Thursday, December 14, 1967
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
9
Exceptional teachers are vital to progress
By Maggie Ogilvie Kansan Staff Reporter
Without excellent teachers, contends Dennis Quinn, associate professor of English, progressive methods would make education "a new routine, but the same old dance."
Quinn, chairman of the American Association of University Professors committee on teaching, will discuss poetry today in an SUA Personality Forum, with Franklyn C. Nelick, professor of English.
Next semester the two will be teaching an experimental course on "Wonder" in Ellsworth College.
"I can't say I use any techniques." said Quinn. "I'm interested in the subject matter of literature and I think that students are also interested, in that it illuminates their own experiences as human beings."
want to know, what puzzles and disturbs them about what they read." He said their approach is "just willingness to discuss issues."
For three hours' credit, they will discuss "the general phenomenon . . . bounded by historical interests and not associated with any particular discussion." A "kind of anthology" including authors who have dealt with Wonder "from the Old Testament to Heidigger"—novels and poetry—will be suggested to help students understand "what it is and what its significance is."
"We are interested in subjects," said Quinn, "and we find that the university structure as it exists makes it difficult to focus on subjects such as 'Wonder.'
restrictive; 'Creativity' (a seminar) was open only to those on the Dean's honor roll and not to humanities majors."
Several years ago Quinn and Nelick asked the Danforth Foundation for financial support to help them establish such experimental team-taught classes at KU. Danforth refused them, typifying what Quinn called academic "resistance" of disciplines and universities against "very slow" changes since he came here 12 years ago.
"The Western Civ program here is an attempt to relate various fields," Quinn said, "but its success has been limited—I am in favor of the direction of recent changes."
He explained that the "expanse" of material—too much of it political and confined exclusively to a period of history rather than to all history—is limiting the program's effectiveness. In such self-study, he said, students are pressured by more heavily accredited courses and "never read the texts."
He favors the College Intermediary Board's proposal to change to the unit system whereby courses would not be balanced by credits, but he said it is "very complicated" to make such a change.
"I think students are too busy," he said. "Scattered over too many areas, they learn nothing very thoroughly.
"Students may learn by adopting a leisurely attitude which is disposed to 'Wonder' as well as to the more familiar attitude of being hard-working students," he said, recalling the thesis of his speech at last year's Summerfield-Watkins scholarship dinner.
"I think it's a mistake," he said, that students are influenced by many professors who think "an honor student is one who does two times as much work.
"The prevailing notion is that
The prevailing notion is that See Teachers, page 12