How many of your college professors do you remember? How many can you still remember by name?
5? a dozen? every last one of those smart, wise-crackers?
How good or bad your experience was during college with each prof probably plays a key factor on whether you remember them.
The really good ones made a fantastic impression and really worked hard to challenge you and give you a great semester.
The really bad ones were aggressive, carefree, careless, snooty, snobby, aloof, or downright mean. Those you remember for a whole 'nother reason.
Some of them had a weird habit, idiosyncrasy, or teaching method that just really was memorable and/or noteworthy.
I was doing some thinking earlier in the week about this topic. My 4 years at Eastern Illinois University. (Go Panthers!) Fall 1993 to Spring 1997. 4 really challenging, yet good, years.
How many of my professors could I still name, and why? What about him/her was a really memorable trait?
I actually came up with a pretty lengthy list.
Let's start with the worst of the worst. I won't list them here by name out of respect. But, they were bad. And surprisingly, all 3 were from the Lumpkin School of Business.....
Mr. Federal Income Tax
Mr. Auditing
Mr. International Economics
Then, there were the really great ones. The ones who cared about students, made learning fun, challenged us, grew us, respected the position they were in....
Lola Dudley (Accounting): a real sweetheart; she was tough, but made herself readily available
Patrick Lenihan (Economics): had his class during my first semester at EIU; he was a great lecturer and really made Economics interesting (who knew that was possible?)
Paul Bodine (Art): of all my professors during the 4 years, he's #1; if I remember correctly, I had him for 2 classes; one was Art Appreciation where I write my research paper on the amazing painter Caravaggio; the second was held for 2.5 hours each Monday night in Booth Library's creepy basement auditorium; each night, we would watch a movie, then talk about it: plot, sub-plot, theme, character, etc.; it was a fascinating class; I wrote my research paper on The Shawshank Redemption
John Guzlowski (English): although we read some pretty crazy literature at times, this guy always had a way to generate interesting and stimulating feedback; he was also a great storyteller
Les Stoner (Science): had a climate and meteorology class with this guy, who really knew his weather and cloud formations
Mike Wilson (IT): if I remember right, I had a statistics class with this guy; stats are interesting anyway.... he made them more interesting
Scott Preston (Marketing): a fantastic lecturer who really knew his stuff about product design, placement, consumer trends, etc.; I was joined up with 3 other guys and we designed a mall kiosk business where you could select 10 songs from a library and burn them on a CD for like $11; remember, we had this idea long before MP3's were out
And others that I remember - some for a real specific reason.... others not.....
Michael Loudon (English): the summer I had mononucleosis and was in the hospital, he went above and beyond to work out things with me so that I didn't have to drop
Jean-Claude Evard (Math): this guy wins the award for the most "unique" prof that I had; he spoke in a quiet French accent; he walked slowly and had shakes (maybe Parkinson's ?); he wore a white turtleneck and tan khaki's to almost every single session of class; he taught very well; I did find him online... a few years ago (maybe still??), he was at Western Kentucky University; still wearing that white turtleneck:
and a tie here!!
sure hope his health is holding together
Barry Riccio (History): don't remember much about time with him in class, but do remember him being ill a lot; he died of cancer at age 46 in 2001
Sanford Zale (History): I filled like a gazillion notebook pages with lecture notes; then for exams, as long as you memorized those notes and regurgitated them back out, you did OK; the more you wrote, the better; I found him on-line.... he's at Champlain College now:
Bud Fischer (Science): a very funny yet unconventional, almost uncouth, prof; he'd rumble in to class wearing his ballcap and when he laughed, his mouth motion resembled that of a Sesame Street puppet; good to see that he has really done well for himself - now a Dean at Middle Tennessee State University:
and just a couple other names I remember:
Craig Eckert (Sociology)
Patrick Coulton (Math)
Overall, I had a great team of prof's at EIU; no complaints.
As is said, "Variety is the Spice of Life", right?
Out for now.....
Matt