SALEM -- Twenty minutes into a freshman discussion at Willamette University, professor Richard Ellis hasn't uttered a word. Students come up with the questions and carry the class through an analysis of Alexis de Tocqueville's "Democracy in America" while Ellis fades into the background. An uncomfortable silence falls. Ellis waits. Finally, a student, who used to be one of the quietest in the class, breaks it.
Ellis' silence, however, isn't a sign of indifference or leniency. The opposite is true: Ellis is known for being one of the toughest and most engaging professors on campus. Those qualities have led to Ellis being named Oregon's professor of the year by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the Council for Advancement and Support of Education. Winners from 44 states, the District of Columbia and Guam are being announced today (11/19).
Ellis, who has taught politics at Willamette since 1990, is known both for his high-caliber scholarly work, including writing and editing 13 books, and for connecting with students in a way that makes them want to work hard. He allows students to take the lead in class to teach them the reading, writing and thinking skills they will use long after they've forgotten the details of de Tocqueville. "He doesn't even have to say anything, but he has this twinkle in his eye when he's observing us," said Jenna Sjulin, an 18-year-old freshman in the class. "He forces you to dig deeper."
As an undergraduate student at the University of California, Santa Cruz, Ellis was a shy student who rarely spoke in class. He could get away with it, he said, because the grade wasn't based on participation. As a teacher, he draws out those students by encouraging them to speak more and giving them the opportunity and incentive to do so. In his freshman class, participation is half of the grade. "One of the things that drives me crazy as a teacher is when you have a really smart student who is very quiet, and the student who is perhaps not as insightful is talking a lot," he said.
He trains students to think, talk, read and write about a scholarly question by modeling it himself. When students evaluate one another's papers, they use his criteria. When they lead a discussion, they are expected to listen to one another and consult the text. Ellis intervenes when needed. "It takes a lot of work as a teacher to make sure that the students are trained enough that they can do it without continually veering the discussion off course," he said. "Ultimately, the content matters less than what the person teaches you about how to think and how to write."
Ellis' father was a German literature professor at UC Santa Cruz, and his mother was a high school English teacher, but he had to find his own way as a teacher once he came to Willamette. "Some people are natural teachers, perhaps, but I don't think I was," he said. He learned strategies from his wife, a former elementary school teacher, and from Willamette colleagues. One early role model was Bob Hawkinson, Willamette's dean of campus life, who taught politics at UC Santa Cruz when Ellis was a student there. Hawkinson paid personal attention to students and mentored them, something Ellis now does, too. Hawkinson said Ellis was a "once-in-a-lifetime student" who is now an "all-out star across the board" at Willamette.
In Ellis' classes, students "want to learn more. They want to do well. They want to emulate the way he tackles academic issues," Hawkinson said. Ellis often uses students as research assistants and brings his scholarly work into his classes. In five books, Ellis acknowledges the work of 33 Willamette students. Alexis Walker, a 2006 graduate who worked as Ellis' assistant and co-wrote a paper with him, said he taught her to enjoy research, even if it is mundane at times. "He always got so excited when I came to him with some little article that took three days to find in microfilm," she said. Walker, now a Cornell University graduate student in government, said Ellis' courses were the most rigorous she took at Willamette. "He really pushed you to do your best, to go beyond what you thought you could," she said.
Source: OregonLive.com
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