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Comment by SG made me think of this. Mine is political so I'm putting it here rather than the Locker Room.

Best professor I had was Professor Henry Parker. I took his Culture of the Ghetto class and it blew my mind. He was a former director of Operation PUSH. We studied oppression and since we were mostly white kids from Iowa we started with the oppression of women before moving on to the oppression of African Americans. We read about and discussed MLK Jr and Malcom X; we took solo trips to a black Baptist church and a soul food restaurant. Parker was a great professor who encouraged students to speak their minds and form their own opinions. The class opened my eyes to racism and bias but more importantly it made me more observant and curious overall. It did more to make me who I am today than any other class I took as an undergrad.

Mine is also in a way but not because of what he taught.

Thomas Isern taught U.S. and Great Plains history (I took 2 classes by him). And in many ways he is like UNI88's professor. His classes were easy for me as I knew most of what he covered but his passion was the Germans from Russia immigration and we had many hours of conversation about them, as my family background is Germans from Russia (and we did many things that were straight out of the old country). One of the most easy guys to talk to and always had a insightful comment or idea to make.

I didn't learn till after college but his political beliefs are interesting in that he is not a fan of the Neo-liberals or Neo-conservatives in the tri-state area as he sees many similarities to the old NPL and Farmers Alliance. We share many of the same thoughts about History and the people that shaped our past and how we shape it today.

The best professor I ever had was Dr. Lisa Taylor at Sac State. She taught Calculus III. I came from juco with a D, along with just about everyone else in the class, but Dr. Taylor got me to a B. Then I made her my advisor, but didn't really listen to her. I left Sac without my degree after my financial aid ran out and nobody wanted to give me a job. It's hard going to college as a walk-on. I went back on active duty and had to change my major because nobody had an online math major. I got my B.S. and M.A.R. in religion.

Honorable mentions are my Chem prof at UOP, Dr. Pat Jones, and the history prof I had at San Diego City College while I was on active duty; I don't remember her name, but she was in a wheelchair, which prevented her from doing anything on the chalkboard more than putting her name up the first day of class. She was forced to teach like a storyteller, and that made the class a whole lot easier....

Dr. John Cogley. Therapeutic Recreation and adaptive PE. He was good friends with my dad and also an Iowa native. Funny, brash, but a very sweet and knowledgeable man. I always sucked at sciencie/math classes but aced his intro to Therapeutic which was heavy on the medical terms and diagnosis side because he was an engaging teacher. Also had him for a class teaching PE and Rec activities to the developmentally disabled. It was an emotionally tough class with several of my classmates brought to tears. My client was a severe case but Cogley figured I could handle him. It was a great challenge.

Years later I gave lessons to he and his wife who was also a teacher. Just awesome people.

I won't mention the name, but one of my engineering professors was my favorite, although the ranking was probably more influenced by the fact that the rest of them were either terrible (accent was hard to understand) or uninspiring. This guy looked like a cross between a Woodstock survivor (10 years older now and cleaned up a bit) and a 70's/80's porn star. Was a skinny white guy with curly hair and a mustache (think Bob Ross).

He had a teaching style where he would explain the same thing in various ways to ensure everyone understood. After picking up on what he was doing, I realized that if you say something to a class in a certain way, you might only have 75% understand it. If you repeat the teaching in a different way, you might pick up another 15-20%. Time limits the number of ways to say the same thing so for the ones that still didn't understand, he would make himself available after class to go over it again. I held on to that understanding ever since and have used that tactic in many instances in life in training, mentoring, and parenting.

CAA Flagship wrote: ↑Thu Jan 19, 2023 4:46 am I won't mention the name, but one of my engineering professors was my favorite, although the ranking was probably more influenced by the fact that the rest of them were either terrible (accent was hard to understand) or uninspiring. This guy looked like a cross between a Woodstock survivor (10 years older now and cleaned up a bit) and a 70's/80's porn star. Was a skinny white guy with curly hair and a mustache (think Bob Ross).

He had a teaching style where he would explain the same thing in various ways to ensure everyone understood. After picking up on what he was doing, I realized that if you say something to a class in a certain way, you might only have 75% understand it. If you repeat the teaching in a different way, you might pick up another 15-20%. Time limits the number of ways to say the same thing so for the ones that still didn't understand, he would make himself available after class to go over it again. I held on to that understanding ever since and have used that tactic in many instances in life in training, mentoring,
and parenting.

That makes sense as around 75% of people have visually preferred learning styles. I would guess kinesthetic and audio learners might get a bit lost in contemporary engineering study. Kinesthetics would require hands on and audios would gravitate to musical engineering and the heavy math stuff.

