Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, June 3, 1990 TAG: 9006030130
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DANIEL HOWES HIGHER EDUCATION WRITER
DATELINE: STORRS, CONN. LENGTH: Medium
The Chesapeake Bay beckons this nearly fanatical sailor who rides the swells despite an ear problem that forces him to stay low in the cockpit to avoid losing his balance.
Maybe he'll rig his 22-foot sailboat for bluefish, trailing a line attached to an inner tube that absorbs the shock when a fish hits the hook.
If he's feeling especially sporting, he'll don firefighters' gloves and haul the quarry in hand over hand, he said. Otherwise, he'll use the reel he keeps stowed for such occasions.
Or Casteen might make his way to a quiet bend in the James River, where he'll fish for smallmouth bass - just as he and his family do sometimes at their vacation home on Moose Pond in Denmark, Maine.
There are always hikes in the Blue Ridge Mountains, something he and his wife, Lotta, had trouble finding time for when he was UVa's dean of admissions from 1975 to 1982 and their children were young.
"Our children are old enough so we can get back to that seriously," he said, seizing the chance to talk about something other than academic politics, his management style or his vision for UVa.
A soft-spoken, trim man with thinning hair and horn-rimmed glasses, Casteen brightens when asked about his boats - he has nine small ones - or his passion for fishing and sailing.
People who know Casteen well say the Portsmouth native often is uncomfortable talking to reporters and grows impatient if his remarks are oversimplified or taken out of context.
But his demeanor during an interview belies those warnings. Tie loosened, white shirt open at the top, Casteen patiently answers all kinds of questions, asking a few of his own.
Lotta Casteen, 39, describes her husband as a private, family-oriented man who seldom brings work home and prefers to spend his free time with her and their children, Elizabeth, 10, and Lars, 8. John Casteen IV, his son from a previous marriage, is a rising sophomore at UVa.
"He never wanted to be just an English teacher," said Lotta Casteen in an interview in the president's home at the University of Connecticut, where Casteen is president until July 1. "He always had great ideals about education."
But Lotta, who is finishing her doctorate in English at UVa, does want to teach - perhaps at another college in Virginia. For now, she said, life revolves around her family and her dissertation: translating the poetry of August Stringberg, a 19th-century Swedish writer.
Born in Sweden, she earned a bachelor's degree from Oberlin College in Ohio in 1973 and enrolled in graduate school at the University of California-Berkeley after some travel abroad.
There, teaching her Beowulf class during fall semester 1974, was John Casteen. They married the next year and moved to Charlottesville, where he became UVa's dean of admissions.
The Casteens evidently relish their role as a university's first family. UConn leaders say their home seemed perpetually open during their five years here - campuswide picnics in the fall, Christmas tree lightings, Easter egg hunts and countless dinners, teas and receptions.
"I'm increasingly impressed how important it is for the community to do those sort of things," said Lotta Casteen, promising to do the same at Carrs Hill, UVa's presidential home.
by CNB