An Interview with Gerard Molyneaux, F.C.S., Ph.D.

By Shannon Curley
Collegian Staff
September 12, 2007

Let’s just start simple. When’s your birthday? February 23.

No year? Ehh, no.

Where did you go to school? I went to West Catholic High School and then La Salle College. When did you begin working at La Salle?

I actually started here in 1973 in the English department. I had to start the communication department. It moved up from a little track in 1975 to become a major in 1979. It became its own department in 1985. Then we built the Communication Center in 1994. That’s the same year we started the graduate program.

What is your favorite thing about La Salle? The students. This place is really dead without them. The campus itself has changed so dramatically since I went here. We pretty much only had the quadrangle up on main campus, only Wister and those buildings. Then they added Wister Farm and put up the library in 1990. If somebody were to walk back on campus from the year I graduated they wouldn’t know where they were!

You’ve obviously seen a lot of changes in your time here as a student and then a professor.

I have, but the thing that remains the same is the quality and caliber of the students. I went to Prague last spring with a group of students from my Global Film class that I think really exemplify that. They had my back and I had theirs. I also have a lot of admiration for my colleagues and the faculty here. What is something that you would like to see change or improve on campus? I don’t know any department that wouldn’t say they’d like to see more space. I’d like to see more floors added to the Communication Center. But I’d also like to see more recreation space for the students. Places where they can just go outside and play basketball or something like that.

What is your fondest memory of La Salle? When I was a student here, a professor took time to teach me to write. And now I have five books on the shelves that say he must have done a pretty good job. It just took that one professor to recognize my potential and take the time. I think that’s what is really at the heart of La Salle. You can’t get much more Lasallian than that. And the same thing that was happening then with me and my professor when I was here was happening with my students last spring in Prague. I really enjoyed opening their eyes to new things.

That’s really great. Is there anything we haven’t touched on? Just a thought. The professor whose teaching altered my life was Bro. Patrick Sheekey.  The La Salle Writing Center is named after him. I feel the way so many alums feel: that we can never repay some professors and La Salle for the life-lasting gifts they gave us.  

curleys1@lasalle.edu