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University of South Florida professor Marvin Karlins, Ph.D. just hit the half century mark of teaching at the Tampa campus.
“This is my 50th year,” Karlins said. “Every semester, a new group comes in and it's always another opportunity to have an impact on people, hopefully positively."
In one way or another, the 83-year-old has been teaching since the late 1950s, when he was an undergrad at the University of Minnesota.
Though back then it wasn’t psychology or management courses, but lessons in his first love — American folk music.
“It was like a student organization. You just come in, and it was a free offering. And I’d get 5 to 10 people a week, and I had to teach them about folk singing, some of the songs and some of the guitar riffs,” he explained.
One of those weeks, a shy Minnesotan showed up curious about the burgeoning genre, which was on the precipice of becoming more mainstream.
MORE: https://www.wtsp.com/article/features/complete-unknown-usf-bob-dylan-folk-music/67-2e07c7ac-9a38-49da-bd9e-c3d41395d3a2