Even in that circumstance, when we were doing a class together and developing an idea together, an educational idea together, we did not as a matter of course go in each other’s classroom. But I went to one of his 301 classes for a reason I can’t think of now except maybe to look at […]

I mean the best mentors, the best managers, the best teachers I think are people who beat the s— out of you but the beating comes from place of affection and love and commitment, so that you actually look forward to it, you know? I think everybody understood that in a sense that people wouldn’t […]

One of the close things that happened with Bob and me is that we went to each other’s classes, which was really amazing. He came to my 101 class, beginning religion, talking about sociology, which Bob was very much interested in, and I went to two of his classes in particular on classical treatises and […]

The kind of tension in a Gaudino classroom kind of requires that at some level it be not just be fun and easy. It’s kind of like a high-wire act and it must’ve taken a tremendous amount of energy for Gaudino to maintain that. I probably should teach more that way, but I don’t think […]

People often say a Gaudino class had an air of mystery. But if you look back at the syllabus for most any of his courses you realize there was no great secret. He told you exactly what was going to happen. He’d list “Purposes” of the course and the first two would be brutally substantive: […]

I began looking over his shoulder, rather than looking at what Fred Greene is doing or Fred Schuman is doing or even Jim Burns. You know, every new person wants to have some kind of guidelines. What does a syllabus look like around here? How many pages do you assign to your students? How often […]