CHICAGO — A leader of the church in upstate New York where Representative Mark S. Kirk of Illinois claims he worked as a nursery school teacher said on Friday that he had overstated his role there.
The leader, Sally Grubb, a member of the administrative council at Forest Home Chapel, a Methodist church in Ithaca, N.Y., said Mr. Kirk had a limited role while working part-time in a work-study program while he was a student at Cornell University nearly three decades ago.
The leader, Sally Grubb, a member of the administrative council at Forest Home Chapel, a Methodist church in Ithaca, N.Y., said Mr. Kirk had a limited role while working part-time in a work-study program while he was a student at Cornell University nearly three decades ago.
“He was never, ever considered a teacher,” Ms. Grubb said in a telephone interview after researching the history of Mr. Kirk’s association with the nursery school. “He was just an additional pair of hands to help a primary teaching person.”
The church has been trying to determine whether Mr. Kirk worked there after The New York Times reported on Thursday about the brevity of Mr. Kirk’s teaching experience. Mr. Kirk, a five-term congressman, is the Republican nominee in Illinois for the Senate seat formerly held by President Obama.
Eight longtime members of the church, including two former pastors, said this week that they did not recall having a male nursery school teacher in 1981, when Mr. Kirk said he had worked there.
“I don’t remember any men who worked there,” said Thomas V. Wolfe, a pastor at the church in 1981, who is now the dean of student affairs at Syracuse University. “It was a team of women. I used to go over every morning and have coffee with them.”
Robert A. Hill, who also served as pastor of the church in 1981 and now is dean of Marsh Chapel at Boston University, also said that he could not remember Mr. Kirk. He added, “You’re going back 30 years, so my memory is not perfectly clear, but most of the teachers were women.”
Mr. Kirk’s background has come under fresh examination after his apology this month for errors and discrepancies about his military record. A review of public comments by Mr. Kirk over the last decade shows that he has often referred to himself in speeches, campaign commercials and interviews as a former nursery, middle and high school teacher. He taught for a year in London at a private school, after getting his master’s degree at the London School of Economics.
The church has been trying to determine whether Mr. Kirk worked there after The New York Times reported on Thursday about the brevity of Mr. Kirk’s teaching experience. Mr. Kirk, a five-term congressman, is the Republican nominee in Illinois for the Senate seat formerly held by President Obama.
Eight longtime members of the church, including two former pastors, said this week that they did not recall having a male nursery school teacher in 1981, when Mr. Kirk said he had worked there.
“I don’t remember any men who worked there,” said Thomas V. Wolfe, a pastor at the church in 1981, who is now the dean of student affairs at Syracuse University. “It was a team of women. I used to go over every morning and have coffee with them.”
Robert A. Hill, who also served as pastor of the church in 1981 and now is dean of Marsh Chapel at Boston University, also said that he could not remember Mr. Kirk. He added, “You’re going back 30 years, so my memory is not perfectly clear, but most of the teachers were women.”
Mr. Kirk’s background has come under fresh examination after his apology this month for errors and discrepancies about his military record. A review of public comments by Mr. Kirk over the last decade shows that he has often referred to himself in speeches, campaign commercials and interviews as a former nursery, middle and high school teacher. He taught for a year in London at a private school, after getting his master’s degree at the London School of Economics.
Full article.....http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/19/us/politics/19kirk.html