CAA Flagship wrote:I won't mention the name, but one of my engineering professors was my favorite, although the ranking was probably more influenced by the fact that the rest of them were either terrible (accent was hard to understand) or uninspiring. This guy looked like a cross between a Woodstock survivor (10 years older now and cleaned up a bit) and a 70's/80's porn star. Was a skinny white guy with curly hair and a mustache (think Bob Ross).

He had a teaching style where he would explain the same thing in various ways to ensure everyone understood. After picking up on what he was doing, I realized that if you say something to a class in a certain way, you might only have 75% understand it. If you repeat the teaching in a different way, you might pick up another 15-20%. Time limits the number of ways to say the same thing so for the ones that still didn't understand, he would make himself available after class to go over it again. I held on to that understanding ever since and have used that tactic in many instances in life in training, mentoring, and parenting.

I’m picturing a guy who could have been an extra on Starsky & Hutch.


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Mentioned this professor in a different thread, so I'm going to rehash and then list another as well.

Probably the best professor for I had for instruction, was my Organic Chemistry professor, Dr Ralph Fessenden. Dr Fessenden wrote the book we used in class with his wife, Dr Joan Fessenden. Dr Fessenden's father was also a Griz football head coach years before.

What made him the best was that he had this knack for noticing the class wasn't picking up the concept he was explaining, simply by the look on our faces. Similar to CAA Flagship, Dr Fessenden would notice our confusion, stop class and say, "hold on" only to disappear to the back of the room. He almost always would come out of the back with some sort of model he had created that would give you a visual representation of what he was teaching. Usually that was all it took to get the whole class back on the same page.

The second professor I would have to put as "best" would have been my Biochemistry professor, Dr Walter Hill. I had just started class for the semester and returned from winning my second US Military National Cycling Championship when a classmate, who was in the Navy, announced it to the whole class. Anyway, after class, Dr Hill asked if he could talk to me for a second. He pulled me aside and asked in a fatherly way, "you're not taking performance enhancing drugs, are you"? I had to giggle a little and told him that I was not taking drugs!!

Then, the next semester I signed up for Biochem 487 Lab and when I showed up for the class, no one was there. I tracked the professor down and he told me that he was told no one would show up for the lab! So, he told me to wait a minute while he made a phone call. He called Dr Hill, told him that I had shown up for the lab and Dr Hill said, "send Dana to my lab, he can work for me". So I got to work in a graduate lab helping grad students determine the tertiary structure of ribosomal RNA for the semester. I still think I'm one of the few to get credits for that lab!

Lastly, Dr Hill was one of the few professors that understood I worked a part time job and was in the Army Reserves to pay for school, and as such, helped me to get into equivalent courses like swapping a microbiology course for a chemistry course due to my work schedule. So many professors didn't give a shit, but Dr Hill did. I truly appreciated how he helped me.

Sad as it is, Delaware is a highly touted, highly ranked ChemE school, but I really struggled to think of a great professor I had. The one who comes to mind happened to be my advisor. Best thing I remember is going over a senior lab project with him and while he's reviewing our data and calculations, he throws out the quote "well, on this one you're only off by a few orders of magnitude". Great stuff, I still use that line today.

GannonFan wrote: ↑Thu Jan 19, 2023 2:08 pm Sad as it is, Delaware is a highly touted, highly ranked ChemE school, but I really struggled to think of a great professor I had. The one who comes to mind happened to be my advisor. Best thing I remember is going over a senior lab project with him and while he's reviewing our data and calculations, he throws out the quote "well, on this one you're only off by a few orders of magnitude". Great stuff, I still use that line today.

SuperHornet wrote: ↑Wed Jan 18, 2023 6:31 pm The best professor I ever had was Dr. Lisa Taylor at Sac State. She taught Calculus III. I came from juco with a D, along with just about everyone else in the class, but Dr. Taylor got me to a B. Then I made her my advisor, but didn't really listen to her. I left Sac without my degree after my financial aid ran out and nobody wanted to give me a job. It's hard going to college as a walk-on. I went back on active duty and had to change my major because nobody had an online math major. I got my B.S. and M.A.R. in religion.

Honorable mentions are my Chem prof at UOP, Dr. Pat Jones, and the history prof I had at San Diego City College while I was on active duty; I don't remember her name, but she was in a wheelchair, which prevented her from doing anything on the chalkboard more than putting her name up the first day of class. She was forced to teach like a storyteller, and that made the class a whole lot easier....

Nice job bro. I only took the first semester of Calc.

SuperHornet wrote: ↑Wed Jan 18, 2023 6:31 pm The best professor I ever had was Dr. Lisa Taylor at Sac State. She taught Calculus III. I came from juco with a D, along with just about everyone else in the class, but Dr. Taylor got me to a B. Then I made her my advisor, but didn't really listen to her. I left Sac without my degree after my financial aid ran out and nobody wanted to give me a job. It's hard going to college as a walk-on. I went back on active duty and had to change my major because nobody had an online math major. I got my B.S. and M.A.R. in religion.

