Greg McIlhiney: An Appreciation

Greg McIlhiney (1950-2008)

Professor of Computer Science
Foothill College, Los Altos Hills, CA

When I learned of Greg's passing from Verley O'Neal (June 17) at Foothill's Middlefield Computer Lab, I was heartbroken. Greg was the most conscientious professor in computer science and multimedia at Foothill College. All the students loved him for his total dedication in teaching and helpfulness. He had a warm smile for everyone. I like to share a few fond memories of Greg who has been a helpful and treasured colleague and friend. He has helped me when I was a student and later as part-time faculty member.
When I was taking Quark XPress with Mary Jane Gause (1993), my floppy disk crashed on me just at mid-term exam. I panicked and was told that Greg McIlhiney was the only guy on campus who could fix it for me. I went to Greg's office and he diagnosed my problem. "You're using these cheap Dysan floppies. No wonder they're going bad on you. Get a Sony disk, I've never had problems with them. Besides Quark is a funny program, that's why they call it quark, it's quirky!" But soon Greg got out his Norton Utilities with that cartoon character "Mr. Fix-it" going through my disk and repairing the damage. Greg told me "I retrieved your files, but this disk is still fragile and could crash again. Load all your data onto a fresh disk and backup your work at all times." I couldn't thank Greg enough for saving my Mid-term exam work.
Before becoming a tenured full-time professor, Greg was the Lab Coordinator for Foothill CTIS Department on the Los Altos Campus and the Middlefield Campus as well as part-time faculty teaching hypercard and multimedia. He ran the labs efficiently, making sure that the graphic design students had their allotted times on the Mac computers with the larger screens, a signup sheet for the scanners, and fresh toners for all the printers. When computers broke down in the lab, he would fix them promptly.
When I taught "Using the Internet" classes (1996), Greg promptly set up the interface for Eudora Email, so students could have email access to the Foothill College server and learn about FTP in the first week of class. Greg also set up the Resources Folder for all the CTIS faculty members so students could access homework assignments and send their work to instructors for their mid-term and final projects. I also kept a copy of Norton Utilities in my Resources Folder, so if any student's disk crashed, they'll get the kind of help I received from Greg. As a Computer Lab Consultant (1995-2007), I tried to emulate Greg by having instructional materials accessible to Foothill students as well helping them outside the classrooms.
My experience teaching Foothill College Summer Novice Program (1998) almost turned to a disaster without the help of Greg. Many of the at-risk high school students were not motivated to finish their 5-page web sites. I created "Geometry Playground" with web links to "Circle, Square, Triangle, Cross, and Spiral" to motivate the students. When they moaned "We're not interested in geometry", I told them that my 5-pages were templates for them to create their own favorite subjects. I told them "You could use my HTML codes to create your web pages on favorite Bay Area sports teams, sport cars, superstars in sports, music, film, anything you like." Only five of the 32 students finished their projects. When Verley O'Neal asked me to turn the students summer work, I had little to show. Greg told me that he'll be teaching Flash in the Fall Semester and need to learn this program to teach it, as well as planning the syllabus. He told me that he'd be in the lab till 9 or 10 pm so I could come in to finish the NOVICE project. This way Foothill College could get continued support for the program next summer for these at-risk kids. I got the photos that Juanita took of the students and the handwritten biography page each wrote about themselves. I managed to create a 4x8 Photo-Quilt of the 32 students that linked to their bio and art work, creating web links to their favorite books, music, sports, and film stars. So instead of 15% of the students with completed web pages, it looked like 100% of the class had some semblance of representation in the final project. NOVICE had this Quilt-Photo Collage of the at-risk kids as the centerpiece on their web site for two years. And I must thank Greg for giving me that extra two weeks to complete this task.
Greg cared foremost the work students produced in Foothill College. He pointed out to me a poster on the wall at the Middlefield Computer Lab. "You see the subtle color separations in all those kimonos? A Japanese student spent a whole semester doing it in Adobe Illustrator. When she gave her final presentation, everyone was wowed by the work. She made an extra copy so I could hang it up as a learning tool for other students. When it was replaced in the lab by some Apple Computer poster, Greg noticed it right away. "What happened to the kimono poster?" The new lab administrator didn't know the background of that student poster, and I overheard Greg telling him about it. I knew how much Greg loved Apple Computer products, but he loved and cared for students' work even more.
The poet Robert Lax (1915-2000) and best friend of the Trappist Monk Thomas Merton wrote in "A Thing That Is" (1997): "Life is not holy / because it is / beautiful / it is beautiful / because it is / holy." Greg has lived a beautiful life. He has been a helpful and treasured colleague. Greg has been a Mensch to so many students who have had the good fortune of taking classes with him. Oprah Winfrey said at Stanford's Commencement on Sunday: "To move forward, you have to give back." Greg has given back so much to Foothill College with his expertise of knowledge in multimedia and computer technology, with his generosity of time and kindness of heart to all those who have come his way. That's why we love and honor him. Thank you Greg— Thank you!

Peter Y. Chou
June 20, 2008