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Entries : Robert Galvin on Catholic Schools and Virtual Perfection
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Robert Galvin on Catholic Schools and Virtual Perfection

Robert Galvin on Catholic Schools and Virtual Perfection

Robert Galvin was the chairman of the board of Motorola.

I went to St. Jerome's on Lunt Avenue in Rogers Park. I got a superb education there. I remember elements of that, and at that time, it was staffed entirely by the Sisters of Mercy ...On a given occasion, whatever the grade was—4th, 5th or 6th, and I think the nun's name was Sister Mary Norberdette—the assignment was announced that on Friday there would be a test on fractions to decimals, decimals to fractions.... And she said there was only one grade acceptable, and that was 100 percent.... here was a nun that was generating a standard, a level of expectation of perfection ...that era starting in the 70s where people began to question the American quality of goods and services and weren't others, like the Japanese, doing better. And eventually I put two and two together, and I in effect said to certain “in” audiences, isn't it interesting that I was given the introduction to the right standard in 4th, 5th or 6th grade when this nun said, “There's only one acceptable answer—100 percent.”

Galvin interview with Timothy J. Gilfoyle, Loyola University, on the occasion of the 1995 Chicago Historical Society Making History Awards.

Gilfoyle, Timothy J. “Quarks, Neutrinos, and Virtual Perfection: Interviews with Robert W. Galvin and Leon M. Lederman.” Chicago History (Summer 1996): 56–62.