It's true that over the course of this decade, a remarkable number of professors who taught and guided and cajoled us to turn in papers have either retired or moved on. Profs like Peebles, Herring, Fisher, Fischer, Barnes, Stern, O'Rourke, Brooks, Cooley, Davis, McClain, and Thompson, to name a few.
Naturally, we're left wondering: Are the professors of today as engaging as ours? Do they "get" Wabash? Do they serve the grand tradition of Wabash teaching?
Well, with the news this week of Wabash granting tenure to four professors, I thought I'd cut-and-paste a profile of one of them who I have gotten to know over the past few years. From teaching his first class at Wabash, Rick Warner is one of those profs who really "gets it." He's affable, knowledgeable, and helpful to our students. Check out what the Crawfordsville Journal-Review wrote up...
Wabash worth the wait
By Sam King
Posted: Tuesday, December 18, 2007 11:51 PM EST
Christmas came a little early for Wabash College professor Rick Warner.
Warner is one of four faculty members at the Crawfordsville institution to recently receive tenure status — a lifetime contract to teach at the college. Warner, Michelle Rhoades, Jennifer Abbott and William Turner all earned high marks through the strenuous tenure process covering a six-year span. Perhaps Warner took the oddest path.
Once a chef in Santa Cruz and San Francisco, Calif., Warner spent many of his 10 years in the kitchen working with Mexicans. He likened the togetherness of that group to other multi-people oriented acts such as football teams, fraternities and the Marines.
“I got to know them very well,” Warner said of his co-workers. “They made me fall in love with Mexico.”
Warner now teaches a course on Latin American history at Wabash. Knowing he didn’t want to spend the rest of his life as a chef, Warner went back to school at University of California-Santa Cruz and got his Ph.D.
His venture as a professor began at the University of Utah — a school with a 28,000 enrollment. Warner was passionate about history, but not so much about the lack of discussions in the classroom.
“They just wanted to sit there and listen to me lecture,” he recalls of his time at the Salt Lake City campus.
That wasn’t Warner’s style and so, after one year, he sought openings elsewhere. He was so impressed by Wabash after his interview, he knew Crawfordsville is where he wanted to call home. He spent three years teaching on a visiting status. Six years ago, his tenure line actually began, meaning he taught nine years to receive tenure whereas most spend six at Wabash for consideration.
“I was here teaching two weeks and realized it was the perfect place for me,” Warner said. “It’s good to land someplace you really like. People really want to learn here and there’s lots of interaction.”
It was well worth the wait for Warner, who is active in many activities on campus other than just teaching history. His attempts to correlate with students outside of the classroom made him a near no-brainer when selecting the tenured professors a couple weeks ago.
“Rick is impressive in a number of ways,” said Dean of the College Gary Phillips. “He has a high degree of self reflection. His engagement with the students and support for them is quite high.”
While excellence in teaching is the focal point of the tenure review process, there’s more to it than just teaching. Each faculty member is reviewed during their second, fourth and sixth year, Phillips said.
The first review is teaching, the second a heightened degree of teaching as well as scholarship and contributions such as public service and the sixth year is spent looking for evidence of excellence in teaching and complete confidence and an ongoing commitment and service to the college, Phillips said. During the sixth-year of the review, the professors are asked to submit a portfolio including course assessments, letters of recommendation and syllabi.
Students and past students are interviewed at random privately. Phillips said all the students and alumni take the interviews seriously. Their answers help play a part in who receives tenure status. With some of the focus during the tenure process geared toward involvement, it’s easy to see why Warner was one of the considerations.
Warner travels with the college’s admissions office to recruit future students and is also active in assists with freshman tutorials by teaching a class on cooking.
“A lot of what’s great about Wabash is what happens outside of class,” Warner said. “I like to meet with the students when they’re looking at the school. If it’s a fit for you, it’s kind of glorious, but I don’t think it’s for everybody. There’s a lot of camaraderie here. It’s an enjoyable place to teach. You almost feel sorry for the students they can only be here four years.”
Wabash also offers Warner — and other professors — the chance to take education in firsthand. The immersion trips Wabash offers to students and professors allows students to learn from a perspective other than a book and makes the professors better teachers, Warner said.
“To really know what’s going one, you need to get out and meet people,” he said.
While teaching and extra-curricular activities fill most of Warner’s schedule, he still finds time to get back to cooking, often preparing the meals for his wife and children.
“I find it really relaxing,” Warner said. “After a day of reading books, I like to go home and cut some meat and fire up the grill.”
All that, and he's a mean cook! Congrats to all those professors who made tenure and help teach the next generation of Wabash men.
I just read with great sadness that Susan Cantrell has died.
