Monday, September 23, 1974
7
FEATURES
Pickett adds personal insights to classes
Editor's Note: This is the first in a series on the five HOPE (Honor to the Outstanding Progressive Educator) Award finalists. The winner will be announced Oct. 19 during the halftime of the Kansas-Nebraska football game.
By JEFF HILL Reporter
Calder M. Pickett says he has no guide for what makes a teacher effective, and doesn't know what makes him a good teacher. But he admires one of her 1974 *HOPE* Awards. A graduate
'ITS AN INTEGRABLE THING.' There's
a journalism, about teaching,
professor of
journalism, about teachin
Sitting on his back porch, with his feet in the railing, Pictet elaborates those intuitions.
"The most important thing." Pickett
may "be the ability to motivate
students."
While getting a graduate degree at Northwestern University, Pickett was a student of Curtis MacDougall, whom he considers the founding journalism professor in America.
"He inspired us, made us want to do things well," says Pickett. "We want his work."
Pickett reflects MacDougall's influence in his teaching.
"A teacher can give one thing, himself. Before students leave my classroom, I want to give students all I can on a subject. I feel let down when I don't achieve this."
PICKETT DEFINITELY GIVES of himself. He teaches three classes a day on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, and carries 16 hours of in-class instruction. He also writes and performs a Peabody-board winning radio show on KANU-FM.
"I sounds hard, but it's kind of nice," he says. "After three or four classes you're kidnapped."
Pickett admits that he has some entertainer in him, and gets a great deal of success from his work.
"It feels good to look at the class and see something happening," Pickett says.
Pickett especially likes to teach beginning reporting classes.
"I like being the first one to get to them," packtet says of the young students. "Packtet stays fresh and, depending on the class, they are interested, alert, and work hard to improve."
PICKETT SEEMS TO REACT to the students as much as they react to him. He
says he has varied emotions when he leaves classes.
"Sometimes, I feel like, 'Oh hell, what's wrong? This isn't working out.'"
"Other times, I feel so good, I'm almost
Pickett says that he is fortunate to be able to teach what he is interested in.
high—for an hour or so."
He's interested in a lot of things, Pickett says, especially history.
"It amazes me when someone isn't interested in history," Pickett once said.
Pickett has put his interest to use. He received a Ph.D. in American studies from the University of Minnesota. Much of his training is used as background for his history of American journalism class, Pickett said.
"There's no point in telling what's in the book," he says. "Everyone can read that. I try to provide insights. It's very personal, it's a showy, but that's how I think it should be."
HIS HISTORICAL INTERESTS motivated him to write the biography of Edgar Howe, an Atchison newspaper editor, "Ed Howe: A Country Town Philosopher." In 1970, he won a research award from an honorary journalism society for that book. In 1984, he made a trade show, "The American Past" also draws on his historical knowledge.
THE RADIO SHOW is enjoyable, he says.
he does the writing for the show in a couple of
months.
McNish left Nebraska law practice to return to teaching career at KU
He began a career in law that he had prepared for before his plans were interrupted by four and one-half years of World War II service, but his departure from Lawrence wasn't an unhappy one. He vowed that someday he would return.
More than 25 years ago, J. Hammond McNish left a teaching position at the University of Kansas to return to his hometown of Sydney, Neb.
By MARK MITCHELL
BORN AND RAISED in Sydney, a small Nebraska town near the Wyoming border, McNish attended the University of New Mexico and graduated with a law degree in 1941.
In 1970, after 22 years as a lawyer, he came back to KU where today he is a professor of business law and again a candidate for the HOPE Award.
He was immediately drafted into the U.S. Army upon his graduation, and during the war he was stationed in Morocco, Italy, France and Belgium. He says he realized that he forgot much of his law training during the wartime years, and thus he accepted a position at KU in the fall of 1946 instead of opening a law practice.
"Frankly, I thought it was rather amusing because the last thing in the world was a computer and I had to elect Mnish snares. "Finally rather than immediately made the decision to come down here to teach, thinking this will help me refresh my memory and make a little money at the same time.
