot and then as time went on, another professor here decided to become a chef on an ocean liner in Spain, and then I got the position and stayed ever since. It’s kind of strange, it was a freak accident in terms of him actually calling me up for an interview,” recalled Pappas. “I went and wanted to be an engineer, I wanted to be in the Navy, but these were all choices, I turned down scholarships for Columbia for Naval Reserve Officers. I just, you know what it is, I just fell into it. I guess I was one of those people that went forward with whatever opportunities presented themselves.

“I never really knew what my ultimate goal was gonna be, which is why I’ve always enjoyed a diverse life, my life is diverse. That’s what’s beautiful about life, you just follow your nose to the next thing that comes to you. It’s not a matter of making choices, you never know what you’re gonna want to do until you just start doing it.”