TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 30. 2004
NEWS
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
5A
DAILEY: Popular with students, not with Wagle
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our lives to be known to others." And that's what he says his teaching is all about — not sex, not sexual intimacy or physical closeness, but emotional connectedness.
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"I would say that 95 percent of the teachers whom I have had in my lifetime are people who I have no idea who they are," Dailey said. "If you ask my students, 'tell me about Dennis Dailey,' most of my students will say, 'have you got a minute?'"
More than Sex 101
more fun
In one sense, being Dailey's student is like talking to an expert; other times, it just feels like "you're having a conversation with your girlfriends," said Jennifer Miller, a senior from Prairie Village.
Sitting in the Human Sexuality class, it doesn't feel like there are 495 other people around, said Miller, who decided to take the class this semester after hearing about it from other students.
ed num-
Hargett and his girlfriend tried a relationship exercise Dailey had suggested. In the exercise, a couple stands or sits and hugs for 10 to 15 minutes without moving. The exercise is supposed to satisfy your "skin hunger," because skin is the biggest sex organ, Hargett said. But it's hard not to go for a kiss or lock the door and do something more, he said.
Jason Hargett, a senior from Shawnee, used to think intimacy just meant having more sex. Then his girlfriend took Dailey's class last spring. She started defining intimacy more as what a couple was willing to talk about, he said.
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Now, Hargett is taking the class. One thing he's learned is that American society has a huge double-standard: Sex is OK to show, but not to talk about.
inside: It's you need to I,you
Dailey has taught Human Sexuality to more than 15,000 students at the University, said Ann Weick, dean of the School of Social Welfare at the University. This semester, 496 students are enrolled. The class is held in 130 Budig, which seats 499 students and one teacher.
walk
The class usually has anywhere from 495 to 499 students enrolled in it, said Melanie Hepburn, assistant dean in the School of Social Welfare. There
aren't a lot of people who drop it, she said, maybe five or six each semester.
"More of what we get are people who will beg, borrow and steal to get in," Hepburn said.
Jamie Fransen took the smaller version of the Human Sexuality class, which Dailey has taught at Ecumenical Christian Ministries as a non-credit class since 1998.
Fransen, a senior from Leawood, decided to take the 500-person class this semester.
"I felt like I had more growing to do," she said.
One time, the class was talking about female anatomy and Dailey told everyone to guess how long the vagina was, Fransen said. No one answered. He tried a second time — silence. So he took the microphone and yelled into it, "Women, how long are your vaginas?"
That got plenty of response and people started shouting out numbers.
"He just comes out and says it," Fransen said. "You don't see many professors doing that."
For the record, it's not how long, but rather how deep the vagina is, Datley explained recently. The answer is, when not sexually aroused, a vagina is two to three inches deep. Sexually aroused, it's between six and seven inches deep.
"Dennis is sort of a larger-than-life personality, like his class," said Rick Spano, associate professor in the School of Social Welfare.
The class isn't just a lecture about sexuality, Spano said. He said he'd been in plenty of sexuality courses where he could hardly stay awake.
Dailey turns the class into something personal. He has a message and he spreads it wherever he goes, Spano said. "He's a preacher without a pulit."
The Wagle factor
In March 2003, Dailey was sitting at his desk in room 53 of Twente Hall when the telephone rang.
It was a former student of Dailey's who was working as a legislative aide in Topeka. "He said, 'Heads up, weird shit's
Steven Bartkoski/KANSAN
"Dennis is sort of a larger-
than-life personality like his class."
happening. Just wanted to let you know a lot of students of yours on the Hill are watching out for you." Dailev recalled.
Dailey enjoys a meal and talks with his granddaughter Grace at Hy-Vee. Dailey and his granddaughter eat lunch every Thursday before they start their grocery shopping. Dailey endured his share of controversy as a result of his human sexuality class but will leave the University as a memorable professors
Sen. Susan Wagle (R-Wichita) was upset about the class. She'd learned about it from her legislative intern, who was enrolled in Dailey's class.
Steven Bartkoski/KANSAN
Rick Spano
Associate professor of social welfare
Wagle appeared on The O'Reilly Factor on April 29, 2003, to discuss Dailiev's class.
"He goes to porn night in the fraternities," Wagle said on the show. "He goes to porn night in the dormitories. He advertises his class. Everybody knows what's going on. The department had bought him his videos. I believe they are what I would consider pornography. They are full sexual acts, all different kinds."
At the University, Provost David Shulenburger conducted an investigation, completed in early May 2003, into Wagle's allegations. Shulenburger found the allegations were baseless and Dailey was guilty of no wrongdoing. Wagle, who declined comment for this story, called the investigation a "whitewash" at the time.
On May 23, 2003, Sebelius signed a new provision, proposed by Wagle, into law. The provision states that any post-secondary school that is state funded, including the University, has to have policies that deal with the use of sexually explicit materials in human sexuality classes.
Some of her complaints included Dailey using "street language" and showing videos of female and male masturbation and pictures of human genitals.
The measure, which passed 24-13, would have ended funding to any university department using "obscene" videos. The amendment in the form of a proviso was later vetoed on April 21, 2003, by Gov. Kathleen Sebelius.
