DR. DENISE BROADHURST!!!!

Congratulations Denise, or I should say Dr. Broadhurst!!! Based on her thesis work, Denise was awarded her PhD posthumously on Sept 30th, 2008 by CUNY (City University of New York, Graduate Center).

She worked so hard to earn her degree and even when things got tough, she still maintained her sense of humour through it all, as demonstrated in this poem she wrote about it. It's just so her and it makes me smile.


Ode to the Ph.D.
Written by Denise Broadhurst

There once was a college co-ed,
who nearly went out of her head.
Trying to get her degree,
the cursed Ph.D.
and she went slightly batty instead.

She tried with all of her might,
an intelligent thesis to write.
But the harder she worked,
the more she got irked,
and alas, the page still remains white.

An original topic she sought,
but could muster nary a thought.
Copland plans came undone,
She was back at square one!
In a battle she’d already fought.

Her musical piece too did shrink,
requiring less and less ink.
From “full orch” to just string,
to quintet (of all things)
both ambition and high hopes did sink.

Support from her schoolmates was lacking,
what she craved was some obvious backing.
Though perhaps they weren’t real,
she had started to feel
that the odds against her were stacking.

So she sank in a pit of despair,
would she never escape out of there?
Dreams of teaching were slipping,
while hamburger flipping
took on a more probable air.

But determined to win in the end,
she enlisted the aid of a friend,
to keep her on track,
and to help nudge her back
when away from her schoolwork she’d bend.

So it’s here that we leave our young student,
with the hope she’ll become much more prudent.
That she’ll maybe, with luck
(and some help) get unstuck
and make in her thesis a new dent.