Joan Burstyn

I was born at home in Leicester (pronounced Lester), England on March 6, 1929.

We (my husband Harold and I, and our two year old daughter, Judith) first came to Woods Hole in the summer of 1961 when Harold, then a graduate student at Harvard University, had a summer grant to work in Woods Hole with Professor Columbus Iselin at WHOI.

Since 2003, I am professor emerita of History and Education at Syracuse University, where, after stepping down as Dean of the School of Education in 1989, I taught the history of higher education and issues of conflict resolution in schools. During my career I also taught at Carnegie-Mellon University, where I was the Director of Teacher Education, and at Rutgers University where I was Chair of the Education Department at Douglass College and then, later, Director of the Women's Studies Program for the New Brunswick campus. I served as President of the (American and Canadian) History of Education Society, 1985-86, and of the American Educational Studies Association, 1995-96.

Since retiring fully at the end of 2005, I have given more time to writing poetry than I did while working, and I have published two new books of my poems (2009 and 2014) and completed a book with a friend on contemporary Jewish thought (2011). I have also been trying my hand at playwriting.

My connection with Woods Hole has been enriched in many ways:

• through my children's and my grandchildren's association with the Children's School of Science -- (long ago, I served as chair of the Optics Committee);
• through the library and the many functions I've attended there as well as through friendship with the librarians I have known over the years;
• through the Friday night lectures and other MBL and WHOI activities each summer;
• through the many friends we have made from along the roads in the village, and on the beach -- mainly on MBL Beach;
• through all the activities each of us has engaged in over the last 53 years;
• through my poetry readings and the readings by other poets, especially those given by the late Herman Ward;
• and through the Tuesday evening singing sessions for the children (and their parents!). The tunes we all still sing, such as "It's good to be in Woods Hole!" -- these songs are an integral part of my "belonging" to Woods Hole.