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Dr. Daniel R. Stenberg, who was with Southwestern Michigan College in various capacities for 30 years, was remembered at the Nov. 13 meeting by a trustee who was his student.

Chairman Tom Jerdon recalls Dr. Stenberg as demanding and “worldly,” making “every attempt to present the outside world to his students. His English text, The Four Worlds of Writing (the everyday world, the public world, the academic world, the work world) was challenging to say the least.”

“He introduced students to art and authors. I especially remember presentations on Andrew Wyeth and the paintings Christina’s World and the Olson House,” Jerdon said.

Dr. Stenberg’s large lecture classes never yielded more than a couple of A’s per semester, Jerdon said. “There was absolutely no grade inflation. Perhaps grade deflation!”

Students were required to keep daily journals in the belief that “the more one writes, the better one gets.”

“And, boy, did we write,” Jerdon said. “It was a class that dominated your semester far more than any other. It was difficult to keep up with all of the work. His linguistics class I took thereafter was not as intense as freshman English, but very intriguing, and caused one to view things from different perspectives.”

Dr. Stenberg met with all students weekly to review. “It was just an enormous amount of energy for him to read so much work,” Jerdon said, “but I believe this is what he loved — a connection with students and their development.”

Besides Jerdon, Dr. Stenberg also taught Trustees Becky Moore and Skip Dyes and former trustee Carole Tate.

“I had him as a professor in 1972 and from day one we clicked,” Dyes said. “He was always  a great person in my life, more than a professor but a warm and caring person who was in my life till the end. Godspeed, Dr. Stenberg.”

Dr. Stenberg, 83, whose memorial service took place Oct. 19 in Buchanan, where he lived, joined SMC in 1971.

In 1987, he transitioned to coordinating Developmental Studies, a series of preparatory courses and support services designed to help students transition from high school to college.

Dr. Stenberg, who grew up in Muskegon, obtained his bachelor’s (Shakespeare, with minors in speech and drama) and master’s degrees from Central Michigan University, where he worked his way through college as a butler for the dean of students in a household with four young children.

His butler’s experience served him well in higher education in his final position, director of institutional research and executive assistant to President Dr. Marshall Bishop, a chemist by training.

“I learned that my job was to make the household run, but not be seen. I was one of the servants,” which he kept in mind as his office tried to keep state and federal regulations from interfering with classroom teaching and free Bishop’s time so he “can take care of the important people, the students,” he told the local newspaper for a 1999 profile.

He met his future wife of 55 years, Linda, in archery at CMU. After marrying on June 23, 1962, they raised three children. She preceded him in death in 2017.

Dr. Stenberg came to SMC after teaching English at Alpena High School and Interlochen Arts Academy near Traverse City.

A 1980 profile in The Southwester, which he advised for President Dr. Russell “M” Owen, mentioned bartending and clothing design.

When needed, he bartended for a private club he belonged to in Indiana, obtaining his license in 1979. “I enjoy doing it because it gives me a chance to meet a lot of people,” he explained.

He had been designing his own clothes for 20 years, starting with theatre costumes.

“I have designed wedding dresses and baked cakes for special occasions,” said Dr. Stenberg, who held a Ph.D. in education from Indiana University of Pennsylvania.

The similarity of his job to a UN translator was a favorite analogy.

“I take things the outside world wants to know about SMC and translate them into SMC, then take what SMC knows about  itself and translate it back to the outside world. In some senses it’s a separate language.”

In collaboration with SMC basketball coach Jim Tansey, Dr. Stenberg served as sports information director for three years.

He also chaired the humanities and communication arts department and represented the college in the community, presenting a variety of Speakers Bureau topics.

In the late ’90s he shed 70 pounds on noon power walks from campus through Dowagiac.