Professor Frank Cassara
Last November, Professor Frank Cassara of Poly’s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering opened his inbox to find a message from a student he hadn’t seen in over 30 years.
“Hello, Professor Cassara,” the letter begins, “you probably don’t remember me - but I feel compelled to send you this email.”
It goes on to say how “your wonderful enthusiasm and ability to teach electronics and telecommunications opened up many opportunities for me…During the 30+ years that I worked, I was primarily an electronics consultant in many, many fields. I was very good at it and you helped lay the foundation that I needed.”
The letter was written by Warren Newman whose first class with Professor Cassara was in the summer of 1971 when he was working on his undergraduate degree at “Brooklyn Poly.” He went on to take four more classes with Professor Cassara while he earned his graduate degree at the Farmingdale campus. After the last class, Mr. Newman says he wasn’t happy when “I realized I had taken all of the courses that you were teaching.”
Mr. Newman saved everything from Professor Cassara’s courses, “notebooks, handouts, tests, and even the two page crib sheets that [he] allowed [students] to bring into the tests.” He thinks he’ll hold on to them “forever.”
In 1996 at the age of 45, Mr. Newman was diagnosed with early-onset Parkinson’s disease which led to his early retirement in 2004. In 2006, he underwent Deep Brain Stimulation surgery, a procedure in which sets of electrodes were placed in both sides of his brain and wired to programmable pulse generators implanted in his chest. He says that “the procedure has been great for me; while I still have significant symptoms, I’m functioning pretty well right now.”
At the end of his heartfelt letter of praise, Mr. Newman wrote a sentence that all teachers aspire to read one day: “I’m sure there are countless other successful [students] out there now who would have similar things to say about you.”