Poetry in Motion

By Daniel Gross

 

Dr. Bob Kavesh circa 1960

For nearly five decades, Robert Kavesh, emeritus professor of economics and finance, has been injecting a little poetry into his economics courses.

A Navy veteran and graduate of New York University’s undergraduate school of business, Dr. Bob – as he asked students to call him – received his PhD from Harvard University. After a brief teaching stint at Dartmouth College, he joined the faculty of NYU’s graduate school of business in 1958.

The school was housed in a building adjacent to Trinity Church in lower Manhattan, on the site of what is now Merrill Hall. The environment was spartan – there was no air conditioning – and sounds filtered in from the streets below. There also wasn’t much in the way of extracurricular activities. “Most of the students in those days were male, and most were veterans of World War II,” Kavesh recalled. “The classes were all part-time, the students went to school at night, and the conditions were very crowded.” But, he adds, “it was a joy to teach. The students appreciated what you were doing.”

Kavesh, who taught the Current Economic & Financial Problems course, was part of a cadre of Stern stalwarts with long tenures, such as economist Marcus Nadler, statistics professor Ernest Kurnow, and Dean Joseph Taggart, who spearheaded the creation of the full-time MBA program in the early 1960s.

Although he had never taken a literature course as an undergraduate, Kavesh became interested in literature in graduate school – “I wrote a monograph 50 years ago about businessmen in fiction,” he recalls. In the 1960s, he realized that many full-time students didn't have much background in history or literature. So he began to think of ways to inject small doses of liberal arts into the science of economics. “I began to look for little snatches of poetry that might serve as a text for the lecture we were going to have,” he said.

And so he would kick off a session with a quote from Ezra Pound, or Lord Byron, or Carl Sandburg, or songwriter Yip Harburg (a favorite was the lyrics from Harburg’s 1931 classic, “Brother can you spare a dime?”). While it helped draw students into the material, the use of poetry had a more far-reaching effect. “Over the years, and this is what makes teaching for me, I’ve had literally hundreds of comments from students who said they became interested in poetry or 19th century literature as a result of this,” he said.

After 47 years at Stern, Kavesh, who taught this summer, continues to enjoy the sense of engagement that teaching can bring. “Right now, I’m impressed by the fact that the students with whom I come into contact seem to be concerned with worldly affairs,” he said. But he also continues to be gratified by their interest in a well-constructed verse. “Every so often, a former student sends me a line or two from a poem, and asks if I can recognize it,” he said. “If I can, I’ll e-mail them back.”

Daniel Gross is editor of Sternbusiness.