Congratulations for Dr. Siegel's Robert West tribute. We, his students, had a unique educational and personal experience. Dr. West's one-on-one sessions filled us with trepidation, but the outcome was intense intellectual excitement.
For me, Dr. West's encouragement to be "nontraditional" in studying aphasia set me on my way. He helped me obtain a Veterans Administration (VA) traineeship and a position at the VA in Salt Lake City and an assistantship to study for a PhD at the University of Utah. I still see his sly smile when I showed him the telegram offering me the positions. It wouldn't have happened without Dr. West.
All of us who studied and worked with him still carry a continuing curiosity and drive to take on the difficult questions of our discipline. For me, that process began when Dr. West arrived at Brooklyn College and I was enlisted to help fix an old audiometer in a hot and dusty room in Boylan Hall, and continued until I left for my PhD study in Utah.
Our conversations continue in my mind as I try to work through difficult research problems while looking at his picture, which sits in our living room. How would Dr. West find a way out of the quandary?
As his students and their students continue to explore the challenges of the field, his intellectual spirit and openness to new ideas remain everlasting. Dr. Robert West is alive and well in all of us who have been touched by his intellectual force and humanity.
Ronald S. Tikofsky
New York, New York
rst14@columbia.edu