Ripon faculty on teaching through the decades

Since the founding of Ripon College, its faculty have brought passion about their subject areas and devotion to the ideals of a liberal arts education to their classroom and mentoring duties. Several longtime educators share their reflections on how things have changed at Ripon over the years — and how they have stayed the same.

Sarah Mahler Kraaz

Sarah Mahler Kraaz

Professor of Music, College Organist and William Harley Barber Distinguished Professor

Kraaz, who has been at the College since 1989, retires this spring.

“The most obvious aspect of teaching that’s changed since I started in 1989 is the technology. We had no computers and only a party line — that’s right, no individual phone lines — in our offices in Rodman. It’s hard to look back and realize how dramatically the resources for classroom teaching have expanded. In the ’90s, CDs replaced records, and in the 2000s digital music replaced CDs, making thousands (millions?) of examples available to us. Really, without YouTube, I couldn’t teach music in the classroom.

“On the other hand, pianos are still the same as they’ve been since the mid-19th century, and the organ in Demmer uses 17th-century technology — except for the electrified blower that supplies air to the pipes. Students still have to practice and acquire the same techniques as every previous generation. And young human beings are essentially the same: confident (or not), curious, contradictory and complex.”

For Kraaz, the most rewarding aspect has been “the students, of course — it’s the best antiaging medicine in the world to spend most of one’s days with energetic, enthusiastic young adults, and it’s safe to say I’ve learned a great deal from the students I’ve had over the years.

“An effective teacher has to be a lifelong learner. I’m a naturally curious person, always eager to acquire knowledge and explore new ideas about many things, not just music. I try to model this openness to my students by talking about my intellectual interests, my performing, research and writing experiences, and my love of reading and listening to people’s stories. The liberal arts philosophy of education suits me perfectly because in today’s world, a person has to be able to think critically and embrace complexity, survival skills that students learn at Ripon.”

Jeanne Williams

Jeanne Williams

Professor Emerita of Educational Studies

Williams began with Ripon College in 1992 and retired in 2017. She now is an adjunct professor of educational studies.

“At the core of good teaching is a human relationship between a teacher and his/her students; That hasn’t changed since Socrates gathered students around him on the streets of Athens. The technology changes, the amount of information available changes, but that core relationship is the bedrock of education.

“The sense of community among the faculty and staff was tremendously supportive throughout my time at Ripon, both on a personal and a professional level. I always felt that people were there for me and willing to challenge me intellectually. I also enjoyed having the opportunity to see students develop from their admissions visit to the campus through their programs and into student teaching. So much happens over these four years and it is lovely to be a part of that growth process through its various stages.

“I tried to make my teaching experiencebased — lots of activities and discussion with exploration of what a particular practice can mean in the development of a child’s skills and abilities. Learners need to see that the content or skill they are working with will enrich their lives in very specific ways. That doesn’t mean that everything we learn has to be useful or practical in terms of earning a living or making mundane decisions. It does mean that learners have to experience that their lives are richer and their connections to other people stronger as they learn more about themselves and about the world.”

Robert Wallace

Robert Wallace

Patricia and Philip McCullough 1969 Professor in Biology

Wallace, who has been with the College since 1977, retires this spring.

“Clearly, technology has made teaching easier — lots of information is now at our fingertips, but that brings on other challenges. How much information is too much? The part of technology that I like is to be able to show PowerPoint slides to my students of places that I have been that support the ecological topics being considered. And if I have not been there, I can extract them from the Internet.

“Nevertheless, authentic teaching is a personto-person enterprise and will remain so, or at least I hope it does. I can imagine some early hominid sitting by the fire instructing others on how to nap a flint arrowhead. If teaching moves completely to the disembodied Internet, society will lose something dear.”

In his approach to education, Wallace says, “I start with the assumption that while each student is unique, all are keen to learn. Unfortunately, some students do not know how to be very efficient at learning and they try to memorize everything. That strategy can lead to frustration. I posit that learning how to learn is an important skill that can be gained and improved with practice. Accordingly, I see part of my job to be a facilitator to learning.

“The most rewarding thing about working at Ripon is the interactions with my colleagues, both students and professors. Moreover, Ripon has been a place where my teaching and scholarship have become integrated. Thus, Ripon has allowed me to wed Wallace, the teacher, to Wallace, the scholar — without the absolute need to be chasing money from funding agencies.”

Robert Amsden

Robert Amsden

Director Emeritus of Theatre

Amsden has taught in the Department of Theatre since 1991 and now is Director Emeritus.

“As a generalist, I enjoy teaching and learning more about many topics in theatre,” and he hopes that his students will become independent thinkers and learners. “I hope they understand that acting is a craft, a collection of skills that can be learned. I hope they learn to empathize with characters rooted in different social circumstances and time periods other than their own. This learning has the most impact in playing a character out of our time period, or working as an assistant designer, but it also can come through understanding the cultural circumstances of characters in plays read for class that are very different from a college student’s own.”

Teaching, in many ways, has stayed the same over the millennia, Amsden says. “I imagine Plato, Aristotle and Socrates had an array of students following them around, and some vigorously grasped the material immediately and others struggled. With some there surely were motivational factors that caused other issues in their lives to take precedence over their studies. Teaching has remained the same because students enter the classroom with an array of gifts, background preparation, interest/curiosity and motivations. A teacher’s presentations must attempt to take this wide variety of background and interest into account.”

Kurt Dietrich

Kurt Dietrich

Professor of Music, Barbara Baldwin De Frees Chair in the Performing Arts

Dietrich started at Ripon in 1980 and retires this spring.

“Every year, it’s the journey you make with the ensembles. There’s some serious work to do and by the end of the year, it comes out pretty well. I can think back to certain years when we had more numbers of skilled players than other years. On the other hand, I can think back to just a few years ago (when a particular) group has made more progress than any other group I can remember.

“I can remember times when numbers were really low and how hard it was to fully staff the symphonic wind ensemble. Again, both of those experiences can be rewarding and I just look back on them in different ways.”

He feels that it is worthwhile to expose students to fine art in all its forms. “We can appreciate fine art and we can appreciate this and that, and that music makes a difference in people’s lives. So whatever I can do to have students have as much exposure as possible is what it’s been all about to me.”

He says composers from earlier periods still impact people’s lives today more so than other historical figures. For instance, from the 19th century, “Napoleon’s whole career is fascinating, a big part of history and made a difference to people alive then. Beethoven makes a difference to people who are alive now. Here are composers who lived hundreds of years ago, but they still make a daily difference in people’s lives. I want to get students to get to realize that. This music makes a difference. Napoleon doesn’t change how I feel day today, whereas Beethoven could.”

Paul Schoofs

Paul Schoofs

Patricia Parker Francis Professor of Economics

Schoofs started at Ripon in 1974 and retires this spring.

“What I want to do and have always tried to do, without just preaching it, is modeling in my own behavior that everybody who knows me can see how much I truly enjoy learning and helping other people learn,” he says. “I have a passion for it. It’s a wonderful life to be a learner and to help other people learn. Every day is a chance to know more, to learn more, to better understand ourselves and our place in the world.”

He feels that “knowledge is power” and that learning should be fun. “There’s a real joy in gaining more of that power and understanding how the world works, and the many dimensions of it,” he says. He appreciates “the chance to be involved in the learning of the individual students and then to see its impact, too. A professor in a larger place can feel confident in their impact, but they probably have to assume it more than to be able to see it. In this kind of a teaching context, I do get to see that regularly.

“Ultimately, good education still involves interaction, and you can’t have as much of it in an online context. Interaction with fellow students, as well, is important. That kind of interaction has always been a key element in learning and in education.”