Alumnus Frank Green recalls his time at Wayne University 5 years ago

When Frank Green, BSEE'46, graduated from Wayne University, it was no more than Old Main and a couple of classrooms in nearby apartment buildings. Green was among nine engineering graduates. The small class size would soon surge as the G.I. Bill brought many more students to campus.

Green, a native of Detroit, had enrolled as a sophomore in February 1944 after attending the Detroit Institute of Technology for a year. He completed his degree at Wayne in a little more than two years. "I do believe I went to school without vacation until graduation in '46, including summers," Green says. "I came through in 28 months straight. I would not advise anyone to do that."

Now 87 and retired after a long career as a process engineer for General Electric, Green lives with his partner, Maxine Shiffman, in Hudson, Ohio. He shared his memories of Wayne with Exemplar magazine as part of completing a to-do list that had been on his home desk through seven moves of residence since graduating. The list also included donating to Wayne State copies of the original programs from his graduation, the annual Wayne University Swingout, and the Wayne University Honors Convocation he attended 65 years ago.

"This was a no-nonsense, very demanding time in my life, which resulted in a good education that helped me stay employed during my working years," he says.

Green remembers registration day at Wayne University in February 1944. "I went to school for registration and found the first floor of Old Main full of desks and tables holding class cards for the 18 credit hours on my program," he says. "Including extras, it cost less than $100 for my first semester."

Student enrollment was shrinking, Greens says, "due to military duty and working." (Green himself was rejected from military service "by physical examinations.") The university also offered classes as frequently as possible for students who were out of sequence in prerequisites, Green explains. "The challenge was to get rid of us before the onslaught of returning GIs."

Green fondly recalls his surveying class held along Second Avenue and at Rouge Park. "I have forgotten most of the faculty names, but do remember Howard Hess, Albert Bixby, Herbert Lissner and Ronald Pogorzelski."

As a result of his high scholastic achievement, Green was invited to join a group of students that grew into the first official Tau Beta Pi Society at Wayne University in the late 1940s. After graduating with honors, Green worked in Detroit for a few years before moving to Cleveland, where he continued with GE in a long career as an engineer in the field of electric welding.

Green is the father of three children and grandfather to three.