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Wednesday, October 24, 1979
University Daily Kansan
Five finalists vie for 1979 HOPE award Gurtler qualified by experience, not degree
By PAM LANDON
Staff Reporter
Franc Gurtler
The University of Kansas has surprised Franc Gurtler again.
Gurtler, part-time lecturer of occupational therapy, said the University first surprised him when it called him without permission. The school asked him to teach a wood-working course.
The second surprise was being voted a HOPE award finalist.
"It was the greatest shock of my life and one of the greatest things that ever happened to me," he said.
Gurtler, a native Kansan, has spent most of his 61 years in Lawrence. After graduating during the Depression from Brown University, he went to work doing whatever was available.
He said that he could not afford to go to college but that he had no "hangups" about not having a degree.
Gurtler does not need a degree to teach his
His 32-year-experience in the cabinet-making business makes him well-qualified to teach the course. He has had a cabinet shop in LAwrence since 1947.
"I guess that is why the University asked me to teach—because of the local reputation that I have as a craftsmaker," he said.
shop practices class for the occupational therapy department.
"For example, I may ask them to design a device to help a particular patient turn on the water faucet," he said.
Gurtler said he often made up hypothetical patients whose problems his students had to solve.
Gurtler teaches his students, 95 percent of whom are women, the use and maintenance of hand and power woodworking tools as they relate to occupational therapy.
"So, using scrap materials in most cases,
they must design and make something that
can be attached to the faucet that the patient
can use."
He gives only one formal lecture at the beginning of the semester and uses no textbooks in the class.
The rest of his lectures are what he calls "spontaneous lectures."
He said he thought students deserved two things from a teacher-consistency in grading and individual attention.
Gurtler said he was glad the University was hiring more professional people like himself in some subject areas.
Although he does consulting work with several area occupational therapy clinics and has the unite committee and advising team, he is being at the University's to teach, he said.
"We have something to contribute to student education," he said, "I try to prepare my students for the real world." I can see how important it is. I know what you're sure to face."
He enjoys being around students and
istening to them, and said many of his
students know his office as the "listening post."
"The students know I'm their friend and they can come to me and just crash if they want to." Gurtler said.
"I tell these students that as long as my door is open, I've got nothing more important to do than talk to them. If there's a problem, I'll just call you. I don't face it front of me, I flip it over so I can see it."
"When I'm talking to a student, I wash everything else out of my mind."
This more than his teaching probably contributed to his becoming a HOPE award finalist, he said.
Gurtler said he would not have been the same person if he had not started teaching, which has made him much more liberal and understanding.
The Honor for an Outstanding Progressive Educator award is presented to a KU faculty member each full her memorial year. Students will be between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m., tomorrow and Friday. Students can vote in front of the Kansas Union, in front of the Gymnasium, or between Summerfield Hall and Robinson Gymnasium. The HOPE award will be presented during the halftime of the Kansas State football game this Saturday.
"I if had not started teaching, I doubt I'd be alive. The tensions and pressures of my business probably would have killed me."
Cell biology still excites Balfour
3y AMY HOLLOWELL Staff Reporter
"Minnesota" is stamped permanently in black ink on the large notepad on his desk.
His eyes light up and the silver-haired professor jeans back in his chair, smiling warmly as he speaks of his home state.
One of five finalists in the 1979 HOPE award competition, Balfour said that after more than 20 years of teaching, he still had a sense for his subject that he began his career with him.
But William Balfour, KU professor of physiology and cell biology, has not lived in Minnesota for more than 20 years. He came from University of Kansas in 1957 and has been bipolar.
Benjamin's fiction adds spark to'dull' classes
Staff Reporter
By KATE POUND
The sign on Beazel Benjamin's door says, "You are welcome anytime I'm in and I'm always in unless I'm out. The HOPE is in here to help you to be in and available to his students."
"I try to be responsive to students needs and to do that, I must be available as much as possible. Otherwise, I wouldn't be doing my job." Benjamin said last week.
Benjamin, a professor of architecture, has been nominated for a HOPE award three times in the eight years he has taught. This is the first year he has been a finalist.
