We lived in Dallas, Texas for six years,
during which time I was a graduate student in Statistics at Southern Methodist
University (SMU), earning my Ph.D. in 1986. Although I have to admit I have
never supported the school financially, they still send me quite a bit of mail,
including the quarterly magazine which arrived the other day. I do not usually
read these things but sometimes I glance through just to see if there is
anything about anyone I might remember, and I can always enjoy looking at all
the pictures of the couples who have married or welcomed new babies.
I have no idea why in the world this
small item caught my glance. It was in a section titled “In Memoriam,” which
lists SMU graduates who have passed on in order of their years of graduation;
the most recent was a 2016 graduate. At the end of this section, my eye caught a
subsection called “SMU Community” which included various faculty and
administrators who had passed, and for reasons I will never understand I
immediately noticed a name toward the bottom of that list:
Campbell
Brittan Read, professor emeritus of
statistical science, 4/25/18
In the early 1980s when I was a student
at SMU, Dr. Read taught the first-year graduate course in probability theory. I
cannot say I remember much of what I learned from him, but I do have one
particularly amusing memory of an interaction we had. The final exam for his
class during my first semester was scheduled for a Saturday. When that schedule
appeared, I went to see him. I am not sure that Dr. Read had ever actually met
anyone Jewish, let alone a traditionally observant Jew. He was a bit skeptical
about my request to sit for the exam on Friday afternoon before Sabbath, as if
he thought I was somehow going to use this as an opportunity to put myself at
some sort of unfair advantage, or worse, to share information about the exam
with the other students. I pointed out to him that it would not be in my interest
to do so, because they would all have an extra day to bone up on the relevant
information, putting me at a distinct disadvantage.
He bought that argument and I remember taking the exam in some other professor’s
office a few hours before Sabbath.
I guess I learned enough probability
theory to get me through that graduate program and a career as a statistician.
Rest in peace, Campbell Read.
Love,
Rebecca
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