Thomas Martin Guterbock – 50th Reunion Essay

Thomas Martin Guterbock

951 Fairwinds Lane

Crozet, VA 22932

tmg1p@virginia.edu

434-760-0909

Spouse(s): Carole A. Sherman (1972); Bernice A. Marcopulos (1994)

Child(ren): Sara Elisabeth Guterbock (1975); Deborah Rose Guterbock (1986); Alexandra Margareta Guterbock (1998); Halina Gisele Guterbock (2001)

Grandchild(ren): Maia Alyciana Guterbock (1998); Phoebe Annabelle Miller Guterbock (2014); Sebastian Mordecai Guterbock Miller (2017)

Education: BA, Yale University, 1969, History, the Arts & Letters. MA, Sociology, University of Chicago, 1972. PhD, Sociology, University of Chicago, 1976.

National Service: US Army National Guard, 1970-76.

Career: Assistant Professor, Sociology, Memphis State University, 1975-76. From Assistant to Full Professor, Sociology, University of Virginia, 1976 to present. Founding Director, UVa Center for Survey Research, 1988 to present.

Avocations: Barbershop chorus and quartet singing. Avid baseball fan, White Sox and UVa Cavaliers. Working on old BMW autos. Lap swimming, hiking, biking, ice dancing (pre-Bronze level).

College: Silliman

Looking back, I see our class as having been more on the trailing edge of Old Yale than the cutting edge of the new. (Just compare us to the class of ’70.) No doubt coeducation was a plus, but a lot of positives were forever lost when we stopped being a boys club where one learned to man up.

There is so much to remember. A Midwestern kid’s culture shock upon entry to the Eastern prep world. The fear of not measuring up, the hope of finding new ways to be cool. My main preoccupation at Yale was with WYBC, then an organization of mind-boggling size, scope, and energy. As station VP, in charge of the heeling process, I discovered my love of teaching. The peak of my radio experience was the summer of 1968, when eight of us stayed in New Haven to make that part-time operation into a 24/7, 365-day station. All seemed possible in those days.

My lack of self-discipline diminished the intellectual rewards of my H.A.L. major. I’m sure I would have learned much more by taking two years of regular courses instead! I did complete a thesis about Nazi literature, which helped resolve my internal identity struggles as son of mixed-origin German refugees.

Another urgent project of those years was losing my virginity. Girls from Vassar and Smith proved to be quite unhelpful; the girls who hung out at the radio station were more willing to assist.

My biggest mistake at Yale: joining the group that managed the concessions at the Yale Bowl. High earnings, yes… but I missed every home-football Saturday. My most memorable accomplishment: a successful electronic espionage caper against a rival senior society when I was in Scroll and Key. It was long before Watergate.

After encountering puzzlingly perverse institutions at USIA, Munich University and the US National Guard, I entered the study of sociology at U of C in hopes of better understanding the social world—a hope never fully realized. I joined the faculty at University of Virginia as a new Ph.D. expecting soon to be moving on, but Harvard never called, and here I remain after 40 years. I’ve been moderately successful as an academic, with publications scattered across a bewildering variety of topics. I shifted my focus to survey methodology and still direct the Center for Survey Research, which I founded 30 years ago.

My first marriage was unfortunate: what I took to be her appealing emotionality proved to be a serious personality disorder. From those 19 years of struggle I gained two wonderful daughters (and so far, three grandchildren) as well as a more solid sense of self. My subsequent 20-plus years of marriage to a decidedly unsentimental neuropsychologist have blessed me with the normal family life I had missed. We have two wonderful daughters of our own, who have helped keep me younger. With my youngest still in high school, and continued good health, there’s no real thought of retirement anytime soon.