Aimless and malcontent no more
by Tim Zatzariny, Jr. ’94

A teacher once told me: “Make sure you get what you came for.”

As a reporter, those are words to live by. Whenever some politician or public relations person is giving me the runaround, I recall that sage advice. It was uttered by Denis Mercier, a communications professor who retired last spring after 35 years teaching at Rowan.

So, I guess Denis is partly to blame for my peskiness. But he’s also responsible for steering me toward a career in newspapers. I’m proof that a dedicated teacher can save a student too shortsighted or confused to worry about tomorrow. And I certainly was one of those students.

I first met Denis in the summer of 1989, when I enrolled in his Mass Media and Their Influences class. Up to that point, I had done nothing to distinguish myself over four years as a part-time law and justice major. I was only in college to make my parents happy. If my anemic grade point average was any gauge, I was miserable. Denis’s class, which I took as an elective, changed all that.

Here was a professor hip to all the things I cared about: music, books, movies and free-speech issues. Despite his booming, professorial voice, he taught in a style that was often self-deprecating (he described his own style of dress as “early American nerd”). However, he was serious about the topics we discussed and expected—demanded—that his students put some thought and effort into the class.

“Serious” isn’t a word I would have used to describe myself back then, but for the first time, I was eager to attend class and participate in discussions about everything from misogynist rap lyrics to subliminal advertising.

Denis gave me an ‘A’ for the semester, but that didn’t boost my grade-point average high enough. The school told me not to return in the fall. I made a promise to myself that I would be back, and when I did, I’d be a real student, not the imposter I had been before.
Denis’s class helped me decide I wanted to be a journalism major, and I spent the next two years working at a menial job while I completed my associate’s degree at a community college. I was fortunate to have Denis’s friendship then to keep me going. In the fall of 1992, I was re-admitted to Rowan, and, with Denis’s encouragement, I joined the staff of The Whit and Venue Magazine.

For the first time, I felt like I had a purpose. I worked harder than I ever had, and when I graduated in the spring of 1994 with a bachelor’s degree in communications/journalism, I was a completely different person than the aimless malcontent who had walked into Denis’s classroom five years earlier.

Although I didn’t realize it until later, that summer in his class, I finally got what I had come for.

Tim is a staff reporter for the South Jersey bureau of the Courier-Post. He lives in Woodbury.