Some Mysterious Heroic Inner Core: Peter Sampo Remembered | Thomas More College

Some Mysterious
Heroic Inner Core:
Peter Sampo Remembered

My first conversation with Dr. Sampo was in a phone call I received at dinnertime in the family home in Newcastle, New Brunswick in July of 1982.  I had sent off an inquiry—something of a lark—after an advertisement in the National Review with the tagline “The Great Universities” caught my attention for this place called Thomas More Institute in New Hampshire.  After the phone call, I returned to dinner, and my parents asked me about it.  I told them I had been speaking to the President of this place—I was not sure if it was a college—who was the most intelligent and personable professor that I had ever spoken with. And so began my personal saga with Thomas More. To echo the words of the prophet Jeremiah, “You have seduced me, Lord, and I let myself be seduced; you were too strong for me, and you prevailed.”  (Jeremiah 20:7)

After I graduated from Thomas More, I received another phone call from Dr. Sampo when I was in graduate school at the University of Dallas in 1985 asking me to work in the Thomas More College Summer Program.  Then, when I was working on my dissertation at LSU in 1988, I received another phone call from Dr. Sampo asking me to work in the College’s Rome Program.  It was hard to say no to him. 

We had a long run together, as they say, first as a student and then as a colleague, and always as a friend. 

I thought early on that you did not really understand Dr. Sampo unless you were his student.  In fact, I found it a bit odd that he had other relationships: a lovely wife and family and even dear friends his own age. What I mean by this is that there was a type of proprietary interest in him that all of his students took because when you were with him, only you mattered. And that was certainly always the case.  I think that Dr. Sampo firmly believed that one of the most important contributions of the West was the institution of the student-teacher relationship in the classroom.  He would always marvel at the classroom and the wonderful possibilities that lie within it. 

Working with him and under him you felt confident in his administrative abilities, though you never thought of him that way.  He had a tremendous and almost spontaneous practical wisdom. 

But he considered himself first and foremost a teacher.  Every student knew that the worst Northeaster could not keep Dr. Sampo from showing up for class.  That was how important the classroom was for him. He told me once that he was always nervous before class, which surprised me.  But I understood what he meant afterwards.  For a real teacher, the classroom is the main act.

In addition to being a dedicated teacher, he embodied the spirit of a founder.  He would found colleges and start programs like it was a pastime.  He never saw the obstacles ahead but only the possibilities. 

I remember at a Graduation ceremony at the College a lady asked him what made him want to found a college.  He responded, in his manner, “I was smart enough to know that it was worth doing, and dumb enough to do it.”

I worked alongside Dr. Sampo for many years, had many Roman lunches with him, carbonara at Mario’s, gnocchi at da Augusto, and glasses of wine at Biagio’s.  So many enjoyable hours and stories to tell. This is the Dr. Sampo beyond the classroom that we all knew and loved. 

But as I look back, I realize that there was something besides the wit and hearty laugh, the keen perceptions about life, that there was some mysterious heroic inner core, and I am grateful for having brushed against that quality that escapes words. 

Paul Connell
May 28th, 2020
Rome

 

For further reading:

The Death of a Founder: Peter V. Sampo (1931-2020), Requiescat in Pace.

Three Recollections of Peter Sampo

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