Franz: They did such a good job in welcoming us.  It was such a nice reception.  Dr.  Gifford Weary of the psychology department gave a nice welcoming talk.  It was a special treat to have the banquet in the faculty club.  The faculty club, when I was a graduate student, was a special place where a faculty member would occasionally take a student.

Franz:  Kelly’s first house on Oxford Street was interesting.  Although we couldn’t tour the house at all, we were able to see the window of the study in which Kelly had written The Psychology of Personal Constructs.  The second house on Medick Way was designed by Kelly himself.  He included a passive solar design with a long roof overhang.  The house looks very modern.  The patio behind the house was hand-laid by Kelly based on the mathematical constant ‘e’.   The woman who bought the house from Kelly had not changed anything in the basement.  You could see some of Kelly’s writing on a foundational wall in the basement.

Franz: After looking for some time, I was able to find Kelly’s old office in Arps Hall.  It was hard to find the door to his office.  The office looks terribly plain now.  It was never plain back then.  I was also able to visit the old dorm that I ran when I was a master’s student.  It is still looking very nice.   

Franz: It was quite emotional. I had remembered all the pleasant times and all the fun.  But it [the graduate program in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s] was terribly tough—needlessly so.  There was needlessly high anxiety.  It was a meat-grinder of a program.  I remember walking into the first class held by Professor Don Meyer.  He uttered a phrase that we hear a lot now, but I had never heard it until that day: “Look to your right, and then look to your left—one of the students you are sitting between will have quit the program by the end of the year”. It was really intense.  I remember thinking “Am I going to make it?”  

There was a lot of competition between the students.  But there was an awful lot of reading, too, and the only way to get through it all was to share the reading assignments.  This led to a close knit group of students.  We had to rely on each other. 

It was formal, very formal, but there was a notion of a personal touch that doesn’t happen anymore.  So there was an informality coupled with a highly formal pressure.  Kelly was very encouraging of the students in his groups.  Often he was working hard to find them positions elsewhere.  He was very encouraging.  He was doing nice things for you behind your back.  He was very supportive—always on the lookout for jobs for you.

I don’t want to underestimate the excitement. It was exciting to be part of that group.  There was a feeling that we were all involved in something really important.

Franz: We wanted to set up a different atmosphere when I went to the University of Florida.  Something less intense.  University was much more intense back then.  People were less apologetic about being firm.