Gerda McCahan - Furman Mentors
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GERDA MCCAHAN
It was the spring of 1968. I wasn’t sure I would ever get out of Furman. My grades were OK, but not exceptional.
An English major, I had been persuaded to take a course taught by psychology professor Gerda McCahan. I was challenged greatly by this course in “Psychology of Exceptional Children and Youth,” and my grades in it were disheartening.
I felt like my personal life was disheartening, too. I was a member of the Southern Student Organizing Committee [an activist student group]. Some of us had gone to Martin Luther King’s funeral in Atlanta.
The war in Vietnam was raging. There was deep division in the country. Vice President Hubert Humphrey came to Furman, and I couldn’t decide whether to stand up in acclaim for his civil rights record or sit down in protest of his acquiescence in President Johnson’s war policies.
And I was confused about what to do after graduation that spring — if I graduated.
All this angst and confusion came to a head when I met with Professor McCahan about my grades. She gave me a pep talk that worked wonders. I went upstairs in the Furman library and practically camped out, studying for the final exam.
My grade on her final ensured that I could walk across the stage at graduation, and I’m forever grateful to her. I still have the course textbook, which, like the professor, was a repository of wisdom.
Furman wasn’t easy. But it was, for me, invaluable.
— BILL HIGGINS '68