MVCC Professor Emeritus Dr. Harold Cantor publishes new book of fiction at 95 

For Harold Cantor’s 90th birthday in 2016, he didn’t want any old gift. The former
MVCC Department Head and Professor Emeritus asked for one thing: a book of his poems to be published. He got his wish in June of that year when a collection of his poetry was published in in the book “Homage to Miss Batchelor,” named in honor of the eighth-grade English teacher who inspired Cantor's life of writing.

Five years later, Cantor got the itch to publish again. His new book, You and Madame Butterfly and Other Short Fiction, was published last August, and is a collection of his works from the past 70 years.

Cantor has been writing since he was in high school; he was even once dubbed “Class Poet.” He took he passion with him when he was drafted in World War II and stationed in Japan, and he never stopped.

After the book of poems was published, Cantor thought, “What am I going to do next?” and realized that teaching and writing were the only things he was interested in. “I kept on writing, and after three or four years, I still didn’t have satisfaction I got from being employed in a college, so I decided I wanted to publish another book of my stories,” he says. “And it’s really a family enterprise.”

Cantor's son helped him arrange the book technically, and his daughter helped him with publicity and finding the right publisher. The cover art was designed by Cantor's granddaughter.

The book includes original stories he wrote about his time in Japan, an experience he says he was lucky to have. The piece “You and Madame Butterfly” is one such story. “It’s a different feeling than what I feel about the other stories. Writing it at 21, I was only a year or two removed from living in Japan, being a soldier in Japan, so when I read it, I remember so well all the aspects of it.”

The collection also includes pieces he wrote about his mother, his opinions on Florida, and, “There’s a final story called ‘Going Retro’ when I tried to become technically brilliant in the 21st century and I couldn’t do it, so I went backwards,” he quipped.

He also included works he wrote during his teaching years.

Cantor left the book publishing business in the early 1960s after 10 years, looking for something more stable. He took his first teaching job at Long Island University, and found his way to MVCC in 1963.

Cantor had never been past Albany, but he made Central New York his home for 26 years.

“This was one of my lucky breaks, discovering Mohawk Valley Community College,” he says, “and I can’t tell you all the memories I have.”

Cantor started at MVCC as an assistant professor, teaching courses in the humanities. In 1968, he was promoted to associate professor, and earned his full professorship in 1971.

“I’m still convinced that the place where real teaching goes on is the community college,” he says. “There were all sorts of students, and you had to learn how to motivate and reach all of them, and that’s real teaching.”

Cantor says he gradually learned the “tricks of the trade,” recalling a time when he adopted a French accent to motivate students who weren’t very enthusiastic about literature. He also developed a year-long class on the History of Drama with another teacher, which he later adapted to a half-hour presentation shown on Sundays on a local TV station.

In 1975, Cantor was appointed head of the Humanities Department, and he tried to hold onto a philosophy he adopted while teaching: “You don’t act as though you’re a dictator. You act as though you’re fatherly — you’re helping, and you’re going to make this kid understand, and this is what I did.”

“I tried to give them more confidence and help to those who were not really prepared for college,” he says, “but I also occasionally got a very intelligent and well-prepared student and I gave them some of my enthusiasm for literature. And I think my enthusiasm carried the day when some of the students were not prepared.”

Cantor also is particularly proud to have hired George Searles, a professor of Humanities at MVCC with more than 40 years under his belt, and who won SUNY’s Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching in 1985, the first community college professor to be honored as such. 

After Cantor retired, he kept teaching as an adjunct and writing, and he hopes to publish more. Quoting Samuel Johnson, he says: ‘“Only a fool writes for nothing. They write either to be read or for money.’ I don’t want the money, but I do want to be read.”

Cantor’s book You and Madame Butterfly and Other Short Fiction and “Homage to Miss Batchelor” are both available on Amazon.