What Jon Morgan remembers most about a certain philosophy course he took as an undergrad was the time a special surprise guest dropped by for the day.
"It was a single lecture in a single class at the singularly profound, brick and ivy Gregory Hall," says Bloomberg News' editor at large ('83).
"I had taken a philosophy class taught by Professor William Schroeder on freedom — what it is, what it isn’t. The class centered around a book by a University of Michigan philosopher named Frithjof Bergman in which he redefined the concept. Near the end of the term, he came for a visit.
"It helped that he looked a bit like the full-bearded Socrates and sat cross-legged on one of those surplus wooden desks that crowded that building and calmly answered questions. I don’t even remember much of what he said, but I can picture it like it was yesterday.
"The book changed the way I look at the world and reinforced to me the idea that thinking can be changed by thinking. It sounds trite now, but it’s a lesson that has stuck with me all these decades.
"I’m a journalist now, and am writing this from my home office — where I have a poster on the wall advertising one of the 'Millercomm80' lectures Bergman delivered while he was in town that spring.”
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