Honorable mentions are my Chem prof at UOP, Dr. Pat Jones, and the history prof I had at San Diego City College while I was on active duty; I don't remember her name, but she was in a wheelchair, which prevented her from doing anything on the chalkboard more than putting her name up the first day of class. She was forced to teach like a storyteller, and that made the class a whole lot easier....

I had it with an exchange professor from Taiwan wo didn't speak English. Triple integrals in Chinese.

I had several good math and science profs at Sacramento City College in the 80s and a couple at SIU. The ones at Sac City in particular had impressive credentials and were underemployed because of the tight job market and not many retirees.

kalm wrote: ↑Wed Jan 18, 2023 9:05 pm Dr. John Cogley. Therapeutic Recreation and adaptive PE. He was good friends with my dad and also an Iowa native. Funny, brash, but a very sweet and knowledgeable man. I always sucked at sciencie/math classes but aced his intro to Therapeutic which was heavy on the medical terms and diagnosis side because he was an engaging teacher. Also had him for a class teaching PE and Rec activities to the developmentally disabled. It was an emotionally tough class with several of my classmates brought to tears. My client was a severe case but Cogley figured I could handle him. It was a great challenge.

Years later I gave lessons to he and his wife who was also a teacher. Just awesome people.

You're a good man Klam.

houndawg wrote: ↑Thu Jan 19, 2023 6:54 pm

SuperHornet wrote: ↑Wed Jan 18, 2023 6:31 pm The best professor I ever had was Dr. Lisa Taylor at Sac State. She taught Calculus III. I came from juco with a D, along with just about everyone else in the class, but Dr. Taylor got me to a B. Then I made her my advisor, but didn't really listen to her. I left Sac without my degree after my financial aid ran out and nobody wanted to give me a job. It's hard going to college as a walk-on. I went back on active duty and had to change my major because nobody had an online math major. I got my B.S. and M.A.R. in religion.

Honorable mentions are my Chem prof at UOP, Dr. Pat Jones, and the history prof I had at San Diego City College while I was on active duty; I don't remember her name, but she was in a wheelchair, which prevented her from doing anything on the chalkboard more than putting her name up the first day of class. She was forced to teach like a storyteller, and that made the class a whole lot easier....

I had it with an exchange professor from Taiwan wo didn't speak English. Triple integrals in Chinese.

I had several good math and science profs at Sacramento City College in the 80s and a couple at SIU. The ones at Sac City in particular had impressive credentials and were underemployed because of the tight job market and not many retirees.

Jesus Christ man. You make no sense on a simple thread. Get your meds adjusted.

CAA Flagship wrote: ↑Thu Jan 19, 2023 4:46 am I won't mention the name, but one of my engineering professors was my favorite, although the ranking was probably more influenced by the fact that the rest of them were either terrible (accent was hard to understand) or uninspiring. This guy looked like a cross between a Woodstock survivor (10 years older now and cleaned up a bit) and a 70's/80's porn star. Was a skinny white guy with curly hair and a mustache (think Bob Ross).

He had a teaching style where he would explain the same thing in various ways to ensure everyone understood. After picking up on what he was doing, I realized that if you say something to a class in a certain way, you might only have 75% understand it. If you repeat the teaching in a different way, you might pick up another 15-20%. Time limits the number of ways to say the same thing so for the ones that still didn't understand, he would make himself available after class to go over it again. I held on to that understanding ever since and have used that tactic in many instances in life in training, mentoring, and parenting.

Adult learning theory in a nutshell. I use it all the time in designing training courses for internal people and our customers.

GannonFan wrote: ↑Thu Jan 19, 2023 2:08 pm Sad as it is, Delaware is a highly touted, highly ranked ChemE school, but I really struggled to think of a great professor I had. The one who comes to mind happened to be my advisor. Best thing I remember is going over a senior lab project with him and while he's reviewing our data and calculations, he throws out the quote "well, on this one you're only off by a few orders of magnitude". Great stuff, I still use that line today.

My Chem professor was a hoot. Older gentlemen with a full head of crazy white hair. That guy had been everywhere and done everything. Used to tell us stories in lab, while we waited on our assignments to finish up, of hitch hiking over the weekends and flying standby in the 70's, just to spend a day in a place then had never been. He ended every class on Friday with "Now don't go doing anything I wouldn't do" and then follow it up with "that basically means stay out of jail". I am also pretty sure he made moonshine on the distillation rig we had in the lab.

Left a year after I transferred colleges for a job at Mayo. When the new Chem professor came in she had to call the Bomb Squad as he had left some bottles in inventory that should have been disposed of years ago and were high hazardous. He also used the same refrigerator that he stored reactants in to store his lunch. Just a crazy chemist that enjoyed life to the fullest.

