It was a routine trip back to Michigan for Laurence J. Kirshbaum '66, a member of the Visiting Committee of the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts, until Nick Delbanco surprised him with a question.

"Nick is a very special guy," says Kirshbaum, who is president and CEO of Warner Books Inc. in New York City. "He asked about the possibility of a book with us. I'd read a lot of his writing over the years, so it seemed like a unique opportunity. I don't normally go around campuses signing up books, but we had a chance to grab one of the finest novelists in America, so I did it."

Kirshbaum is also a strong supporter of the Michigan Daily. "I was on the Daily from 1962 to '66," he says. "In other words, my whole undergraduate life. You could say I majored in the Michigan Daily and minored in LS&A.

"I don't say that with great pride, but to a foolish young man, the Daily seemed more exciting than my classes. I've since changed my mind. I wish I'd spent more time at school."

Kirshbaum served as managing editor his senior year. As a reporter he often covered the state Legislature and the dynamics between the University and the state. Student protests were also his beat, and his reporting in that area led to his first job, a book and his current post.

"I was also working as a campus correspondent for Newsweek my senior year," he recalls, "and they offered me a job when I graduated. So in the end my time at the Daily was important vocationally. In 1970 I wrote a book for Random House about student protest on 20 campuses, Is the Library Burning?, with my fellow Daily alum Roger Rapopport. Random House hired me, and I moved here to Time-Warner in 1974. I've been here ever since."

Kirshbaum has served on the LSA Visiting Committee for almost six years. "I'm focusing primarily on multimedia use in education he says, "but I believe it's not the technology it's the content that really matters.

There is "an extra pleasure to my campus visits these days,' Kirshbaum says, "the opportunity to see my son Michael, who will be a senior there next year. He's the third generation of our family at Michigan. My father, Milton Kirshbaum, was in the class of 1928."--JW.