Friday, April 28, 1989 / University Daily Kansan
Busy professor makes time to help students
bv Mia Katz
Special to the Kansan
Trying to arrange an appointment to meet with Valentino Stella, professor of pharmaceutical chemistry, is like trying to catch a kangaroo.
"He is very energetic," says Wanda Waugh, a technician who works with Stella. Yet he is the sort of person who, even when people don't understand what he wants to talk to people when they have problems.
Stella, 42, is the recipient of the 1988 H.O.P.E. Award, a prize given in honor for an outstanding progressive educator. First established in 1959, the award is presented annually by the senior class, which selects its favorite teacher.
orn in Melbourne, Australia, to Italian parents, Stella shows particular fondness for kangaroos, whose lively cartoon figures adorn his office door in Malot Hall. Mentioning the kangaroo cartoons causes him to blush.
"Well . . . I'm Australian," he explains,
smiling.
Stella, who went to the Victorian College of Pharmacy in a career to the University for graduate training.
Although as a college freshman Stella received the highest grades in his class, his second year was almost a disaster. Coming close to funkling out of college, Stella explains this period as the time of his
sophomore blues.
sopnonfate buses.
"There were girlfriend problems, and drug-abuse problems," he admits. "It was a rough time."
frog time
After graduating from the College of Pharmacy, Stella worked as a hospital pharmacist. But his main desire was to teach.
"I thought had the talent to do more," he says. "I realized I had a talent. I enjoyed science, and I enjoyed communicating that with people."
Stella, who began teaching at the University in 1973, has a style of teaching that may be a bit unconventional for the average university professor. He uses no books, but instead has his own set of notes that he hands out to students.
"The notes reflect how I want to teach the class." Stella says. "All the textbooks in this book are taught by me."
Special teaches Pharmacies III, a class dedicated to the study of time profiles of drugs in the body. It deals with how drugs are absorbed by the skin, when, and how often drugs should be taken.
Because the subject is sufficiently difficult, Stella is not worried about students cutting class and borrowing the notes from friends.
"The material is such that you need class attendance," he says.
Stella attributes his success with students to his genuine interest in them. And then they all get tired of him.
"Students like the energy I put out. You're putting out effort, and it's contagious," he says. "With this high energy level, you develop a good rapport with the classes."
Scheduling an appointment with Stella may be difficult, but not impossible. Although he teaches undergraduate classes only in the fall, during both the spring and the fall his days are busy directing graduate students, attending seminars, doing general training, and consulting for drug companies, where he teaches in-house staff improvement courses.
Yet Stella finds time for those with necessary questions. However, others may be discouraged by the wooden Japanese devil's mask that hangs on Stella's door, "a reminder to students not to ask unnecessary questions," Stella says jokingly.
Stella leans back in his chair and puts his hands behind his head.
"I was too intense." Stella says of his former days of teaching. "But I've mellowed since I've had kids." He points to the color photographs of his family that are all over the wall by his desk. "I have three girls," he says with pride.
"Having kids has made me more sympathetic to my students. With young children
Stella thinks back to the Kansas-Missouri football game Nov. 19, at Memorial Stadium. It was there that he was presented with the
"It was really exciting. I didn't think I had a chance to win." Stella says.
H. O.P.E. Award.
Since then, Stella has received many congratulatory notes from both faculty and students. "I have gotten a lot of ribbing from fellow faculty members," Stella says. "They say, 'You must not be a good teacher to get the H.O.P.E. Award.'"
Stella is respected for his research, which led to a scientific breakthrough last year after his discovery of an improved drug for aiding seizure patients. The drug, which has not yet been approved, is undergoing a clinical trial and has been delayed in its submission to the Food and Drug Administration.
Stella, who earned his doctorate from KU in 1971, remembers the social turmoil of those times. "There were student riots, there were street protests," she said. "It was academics with social unrest."
In his last year of graduate school he met his wife, Beth, at a dance in the Kansas Union. They moved to Stouffer Place, then ran the chancellor's guest house, a cottage behind the chancellor's residence used for important visitors to the campus.
"Most students at that time were more socially conscious because of the Vietnam era." Stella says. "A lot of guests came to the chancellor's guest house. This was during the
Valentino J. Stella
big marjuan period. One fear was a bust at the chancellor's house."
A furry creature scowls from a poster above Stella's cluttered desk. "No more Mister Nice Guy," the black letters warn — an unlikely motto for this professor.
"I think he's a great teacher," says Diane Dahl, Lawrence senior pharmacy student, who took his class last year. "He took a class which would be very hard and made it easy.
"I really glad he won the award. He was a great person to honor." And he hits a very good personality.
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