Correspondence
Springsteen on the Sofa
Monmouth was such an unforgettable, happy time in my life. I could walk into a friend’s party and find Bruce Springsteen sitting on the sofa. Another time, I turned around and caught my reflection in Walt Frazier’s belt buckle (the New York Knicks used to practice on campus too).
I majored in Spanish and minored in French, so I was saddened to read of the passing of my favorite professor, Alicia Portuondo (In Memoriam, Fall 2025). She was a tremendous influence and had a gift for making lessons fun.
Since graduating, I’ve lived in more than a dozen places around the world—from Latin America to Europe and Asia—so I really did use my major! Thank you, Sra. Portuondo. You were awesome!
—Diane (Ogonowsky) Ferrier ’75
Hello, Future
It was either fall ’84 or spring ’85 when PC labs popped up on campus, bringing salvation for those of us who weren’t typists (“The Original Upgrade,” Fall 2025). People still lined up outside the mainframe room carrying stacks of punch cards bound with rubber bands. But just down the hall from there, I came upon a room with 20 to 30 brand-new Apple II computers. I tracked down someone who handed me a key and two floppy disks and said, “Go ahead—I’ll let you in.”
I had to learn it on my own, but before long, I was typing my final term paper. What a relief to make corrections without White-Out or retyping entire pages. It was a small step at the time but a sign of what was to come.
—Tom Mitchell ’85
I used an Apple IIc for the economics and finance classes I had with Professor Donald Moliver. Because of that experience, I purchased one for my own use at home—and I still have it today!
—Mark Mascari ’86
In the mid-1970s, before there were PCs, I used an Execuport terminal to access the ARPANET and connect to a computer located in California from my bedroom in northern Virginia. All my work at the time was done remotely via the ARPANET on that computer in California. The internet would not be what it is today without the ARPANET. It was where the capabilities of today’s internet, and PCs, were first experienced.
—Ed Von Gehren ’64
I started at Monmouth College in the fall of 1982 as a computer science major. Smaller computers—and CRT (cathode ray tube) dumb terminals—were becoming more and more common. Ironically, I had never seen or worked with a computer, though some of my classmates had gained experience during their final year or so of high school. My high school didn’t provide that opportunity.
I loved learning programming my freshman year. (We didn’t call it “software development” then.)
We were using mainframes, and I distinctly remember my classmates and me carrying our IBM punch cards across campus. We were so fearful of dropping the stack! The stack of cards could be several inches high, and they were rubber-banded in multiple directions for safe transport. We were taking those cards to be read by the card reader. I remember the metal arm that would move the cards along—and that sound. We waited to see if our code worked!
I graduated from Monmouth in 1986 and spent all but a few years of my career in healthcare IT. It makes me smile to think about how I started my computer education (with IBM punch cards!) and have had the opportunity to work on so many new, “futuristic” technologies since then, including healthcare portals, telehealth platforms, EHRs, and AI and automation.
It’s been an amazing journey that I couldn’t have taken without my Monmouth education!
—Tracey Haines ’86