ABSTRACT
In interviews and essays, John R. Rickford has identified various aspects of his experience at Queen’s College (QC) as being crucial to his psychological and academic development. He took full advantage of the aforementioned leadership training opportunities. QC was then, and one of the top high schools in Guyana, owing to, for example, its highly credentialed and dedicated teachers, high-achieving students, broad curriculum, and well-appointed science laboratories and sports fields. While John’s development from scholar to scholar-servant may have been most pronounced at University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC), owing to his participation in, for instance, community service projects and student protests over the Vietnam war and racial injustice, it can be seen also in the earlier QC years. Much of John’s work during the years since UCSC shows him applying his skills as a linguist to improve the life of the very people whose speech is the focus of his work.