Wagle proposed an amendment to the Senate's budget bill that would target the purchase of "obscene" material by state institutions. Kansas statute defines "obscene" material as anything that shows sexual acts or lacks "serious literary, artistic, educational, political or scientific value."
"I felt very grounded in what I was doing," he said. "But I have to confess I'm glad it happened when I was 65 or 41 instead of 44 or 43, because what I went through would have been really hard for a young professional."
During the time of Wagle's accusations, Dailey never changed his teaching methods.
He received hundreds of e-mails and letters of support, but Wagle's accusations were hard on his family.
Dennis Dailey, professor of social welfare, goes over a shopping list with his granddaughter Grace at Hy-Vee. Dailey and Grace eat and shop at Hy-Vee every Thursday after Grace finishes with gymnastics. This is Dailey's last year of teaching at the University.
Dehon, the oldest of Dailey's two daughters.
Her initial anguish was over what her father must be going through. Dehon said she gained comfort knowing he was supported by students and colleagues.
"He knew he had nothing to fear." she said.
"It was awful." said Lisa
Dehon, her mother and her sister didn't get that kind of support. She said she sat on the outskirts and felt helpless.
"As it got worse, I think dad was more concerned about the three of us," said Amy Cooper, his other daughter. "I was working pretty hard to make sure he knew I was OK, and I wasn't."
She bought her dad a "Fuck Wagle" button. Cooper thought it would end up on a shelf somewhere in the house and that he wouldn't wear it — he does.
Lisa Dehon was in the sixth grade when she first noticed that her dad was different. It was time for the sex education video. Boys in one room; girls in the other.
The Dailev double
The girls were supposed to invite their moms, she said, and her mom couldn't make it, so she invited her dad.
Everyone was sitting in the music room waiting for the video to start and Dailey walked in and sat down next to his daughter. He was the only man in the room.
Dehon, now 42, works as a part-time assistant city attorney in Lenexa.
For Amy Cooper, dad was different because he was so comfortable around her and her sister.
"My dad knew everything about my growing up that little girls, I think, weren't necessarily telling their dads." Cooper said.
For example, when her period started, she said, "My dad sent me a dozen roses and said, 'to a delightful young lady,' and that didn't happen with any of my friends."
The year before Cooper got married, she went on a fishing trip with her dad and Professor Spano. She was the only girl out on the lake and the only person catching any fish.
All the boats were gathered around each other really close. "Dad leaned over and said, 'take off your hat,'" she said. He wanted everyone to see her long hair and know that a girl caught all the fish.
Cooper, 41, now teaches advanced math at Baldwin Junior High School.
His other classroom
The sign reads in yellow wooden letters, "Robert Miller Home, Erected 1858, National Register of Historical Places." However, you have to find it first before you can read it. The sign is about 10 feet from the side of 19th Street. The brick house is even farther back.
This is where Judy and Dennis Dailey live. They have lived in this house for two decades.
Judy Brown married Dennis Dailey in 1960 when she was 19. She was a freshman and he was a 22-year-old senior at Hammel University in St. Paul, Minn. Dailey has been married to his "partner," as he calls her, for 43 years.
"And I don't call him my partner," Judy adds. She calls him "Denny."
At home, things are pretty relaxed.
She remembers how much fun it was going on their first grocery trip together, just the two of them, and knowing they were going back home together.
"This is gonna sound real hokey, but even a trip to the store together can be fun, and maybe stop and have lunch," she said. "It doesn't take much to entertain us. We're real easy."
'I don't need to be here to teach.'
It's a Thursday night, Oct. 21, 2004, to be exact, in the Kansas Union. Dailey is standing on a chair with his back arched, arms over his ears and his hands pointing downward in a not-so-perfect diving stance. He's performing his metaphor for risktaking for an audience of students and adults at one of his intimacy workshops.
The metaphor involves being up on a diving board with a
"He's just given so much of
himself to students that there's going to be a real hole when he leaves."
Liz Franklin Cedar Falls, Iowa, senior
sack over his head and his toes curled around the edge of the board. As Dailley jumps, he says his last thought is, "I hope they put water in the pool."
The point: Nothing is ever certain.
"You can't be in a relationship that doesn't have pain." he said.
For Liz Franklin, seeing that man "with white hair and a little bit of a belly up in a 'YMCA' position on a folding chair," is something she'll always remember.
She first met Dailey the spring semester of her freshman year, when she took the non-credit class at the ECM. Franklin, a senior from Cedar Falls, Iowa, is now filling out graduate school applications with hopes of becoming a human sexuality professor herself. It was Dailey, she said, who encouraged her to pursue her goal.
"He's just given so much of himself to students that there's going to be a real hole when he leaves," she said.
Dailey plans to retire in June, but he'll still be preaching intimacy.
He plans to keep up with his private practice, which he's done since 1972. Through his practice, Dailey works with individuals and couples dealing with relationship or sexual issues. He will continue volunteering at Jubilee Café and adding to his collection of Civil War and Jayhawk memorabilia.
And he will continue to teach a non-credit version of the human sexuality class at the ECM.
"I don't need to be here to teach," he said.
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