THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, July 6, 1994 TAG: 9407060605
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY PHILIP WALZER, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 151 lines
The start of Steven Emmanuel's philosophy class last week could have been summed up by the title of Jean-Paul Sartre's tome on existentialism: ``Being and Nothingness.''
Emmanuel was being the diligent teacher, recapping such concepts as ``moral relativism'' and ``utilitarianism.''
But what he got from the 10 students at Virginia Wesleyan College was next to nothingness. They responded sluggishly, if at all, to his review questions. ``I can't believe you're so quiet,'' he gently prodded them.
Then came Kant.
Emmanuel introduced the weighty German thinker, warning that the class might slow down even more: ``Kant is not an easy philosopher; he gives undergraduates and graduates fits.'' Then he ignited a spark.
Zeroing in on Kant's preoccupation with intentions, he offered three examples of people who had promised to call their grandmother on her birthday: One did it on the first shot; another tried repeatedly but was unsuccessful because a storm took down the phone lines; and a third wanted to ditch grandma to go surfing but accidentally called her when he meant to dial his friend.
So, Emmanuel asked, who was morally superior?
The class came alive. ``I would put B first,'' rising junior Marnita Dailey said. ``A just looks OK, but there was really no good feeling or what have you behind it. B wanted to call his grandmother.''
Senior Rebecca Wimers disagreed, siding with the first example: ``It got done; that's the important thing. I put it beyond intentions. It actually got done.''
For the next 15 minutes, the classroom sizzled with debate, as more students clashed over the merits of callers A and B. (No one sided with the surfer.)
Emmanuel had gotten them head-first into Kant.
No surprise, really. The assistant philosophy professor is among the local professors who recently won outstanding teaching awards from their colleges.
They are the ones who enliven the dullest of subjects, turning a calculus equation froma mind-numbing scramble of numbers and Greek letters into perfect sense, a Romantic sonnet into a relevant commentary on the '90s.
They make education happen.
Talk to them, watch them in action, and they offer no simple formula for premier teaching.
Carl Carlson, a physics professor at the College of William and Mary, likes to spin stories and tell jokes, while Emmanuel plays it straight.
Emmanuel has a slow, soothing delivery, full of pauses. Regent University's Bruce Winston takes the machine-gun approach in his management classes, talking rapid-fire in a booming voice.
What unites them is their deeply felt commitment to students, both inside and outside the classroom. ``I consider the students to be my customers,'' said Regent's Winston, ``and you have to treat them the way they want to be treated.''
There may be no neat profile of the ideal teacher. Neither wisecracking punster, stern taskmaster nor Mr. Gadget works all the time. But researchers have found clues to what usually captures the hearts and minds of students. Many of the local winners have instinctively followed these paths.
David Walsh, assistant professor of management at Miami University in Ohio, surveyed 300 undergraduates on the ideal faculty attributes. His conclusion: ``They want some kind of personal connection,'' whether it's professors knowing their first names or being available after class. ``They want minimal distance between faculty and students.''
Local professors satisfy that need with flexible schedules and inviting demeanors. ``My door is always open,'' said Chuh Mei, aerospace engineering professor at Old Dominion University. ``You can drop in any time.''
Emmanuel, too, encourages philosophical debates to continue in his office. He recalls one student, taken with Sartre, who dropped by repeatedly to learn more. Emmanuel eventually ended up giving the student his copy of ``Being and Nothingness.''
That accessibility helps students open up, too. R.L. Bullock, one of Winston's students at Regent, said: ``If you have a thought and want to interrupt, his response to you is always positive. He may point out something you're not considering, but in so doing, he's very supportive.''
Charles Walker, a psychology professor at St. Bonaventure University in New York, found another common trait of effective teachers: ``They invite students to take chances and allow them to share control. . . . They tend to allow re-testing. They set high standards for students, but they give them more chances to achieve.''
Walker could have been talking about Winston, who allows students to rewrite case studies: ``If they don't get it right the first time, I don't fail them. The mark of a good employee, like a good employer, is the ability to improve.'' He also has changed course times, the type of test and even the curriculum halfway through a course, based on student suggestions.
Many local professors say another key to their success is deceptively simple: Be prepared. ``It's not as standard as you'd like to think,'' William and Mary's Carlson said.
When Rosalie Kiah, a Norfolk State University English professor, teaches about the black leader Frederick Douglass, she immerses herself in African, as well as American, history. ``Planning,'' Kiah said, ``is everything. If the ship is tight, the ship runs.''
For students, another must: Be relevant. Winston does it by recounting his experiences - and not only his successes - as a commercial printer. He might cite his firing of a mother who wanted a flexible schedule as an instance of poor management.
Emmanuel does it with the modern-day analogies. ``The examples make me understand it better and say what I feel,'' senior Mark Gosnell said. ``I've taken three philosophy courses before, and they were boring. I would fall asleep a couple of times. This one, I'm wide awake and speaking my mind.''
Researcher Robert Hochstein says the teaching awards, which usually come with a gift of $1,000 or $2,000, are a good start to correcting what he sees as a fundamental flaw in higher education: the placing of research above teaching since World War II.
``Regardless of what universities say, the way you get ahead still, overwhelmingly so, is through research and publication,'' said Hochstein, assistant to the president of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.
But he sees signs that universities are getting more serious about teaching. In Virginia, he lauds Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, which last year approved a revamped tenure policy allowing more flexibility.
``You can spend 90 percent of your time on teaching and be rewarded for that and not penalized for not writing five articles,'' said Barbara Fuhrmann, VCU's director of academic planning.
Another way to stimulate better teaching, Emmanuel said, would be to allow professors to design their own courses. He never got that chance at bigger schools, but Virginia Wesleyan has given him that freedom. Last year, he created the course he is teaching now, Contemporary Moral Issues.
This week, the class will start dealing with some of those issues, like abortion. The debate is sure to fire up. But if not, Emmanuel will get his students talking. That's his job. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
BILL TIERNAN/Staff
By using modern-day examples, Steven Emmanuel, who won a teaching
award this year, gets his philosophy students at Virginia Wesleyan
College talking.
Graphic
THE WINNERS
These are the area professors who received teaching awards this
year from their colleges:
Christopher Newport - Marshall Booker, professor of economics;
Harold N. Cones, professor of biology
Eastern Virginia Medical School - Gary L. Schechter, professor
and chairman of otolaryngology
Hampton University - O. Keith Baker, assistant professor of
physics; William F. Rogers, associate professor of music
Norfolk State - Rosalie B. Kiah, professor of English
Old Dominion - Chuh Mei, eminent professor of aerospace
engineering
Regent - Bruce E. Winston, assistant professor of management
Virginia Wesleyan - Steven M. Emmanuel, assistant professor of
philosophy
William and Mary - Carl E. Carlson, professor of physics
by CNB