An engineer by training, Benjamin teaches structural engineering to architecture students.
Benjamin's office in Marvin Hall has few of the trappings associated with engineer or architects. No T-squares, blueprints or calculators are visible.
Instead, books, papers and pamphils fill a bookshell, cover a table and overflow from the library's textbook collection, with titles such as "Structures for Architects," which benjamini himself wrote.
However, in a place of honor atop several technical tomes, all written by Benjamin, his yellow book, volume titled "Susan's Travels," that Benjamin's novel that Benjamin recently wrote.
"That is my favorite of all the things I've written," he said.
Benjamin has been writing fiction and children's literature since his college days in his native city, Bombay, India.
I do contribute writing to living. "But in India, it is impossible to live by one's craft," he said. "So I chose a different field when I went to the university."
He once considered writing for a living.
Benjamin Began studying engineering at the University of Bombay and then went to London University to earn his master's degree. He was then sent to the Hatfield Polytechnic in England to teach. 1971 Benjamin brought his family to Lawrence and began teaching in the university.
In England, Benjaminim said, regulations are in place for grading and grading. He prefers the American grading system to decisions on exams and grades are made by instructors and students have a chance to take the test.
Tests and grades, however, are not the most important elements of good teaching, he said. A good teacher clearly outlines the course content to students in the course material meets students' needs.
"To be a good teacher you have to be sure that your students understand 100 percent of what it is to teach," he said. "Otherwise it is a waste of the students' time and money."
It is also important, Benjamin said, for instructors to develop interests beyond their field.
"People get so immersed in their own profession they don't see anything else," he said. "I don't think that makes a good teacher."
Benjamin spends much of his free time writing and going to the theater, he said. He travels occasionally, taking trips to Canada and India to visit relatives.
"I enjoy my job and having reached this position," he said. "I am able to earn my living and still have time to indulge in my fantasies about being a writer."
"Mow anes it to himself to fulfill dreams. If he doesn't, it 's a criminal waste."
Bezaleel Benjamin
"You can't be a good teacher without enthusiasm," he said. "I still try to impart my enthusiasm to my students."
Although Balfour has been a finalist twice before, he has never won the HOEP award. But Balfour said the nomination itself was "real's a good boot to the ego."
"Being nominated makes it seem all worthwhile." he said.
Balfour came to KU after a fellowship at the Mavo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.
Born in California, he grew up in Rochester where his family had moved when he was six months old.
In 1932 he went to Dartmouth College and after two years transferred to the University of Minnesota Medical School in Minneapolis.
Then, after an internship in Rochester, N.Y., and the fellowship at the Mayo Clinic, he came to KU.
Along with teaching, *Baifal* ,who will be next month, is a "half-time" ambassador for the School of Biology and the physiology and cell biology majors, the physical therapy students and many pre-graduates.
Outside of his job, Balfour is interested in classical music, student concerts, collecting opera records and bird-watching.
Balfour also had said that he had a small greenhouse in which he "let orchids grow," and that he was addicted to guzzle画香.
From 1982 to 1976 Balfour was the vice chancellor for student affairs, although he continued during this period to teach the human physiology course.
"I left that office because I thought somebody else should handle those problems." Baifour said.
Balfour advises his pre-med students to be aware of current problems in the medical field.
"Medicine is changing," he said. "I think there's less respect for the profession as a whole than there used to be."
He said the growing incidence of malpractice suits was unfortunate because most doctors were "trying hard to do their best."
In the classroom, Balfour encourages his students to ask questions.
But he said many students thought their questions were not relevant.
He said one of the most enjoyable aspects of being an educator was telling people something they did not know before.
"I try to get my students to appreciate the beauty of the human body." he said.
William Balfour
Cigler conveys his zest for politics in class
By ELLEN IWAMOTO
Staff Renorter
As he speaks, Cigler, a HOPE award finalist this year, frequently cochs his head
From his office in Blake Hall, Allan Gigler, associate professor of political science can look out over the Wakarusa trees to paint the trees with gold and red.
toward the open window and gazes out over the multi-colored campus four floors below him.
Teaching political science at the University of Kansas is something Cigler enjoys.
