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my address and phone number in it. Of course, now I had actual notice that Farnsworth wanted to see me, and I did not think it a good strategy to lecture the professor on the niceties of communication. So I called Professor Farnsworth (rather, I note, than putting a notice on the door to apartment 3B in my walkup on 138th Street) and arranged to meet with him in his office (which was where?)—at his convenience, of course. The material portion of the conversation went something like this:
“Mr. Yaverbaum, you do know that I have to fail you in this course.” “Professor Farnsworth, I just don’t understand.”
“You haven’t been attending.”
“That’s right.”
“And that’s why I have to fail you.”
“I still don’t understand. I know that I haven’t been attending, but I try to keep up with the materials. I just got married, and between the preparations and the honeymoon, I haven’t been attending any courses.”
“But in my class, there was an attendance policy.”
“I was not aware of that, Professor.”
“I announced it at the beginning of the second class.”
“I wasn’t there.”
Well, it turns out that due process did count for something, even
with Professor Farnsworth. I asked him to let me take the final, and then we would see what my grade should be. I’m not sure whether or not blind grading was in effect at Columbia at the time, but I ended up with a C+, which was good enough for me, even if it was, by a mile, the lowest grade that I had ever received.
While I was at the Rosenman firm, I was involved in countless financings involving industrial development bonds; and more than twenty-five years after my meeting with Professor Farnsworth, I was offered the position of General Counsel at the New York State Housing Finance Agency by its then president. HFA’s primary, if not sole, means of assisting in the development of affordable housing in New York is accomplished through the issuance of municipal bonds.
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