TEACHING PHILOSOPHY
My personal belief is that the challenge and responsibility for learning belongs in the hands of the student, not in the hands of the faculty. Courses should be student assignment oriented, not lecture oriented. The faculty member is a mentor who facilitates the learning process. The faculty member promotes long term knowledge retention and impact if they encourage the student to think and apply information, not memorize and regurgitate facts. To me, a course is successful if I have promoted critical thinking, writing and reading skills. Further, most discoveries come because the investigator does not become captive to the current paradigms of their discipline. A course is also successful if I can provide the role model for the student to look at alternate interpretations of the same data, to be open to differing views and not be afraid of wrong answers and hypotheses. My ³lectures² are inquiry-based and discussion oriented. They emphasize problem solving and application. Creativity is encouraged. For example, it is not unusual for a student to be asked to design a new organism that has certain attributes. When a student completes the course, my goal is to graduate a citizen who is self-confident to be able to question freely and participate in the development and implementation of public and private policy.
I tore this out of the newspaper when I was a sophomore in college and I carried it in my wallet for over 25 years until I had to have a calligrapher put it on parchment. This was my idea of what I think it means to be a Professor.
Portraits: The Professor
He is the reference book of a tender-aged world...
and the sculptor of brains who molds the minds of tomorrow.
With the best thoughts of yesterday...
he devotes hours on end in creative work...
for students to tuck into their mental pockets.
He is the theory they practice...
and though young in spirit,
to his daily listeners he is ancient.
He may not be dressed in elegant style,
but he is a fashion plate in the society of wisdom.
He often studies harder and longer...
than all his students combined.
And when the tedious scholastic year comes to an end,
he is the only one left behind in the classroom.
(John C. Metcalfe. Chicago Sun Times, June 20, 1960)