“He is the bomb, guys,” says one of his students.
“The man sparkles,” says one of his colleagues.
“I am just here to serve,” says Professor Ulysses Pichon.
Serving De Anza students as a reading instructor for over 30 years, Pichon’s passions are helping students make breakthroughs in reading and life connections with literature. “It’s what makes me want to continue,” he says.
It’s hard not to be drawn to a man with such a strong sense of self and understanding, acquired through a lifetime of experiences. His smile is one of the things that attracts people to him.
Born in New Orleans, he grew up in Slidell, Louisiana, during a period of racial tension and segregation. Although affected by those challenges, he nonetheless has memories of a pleasant childhood of fishing, playing sports and having fun with his 12 siblings.
A not-so-pleasant part was his school test scores. He never seemed to do well on tests because he did not comprehend what he read. He barely made it out of high school and went on to have odd jobs making little money. It was after high school when he developed a passion for reading.
Shortly after graduating from Ohio’s Xavier University in the early 70s, Pichon was drafted into the military. A week before he was scheduled to deploy to Vietnam, he hurt his ankle playing basketball, and was instead shipped to Fort Ord in Monterey.
Pichon loved the California weather and attended San Jose State University, earning his master’s degree. He settled in Cupertino, where his wife’s family was from, and in 1975, started teaching at De Anza,
He’s planning on retiring in June, 2009, making time for fishing, hiking and gardening, but will continue to help out in an area he sees as important and valuable: the black student retention program.
Pichon urges students to take advantage of their opportunities at De Anza to read, write and compute, because not everyone has this great opportunity.
With a RateMyProfessor average helpfulness score of a perfect 5.0, we agree: Yeah, he is the bomb.