"Where else could my job be my hobby?" he asks. "I am fascinated by the American political system—how it manages to persist."
If the students are convinced that the teacher thinks the subject is important, Cigler said, they also will begin to think it is important.
Students sense that feeling that I have and it's a great asset in the classroom."
"I came to my subject matter convinced of its importance, convinced that students will be more knoledgable citizens if they understand why the making sense of American politics," he said.
Allan Cigler
Cugler came to KU in 1970 as an acting assistant professor. He graduated from the University of Maryland in 1967 and received his master's degree from the University of Maryland in 1967 and his doctorate from the University of Maryland in 1967.
"Teaching is increasingly becoming an important part of a university," he said. "because of things like the HOPE奖, automatically, it is a sign that teaching matters."
Teachers should have a "sense of mission," Cigler said, because they are doing something that society benefits from.
"We're training the next generation to make sense out of the world," he said. "And that's a terribly important task."
Cigler defines teaching as the communication of knowledge.
'When I think of teaching my first view is how can I communicate the subject matter
to the students" he said. "The subject matter is what I focus on.
Students' attitudes have changed considerably since he came to KU. Cicler said.
"Students are more cynical toward politics. That basic cynicism is reflected in the rest of society," he said.
"When I came here in the 1970s there was the Vietnam war and we still had the draft. We had the kind of personalities who got into politics, people, students, like N'com and Kissinger."
Although the interest still exists, he said, a catalyst issue or personality to get students interested in politics is missing.
"Political science is fascinating material," he said. "It's less that I have to spark interest than not put it out. The interest is usually there to begin with."
One of the rewards of teaching is knowing that a teacher can make a difference in his students' live, Culier said.
"There is nothing like the letter that tells me the student who has been gone for five years, a letter that makes you read something the other day and remembered me talking about it and then
"It's a tremendous uplift."
Ford never thought he'd be in this business
By JUDY WOODBURN
Staff Reporter
Allen Ford, professor of business, says he never thought he would be a professor, much less be nominated as one of the five finalists for the HOPE award.
"As an undergraduate, I remember one of my naughty asking me wouldn't it be neat to tell him, 'no, no!' and telling him, 'no it certainly would not be at all.' Ford said, his voice just grew louder. "Ford said, his voice just grew louder."
But Ford caught the teaching bug as a graduate student at the University of Arkansas when he began grading papers for a professor there.
"I really enjoyed my association with the professor. I taught his class when he had to go somewhere and I got a taste of teaching," he said.
Ford taught at Washington State University, the University of Texas and the University of Missouri before coming to KU in 1976.
He began teaching as an instructor a year later and earned his Ph.D. from Arkansas in 1968.
He said he was impressed by the emphasis that the University of Kansas placed on excellence in teaching.
“It’s the first camp that I’ve been on, to my knowledge, that has awards for teaching,” he said. “It’s a nice indication that there’s an emphasis of the quality of teaching at KU. It’s a shame that students have预案 haven’t done something like this.”
"It's difficult to apply the same teaching methods to a group of students and get consistent, positive results. It really makes me admire professors who can go into a group of 200 or 300 students, bring the class together, and make them progress," he said.
Ford, who teaches courses in accounting and taxation, said it was important for teachers to remember that all students had different learning capabilities.
Ford said he tried to encourage his students to be prepared in class on a daily basis.
"Students typically fall into the practice going through the course for about two months. We teach them devoting their time and energy to it," he said. "It's so much better if a student just goes with it."
Ford said he made it a habit to ask numerous questions during class to keep the students from going to sleep.
extent.
"I used to have a teacher who would tell us that as students, we should be in a position to go to a movie and relax before a test. I really think that's a good approach," he said. "If a student does his work all along he'll be able to retain what he has learned." The teacher's advice is that he will be able to understand fully what the teacher is trying to say during class."
He he said he as much satisfaction from teaching average students as from teaching exceptionally bright students if the students used their learning capabilities to the fullest
"I strive to cause a student to stretch out a little bit," he said.
"And you know, once you stretch somebody's mind, it never goes back to its original shape."
Allen Ford