Winterborn wrote: ↑Fri Jan 20, 2023 9:39 am

GannonFan wrote: ↑Thu Jan 19, 2023 2:08 pm Sad as it is, Delaware is a highly touted, highly ranked ChemE school, but I really struggled to think of a great professor I had. The one who comes to mind happened to be my advisor. Best thing I remember is going over a senior lab project with him and while he's reviewing our data and calculations, he throws out the quote "well, on this one you're only off by a few orders of magnitude". Great stuff, I still use that line today.

My Chem professor was a hoot. Older gentlemen with a full head of crazy white hair. That guy had been everywhere and done everything. Used to tell us stories in lab, while we waited on our assignments to finish up, of hitch hiking over the weekends and flying standby in the 70's, just to spend a day in a place then had never been. He ended every class on Friday with "Now don't go doing anything I wouldn't do" and then follow it up with "that basically means stay out of jail". I am also pretty sure he made moonshine on the distillation rig we had in the lab.

Left a year after I transferred colleges for a job at Mayo. When the new Chem professor came in she had to call the Bomb Squad as he had left some bottles in inventory that should have been disposed of years ago and were high hazardous. He also used the same refrigerator that he stored reactants in to store his lunch. Just a crazy chemist that enjoyed life to the fullest.

UM had some doozies in the Chem department. I remember talking with one of my freshman chem professors while he was warming up tomato soup in a pyrex cup over a Bunsen burner. Guy also wore the same clothes every day and when he finally wore a different sweater, it was all the buzz in class that day. Dr Richard Fields.

The one class I unfortunately could never take was a chem lab in which they taught you the old school way of making glassware objects by heating, bending, stretching, etc.

SeattleGriz wrote: ↑Thu Jan 19, 2023 10:38 pm

houndawg wrote: ↑Thu Jan 19, 2023 6:54 pm

I had it with an exchange professor from Taiwan who didn't speak English. Triple integrals in Chinese.

I had several good math and science profs at Sacramento City College in the 80s and a couple at SIU. The ones at Sac City in particular had impressive credentials and were underemployed because of the tight job market and not many retirees.

Jesus Christ man. You make no sense on a simple thread. Get your meds adjusted.

My Calculus III prof didn't speak English.

You seem to be experiencing that not-so-fresh feeling; maybe if you changed your feminine hygiene articles more frequently........?

houndawg wrote: ↑Thu Jan 19, 2023 6:54 pm

SuperHornet wrote: ↑Wed Jan 18, 2023 6:31 pm The best professor I ever had was Dr. Lisa Taylor at Sac State. She taught Calculus III. I came from juco with a D, along with just about everyone else in the class, but Dr. Taylor got me to a B. Then I made her my advisor, but didn't really listen to her. I left Sac without my degree after my financial aid ran out and nobody wanted to give me a job. It's hard going to college as a walk-on. I went back on active duty and had to change my major because nobody had an online math major. I got my B.S. and M.A.R. in religion.

Honorable mentions are my Chem prof at UOP, Dr. Pat Jones, and the history prof I had at San Diego City College while I was on active duty; I don't remember her name, but she was in a wheelchair, which prevented her from doing anything on the chalkboard more than putting her name up the first day of class. She was forced to teach like a storyteller, and that made the class a whole lot easier....

I had it with an exchange professor from Taiwan wo didn't speak English. Triple integrals in Chinese.

I had several good math and science profs at Sacramento City College in the 80s and a couple at SIU. The ones at Sac City in particular had impressive credentials and were underemployed because of the tight job market and not many retirees.

Once I got past Calc III, I had a math professor with an accent so thick I had a really hard time understanding him. It was particularly hard when he was talking about Cauchy sequences. But even worse was the senile old Caucasian dude teaching college geometry, which was my favorite math class in high school. Really bad....

SuperHornet wrote: ↑Wed Jan 25, 2023 6:51 pm

houndawg wrote: ↑Thu Jan 19, 2023 6:54 pm

I had it with an exchange professor from Taiwan wo didn't speak English. Triple integrals in Chinese.

I had several good math and science profs at Sacramento City College in the 80s and a couple at SIU. The ones at Sac City in particular had impressive credentials and were underemployed because of the tight job market and not many retirees.

Once I got past Calc III, I had a math professor with an accent so thick I had a really hard time understanding him. It was particularly hard when he was talking about Cauchy sequences. But even worse was the senile old Caucasian dude teaching college geometry, which was my favorite math class in high school. Really bad....

For me it was Thermodynamics with Dragon Lady Chen who pronounced "adiabatic" something like ""addybaddy" and couldn't say "millimeters" to save her life and tossed in extra verbs at random places she thought they might work like: "What is pressure when volume is constant is?" She had us all doing it by the end of the semester