After a successful freshman year at Oklahoma State University, I made one of the biggest mistakes of my young life. In order to be closer to my girlfriend, I transferred to Rutgers University. It took me less than a month on the New Jersey campus to realize how much I hated Rutgers and missed OSU. Moreover, my father refused to allow me to change majors from engineering to journalism. So, in an act of stupid rebellion, I enrolled in engineering and math classes, but did not buy text books, and drank beer and played basketball instead of studying. The result was predictable.

When the fall term ended in January 1956, I had flunked all but two courses, so to say that the spring semester at Rutgers began with me behind the eight-ball would be a terrible understatement. I had managed to dig a deep hole and jumped into it. Now I would have to climb out or, otherwise, I might find myself working construction for the rest of my life. I moved out of the frat house, bought textbooks and hit them hard. Much to my parents’ surprise, I completed the term with passing—though not sterling—grades.

As a civil engineering major, I was required to attend summer surveying camp near the campus. I made an “A” in the course, the first such grade I earned since leaving OSU. With the summer session completed, we celebrated with a picnic in Johnson Park. I was pitching in a faculty vs. students softball game when a courier drove his Chevy close to the infield and, after the third baseman pointed me out to him, he ran to the mound.

“Dean Easton wants to see you,” he said.

“Now?” I asked.

“Yes, now!”

I walked off the field and hopped into the kid’s car, wearing blue jeans, a sweatshirt, and baseball spikes. When we got to the engineering building, I walked down the hall in my socks, carrying my shoes and hat. I entered the Dean’s office expecting to be feted with the “most improved student” award. Instead, the Dean of Engineering hit me with a thunderbolt.

“Mr. Heller, this is the hardest conversation I have each year because no transcript can measure the worth of a young man. But you just can’t overcome your first-semester performance. My academic review committee has given me no choice but to ask you to leave the university.”

His words seemed to echo against the old walls of his office until they became as permanent as carved stone.

“Leave this place, work as hard as you’ve been working the past semester, and discover the man hidden beneath disappointment,” the Dean attempted to soften the blow. “If you do that, the past year will not have been wasted.”

Silence settled between us like autumn leaves drifting onto still water. I walked out of his office in a daze. I was being thrown out of school! The Dean’s assistant drove me back to surveying camp on the other side of the Raritan River, and I attempted to figure out what to do next. The last thing I wanted to do was face my parents. I had violated my father’s dictum: to persevere in America by working hard and never giving up.

I got into my car and started to drive, without knowing the destination. In my confusion, I decided that I would go to Florida, where I would find a job. There, no one would know me, and I could hide my shame.

I passed only two or three exits on the New Jersey Turnpike before my head began to clear. I realized that I had to confront my parents and to tell Sue.

When I arrived at home to face the music, my father shocked me.

“Listen to me. We beat the Nazis, and we beat the Communists,” he told me in a gentle voice. “We’ll beat this together, too.”

I would hear this refrain from Papa many more times in the future, whenever I came to him with a seemingly insurmountable problem. Every time I needed his help or his calming influence, he was there to provide it.

This time, he picked up the phone and called our professor friend, Jan Tuma, at Oklahoma State. In the next two days, an incredible series of events took place. OSU took me back. Professor Tuma not only talked the registrar’s office into accepting me back, but into doing so without transferring my “Ds” and “Fs” from Rutgers. Miraculously, Tuma convinced the administration to accept the few “Bs” and “Cs,” and one “A,” but to banish forever from history the courses I had failed or come close to failing. How he did this, I never found out, and I was not about to ask questions. Without this “act of God,” it would have been extremely difficult for me to overcome the effect of my disastrous Rutgers record on my grade point average, eventual chances to get into graduate school and to find a decent job. Instead, I was starting over as a sophomore with a few extra credits and with a new lease on life. Moreover, Mr. Henry Iba, the basketball coach, agreed to let me work myself onto the Cowboys’ varsity.

OSU’s generosity was even more shocking than my dismissal from Rutgers. I was amazed and grateful beyond words: not only did I love OSU, but OSU loved me back. At the same time, I realized that the pressure was on me to perform in order to prove deserving of this magnanimity and love.

As it turned out, my imbecilic year at Rutgers brought about a change in my life, and Dean Easton’s stunning dismissal became a turning point of lasting consequences and one of my great motivators for the next several years.

As luck would have it, I had the opportunity to meet Dean Easton again, eleven years later while I was on the aerospace engineering faculty at the Naval Academy. Both of us were attending an engineering education conference at Dartmouth College. It came only two weeks after I received my doctorate in engineering from The Catholic University of America.

“Dean Easton,” I said as I approached him at a reception. “My name is Charlie Heller. Do you remember me?”

“I’m sorry. I don’t,” he replied.

“I came to your office in my softball gear, and you informed me that I’ve been dismissed from Rutgers.” I waited for a sign of recognition, anxious to tell him that I was now Doctor Heller.

“Gosh, I’m very sorry, but I don’t recall the incident. But it’s nice to see you.”

With that, he turned to the bartender and asked for a glass of wine. Amazing how one person’s seminal moment can be a totally forgettable one to another!