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Communication senior Emily Brown and energy management and supply chain management senior Madison Horinek pose with glasses of wine Feb. 27. Brown and Horinek took OU’s Geography of Wine course in the fall of 2018.
RAISE A GLASS Professor uses online course to teach students about history, culture of wine drinking
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ver y other We dnes day night, Emily Brown would meet up with her friends at Blu, a pub serving fine wine and craft beer, to exchange laughs, feelings and thoughts all while tasting several types of wine. The group’s activity appeared no different than that of the other patrons — drinking and talking. But Brow n and her friends had a different purpose for being at the pub: with every sip of wine, they were studying for an online class. In fall 2018, Brown, a communications senior, and her friends took Geography of Wine, an online course offered at OU that teaches the study of wine from a historical perspective, taught by John Boyer, a professor who seeks to show students the beauty of wine culture. An alumnus of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Boyer became a professor of geographical and global studies 22 years ago. While at Virginia Tech, Boyer met Kirsten de Beurs, current department chair of geography and environmental sustainability at OU. After attending a conference at Oklahoma State University, where her cowboy colleagues bragged about starting a wine course, de Beurs asked Boyer to teach his Geography of Wine course in Norman — an offer Boyer happily accepted. Boyer resides in Virginia and now teaches exclusively online at both Virginia Tech and OU. Boyer teaches two unique courses at Virginia Tech: World Regional Geography, which he says is a summary of the world in one semester, and Geography of Wine, a general sur vey of commodity, history, production and nuances of wine and wine culture. The first time he taught his wine course in 1997 at Virginia Tech, Boyer had around 50 students in class. After transferring to the online realm in the mid2000s, his class multiplied, and he now teaches more than 1,800 students in his wine course alone, Boyer said. “ Jo h n ’s t e a c h i n g e v a l u a tions were always excellent, and he has won several teaching awards,” de B eurs said.
ALMA CIENSKI • @ALMACIENSKI “However, one thing that struck me when talking with the students of the Geography of Wine class was how empowered they felt learning about wine. The students often commented that learning a bit about wine and experiencing what they enjoyed made them feel grown up and empowered when they were making their way into the real world.” Boyer designed Geography of Wine specifically for seniors — not only so they were in the legal age range to be able to sample and write about wines, but to give seniors some “life skills” to leave with after they walk across stage at graduation. Boyer said each year he has taught the course, he receives emails from students’ parents complimenting his course, saying their child is now able to pick a great wine for dinner, and they see their child as an adult. “Folks all around the country now have an inherent understanding that they should be cultured and classy and they want to know about the finer things in life and be cosmopolitan. Wine speaks to all of those things,” Boyer said. “We go to universities to get some knowledge and training, but universities are really about expanding your horizons across the board.” Though students must be 21 to enroll in Boyer’s course, they do not necessarily have to consume alcohol. In the past and currently, Boyer said he has taught Muslim students in his course, despite religious guidelines restricting drinking. He recalled a time when a group of Muslim women from the United Arab Emirates and Egypt told him after class that, though they would not drink alcohol due to their beliefs, they were taking his course for the culture. “They said, ‘We are already at a disadvantage because we are women, so we don’t want to be at a double disadvantage that if we’re at a corporate meeting, we want to at least be able to talk the talk,’” Boyer said. Boyer said America has very different attitudes toward alcohol compared to other countries. Societies in Europe do not have nearly as many problems
with issues like drunk driving because they are taught how to drink — and American cultural puritanism is to blame, Boyer said. “Our culture says, ‘We’re not gonna allow anyone under 21 to even get near (alcohol) or touch it or have any sort of experience or acclimatization to it, and then when you turn 21, we’ll let you start drinking when you’re on your own, away from family, and you just got a credit card,’” Boyer said. “It’s a recipe for disaster. It’s like saying, ‘You can’t look at a car, you can’t touch a car, we’re not gonna teach you anything about driving — then we’re gonna give you a license, go get on the interstate and drive really fast.’” This concept of prohibiting alcohol education bothered Boyer and led him to teach this course in order to teach others how to drink and have better consumption habits. Boyer said that American culture has driven drinking underground for the youth and that lowering the drinking age to 18 would help remedy those issues — and wine leads the way. “ ( M o s t c o l l e g e s t u d e n t s’ drinking) habits are horrific, but it’s not their fault,” Boyer said. “Binge drinking, with ‘lesser-classed’ beverages occurs because our society has trained
everybody to do it that way since prohibition. Ever since then, we have had a cultural hangover.” Will Cornelius, 2018 broadcast journalism graduate, said he initially enrolled in Boyer’s course in the fall 2018 semester because he needed more credit hours before he graduated in December. However, the class changed his habits and beverage choices. “I had never thought of having specific wines with specific foods and pairing them so that they accentuate each other’s flavors,” Cornelius said. “I had been more of a Solo cup full of Franzia with my meal type of guy.” Boyer’s teaching philosophy is simple — make it accessible and make it relevant. He has a commodity-style approach to teaching history, and students find it interesting because almost everybody in college drinks, Boyer said. Geography of Wine has no midterm or final, and a grade is instead determined by completing work-based activities. Boyer said he has found this liberates students to have a better work ethic and allows them more flexibility. “I really liked the format of being able to try whatever wine I wanted to,” Brown said. “My friends and I would go (to Blu) and get appetizers and wine
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Communication senior Emily Brown and energy management and supply chain management senior Madison Horinek drink glasses of wine Feb. 27.
— they even had these cool wine flights that you could sample different kinds. My greatest takeaway was learning about wines that I probably wouldn’t have even known existed apart from that class.” Boyer said students can experience the class through tasting wines with friends because they can converse with people in their own age group, rather than listen to an “old guy” talk about wine for two hours. Though it may sound like cheating, he intentionally crafted the assignments to work together with other students, he said. O U ’s G e o g r a p h y o f W i n e course, which has been offered in fall 2017 and 2018, has an average class size of 225 people. Though many students, like Cornelius, have said it was more work than expected for an online class, they walked away with greater knowledge and more excitement for what was once just a pastime. “My favorite part of the course was how professor Boyer dumbe d d o w n w i n e ,” C o r n e l i u s said. “He says at the start of the course that wine is a drink of the people, and it really is. I think there’s a stigma around wine or being knowledgeable about wine — that you have to be rich or haughty to drink and know about it. Just because you don’t eat a multi-course meal ever y day doesn’t mean you shouldn’t know how to when the time comes. It’s about taking this thing that people have tried to make exclusive and making it inclusive.” Boyer said he looks forward to building his reputation at OU through teaching about the culture that he loves. “When it comes to wine, there is no favorite,” Boyer said. “It’s like saying which child do I love the most — I love them all equally. Wine is special because every single wine is unique. That’s what makes it fun and magical — endlessly searching for new flavors and aromas all over.” Alma Cienski
aacienski@ou.edu