: Well, right away, in psychology – I mean, I loved
it, truly loved it. I got so engaged in psychology
and did some interesting papers, and experiments.
Because I was so involved with the graduate
students, too, I was very inspired by thinking
research already, even as an undergraduate. I think
I told you about my honors thesis, which was a very
interesting piece of research in terms of how women
choose their life’s work, and what role the family
plays in shaping those career aspirations. So I was
very much into research in psychology and the focus
on gender issues without even recognizing it. I
can’t believe when I think back that the first thing
I did from a research point of view carried on with
me so many years later. I knew I was definitely
going to apply for graduate work. There was no
question in my mind that I was going to get my BA
and then move on. I think I was encouraged by the
faculty. And I want to tell you that, in spite of
the very difficult beginning and that first F, I
graduated cum-laude, with honors. And later, I was
elected in the Academy of Distinction at Adelphi. I
think for somebody who didn’t speak English, to
graduate with honors in two years was unheard of.
But I did it, and that was, again, that
determination and hard work -- and some brains I’m
sure. But the graduate education was definitely in
my mind. There was no question. So I talked to the
dean of the graduate school there, and I will never
forget how naïve she was. I said to her I’m very
much interested in working with people, but also,
I’m very interested in research. I have this
inquiring passion in me. And she said you can’t do
both. Either you are a clinical psychologist, or you
are a researcher. You can’t combine it. She was a
professor of Spanish. It’s like I see her now and
this is ’52 or ’53, and it didn’t compute for me.
Being a dean of the graduate school and to have this
kind of dichotomy that you cannot be a clinician and
still do research that feeds the clinical work
didn’t make sense to me, so I decided to apply to
graduate school. And I was given a number of
suggestions from the Lucas Bureau. I was applying
for my Masters because the idea when I left Greece
was that I would get my BA and my Masters and then
go home. So he suggested Smith College, and Bryn
Mawr College, some of the women’s elite colleges,
which I didn’t know much about then. I didn’t have
the concept of different types of schools. So I
found out that Ohio University was in Athens. So I
said I’m going to go to Athens. It was crazy-- I
went to Ohio University because it was in Athens. I
thought there might be some Greek students there in
Athens. I was still so naïve. So I did go to Athens,
and I had a very good experience actually. I got my
Masters there and, again, I had very, very good
mentors. My advisor was a sweetheart. He was so good
and so endorsing, so supportive. I remember I
decided to do a very elaborate Master’s thesis. He
says to me, Lena, you don’t need to do that. I said
no, I need to study this subject better. So he said
okay, go do it. And I’m glad I did it actually. It
was a very interesting thesis. I was interested,
again, on how foreign students acculturate, because
of my own experience. How do they make the
transition being foreign students in this country,
and their adjustment? So I developed a test. At that
time, I was dabbling into Freud and all that, and he
had discussed identification-- the ability of
persons to identify with others in their own country
and other cultures and so forth; a kind of
flexibility. So I developed a measure of
identification. I found a number of foreign
students, and I administered the test, my
questionnaire, and some other tests, psychological
tests to sort of measure their identification back
home. How well integrated were they in their own
culture? And were they able to do the same here? Is
it the psychological well-being of the person that
enables the person to make the transition and adjust
to a new culture? And I did find that was the case
actually. So anyhow, it was very interesting for a
Master’s thesis. It was a very good piece of work.
So at that time, I was finishing that, and I was
planning to come back home. And my advisor said
“Lena, since you’re here, why don’t you get your PhD
and then go home?” I thought it made sense, so I
decided to pursue the PhD. I applied to a number of
graduate programs, and he advised me not to go into
clinical psychology and to do counseling psychology
instead, because with my plans to go back to Greece,
it was a much more flexible degree. He told me that,
as a clinical psychologist, you are not going to be
able to get patients because the psychiatrists will
have them. As a counseling psychologist, you can
work with students; you can do all kinds of things.
So he told me to do that. He gave me about four or
five different schools that had very good programs
in counseling psychology. I remember I applied and
got accepted to all of them, but I chose the one
that wrote me the nicest letter. Here I study higher
education. If you think back to the way I chose my
colleges, it’s funny actually. But it didn’t hurt me
any, which is another interesting story. Most people
assume that because I have been an achiever, and I
have done very well professionally, that I must have
gone to elite schools, and not to Ohio University or
to the University of Maryland for my PhD. It’s very
interesting the assumptions we make. The decision
was made that I was going to go to the University of
Maryland. And at that time, they gave me only half
of an assistantship. But I have to tell you, I
walked in there, I talked to some of the faculty,
and I talked to the chair of the department, and I
said I couldn’t do this with half of an
assistantship. I had no other means of support. And
he immediately made some phone calls, and I was able
to get the other half of the assistantship. That’s
another story. But to come back, I want to say more
about my undergraduate years. I think about growing
up socially and finding my sexuality, and that in
those days, again, you were not sexually active. But
at least falling in love and knowing what love is
and the boyfriend that I mentioned, the Greek guy,
he was about my age, maybe a little younger, a few
months younger, but a year younger in college
because I was advanced in school early on. So we
were together, and then the senior prom came. I was
going to go with him, and I had a woman that I had
become very good friends with, an undergraduate, who
was from Panama, a black woman. And she says Lena,
I’ll make you a dress for the prom, and she made me
a dress for the prom. She was so sweet. It was very
beautiful. And she made it all – she even bought the
material. I don’t remember paying any money for it.
It was so sweet. So this boyfriend says to me I’m
not going to the prom with you, and that was the end
of our relationship. I was devastated. My first real
love, actualized love-- the other guy in the
conservatory had been more of a fantasy-- and that
was it. So that was a painful experience.