"I don't have to start from scratch," says pocket. He says he knows what he wants to do, and then leaves.
"If I do a show on Glenn Miller, I don't have to do much research," he says. The stacks of records in his living room prove his point.
"I try to introduce things that are to current interest, and we sometimes go outside the strict boundaries of the subject matter. We also believe they are interested in that have relevance."
"So I taught for two years and discovered that I just thoroughly enjoyed teaching. As a matter of fact, I loved it, and I fell in love with KU also."
ALTHOUGH TIMES HAVE CHANGED since McNish first taught at KU, he says he has not noticed any drastic change in the attitudes and more of his students. There is a great demand for students in the School of Business, he says, because of the increased use of mathematical theory
creasing job opportunities and interesting careers in the field.
"When somebody has an idea, we like to get an opposing viewpoint," McNish says. "If I find that, is you can do that, then it seems thought-maybe someone else has a idea or can see the correctness or the fallacy of one or the other of the points of view.
in the economic decision making processes.
In addition to his activities as a professor, McNish is the chairman of the KU Judicary Council and KU's representative to the Big 8 conference and the NCAA, succeeding Charles Oldfather last July.
Enrollment in the School of Business is ikrycketing, he says, because of the in-
"With the Beatles," he adds, "I would have to do a lot more research."
As KU's representative, McNish acts as a member of the Big 8 Conference's Board of Directors and also is an ex-officio member of KU's Athletic Board. Like Athletic Director Clyde Walker, McNish is contemptuous of the proposed Title IX regulations that put a stinge for equal scholarships and facilities for women's athletics.
"Gyde Walker and I too are all for women's athletics, and I would like to see it prosper," McNish says. "I think it will, but say right at this stage that we have to have an equal number of athletic scholarships for women, an equal number of boys. Pay the coaches the same amount of money as girls." Memorial Stadium means we have to build another Memorial Stadium and another Allen Field House. It simply can't be done."
THE FIRST PART of his classes is usually devoted to an open discussion of pertinent topics of student interest, he says. The course also includes frequent questions to stimulate discussion.
MCNISH SAYS KU is fortunate to have Marian Washington as Women's Athletic Director and that there is no dichotomy between the two departments.
LAW IS HIS chosen profession, he says,
but in 1970 he thought "the time was right"
to return to a teaching career. It is a
decision he hasn't regretted, he says.
Business law is a required course, thus McNish's classes are larger than he would like. He says that his classes have from 65 to 75 students but that he prefers a class with a few changes, so the he likes to base his class on discussion, which is sometimes hindered by large numbers.
When McNish isn't busy at KU, he says,
he enjoys spending time listening to music
or shooting baskets with neighborhood kids
at his northeast Lawrence home.
grow within the bounds of financial possibility and reality, "McNish says.
But Pickett is not only a historian. He is first and foremost a newspaperman. He has written a number of books.
Classical music is another favorite hobby, especially the works of Mozart, Bach and Beethoven.
"I think we're all for it and we'll do everything to support it and to help it
Mnish teaches two courses in business law, the first of which covers law conventions and background. This course is required for business majors, he says, and students can follow it with a second business law course dealing with personal property, secured property, etc.
Mnish also is conducting the business law part of a seminar for certified public officers.
"I want to continue teaching." NcNish says. "Everyone wants to accomplish things. To see, seeing young people getting the point and seeing them come in at the first of the semester really not knowing anything about the subject and then leaving with quite a little knowledge is a source of great satisfaction."
and reporter at 16, on an IDaho weekly. Pickett has been a reporter on the Salt Lake City Triune, as well as a copy editor on the Salt Lake City Desert News.
HE JOINED the University of Kansas as an assistant professor of journalism in 1951, the acting dean from 1960 to 1961, and became a full professor in 1961.
He will work as an editor and also write editors for the paper. He said he wanted to learn the new techniques in newspaper production.
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