[The following is from the Spring, 1998, Ivy, the College's alumni publication]
"You know, I never thought I'd be a teacher. When I finished graduate school, I looked for a position in entomology at a major museum or a research university. While I was looking, I was hired to teach insect ecology at the University of Illinois as a visiting assistant professor. I worked incredibly hard on that first lecture - the relevance of physics to insect ecology - and when I gave the lecture, it went great. Several of the students (some of them graduate students) complimented me on the clarity and enthusiasm of the lecture. Problem was, I'd spent so much time on that lecture that I wasn't ready for any of the others.
The rest of the year was a major struggle - up til 2:00 am nearly every night trying to get it together for the next day, unsure of what I should be doing, losing confidence daily. One of my students, a Korean national 10 years older than me, was getting a `B' (the kiss of death in graduate school) and was in danger of being kicked out of graduate school. He told me he felt like there was no point in going on (with his life), worrying the dickens out of me and shaking what little confidence I had further. THEN another student (an undergraduate) who was also getting a `B' complained bitterly that he wasn't going to get into medical school because of my incompetence. Several registered letters followed, culminating in a confrontation in front of my wife in which there was a real danger of fisticuffs. `If this is teaching,' I thought, `it's definitely NOT for me.'
There followed a couple of years of searching for the ideal research job (and not finding it), killing mosquitoes for a living in the meantime. And then, a friend told me about a teaching job at Eureka College... My wife and I drove over to look at the campus (it was April, when the campus was alive with Spring Beauties and Magnolia blossoms). We visited the Admissions office in a house that used to stand next to the President's house and asked about the art major (Peg wanted to finish her degree in art). We talked to a number of friendly people and explored the town. It seemed like this teaching thing might be worth another shot; I applied and the rest, as they say, is history.
That awful first experience was not typical of teaching. What did turn out to be typical was helping a student see why he/she should understand the details of a particular biochemical pathway, and actually having that student appreciate the extra time I put in to make that happen. It was typical to gain a new insight from a student's question, because that student (not being a professional biologist) came at the subject without my prejudices. It was typical to have to stay up til 2:00 am to get ready, but not really minding it because while I was teaching, I was learning too. It was typical to look forward to the start of school every fall and to feel a certain sadness when it ended in the spring.
I teach because I make a difference in my students' lives. I teach because I love my subject and feel that a knowledge of it is important for every citizen. I teach because every day is different from every other day - it's always new. I teach because when I teach, I learn - and I love learning. I teach at Eureka because here, teaching is what matters most. I teach at Eureka because I am encouraged to go beyond the `boundaries' of my field and explore other fields as well. I don't know another college where a biologist would be asked to give a lecture on the Vietnam War in a Western Civ. class. I teach because I can't think of a more rewarding way to live my life."