It’s been awhile since the UI’s fifth chancellor visited the third floor of Gregory Hall.
“But I think I’ll be visiting there soon just to reminisce,” Mort Weir says.
It’s the first place the esteemed psychology professor, former acting president, one-time vice chancellor and chancellor emeritus thinks of when asked where his most vivid and pleasant memories take him.
“That was the site of my first office when I arrived on campus in 1960 as a 26-year-old assistant professor of psychology, fresh out of graduate school," he says. "That floor and that building were populated by some of the powerhouses of American psychology — people I had heard of and read about but never thought would be colleagues of mine.
“It was, I must say, a bit scary. But it turned out to be a place where I was made welcome, where I enjoyed long research discussions, rancorous political debates, practical jokes and group sack lunches nearly every day. It was a building in which I did nearly all of my teaching. And it was a time when I had all of the support I could ask for to get my academic career started.
“Now I know it wasn’t the physical space that made the difference for me, but when so many good things happen in a particular space, you come to associate that place with those good things.”
