Eight Instructors Honored for 26+ Years of Teaching

This year the Extension School has a cornucopia of honorands: eight instructors, each of whom has taught for at least 26 years, whose combined service totals 212 years.

John Spengler, Akira Yamaguchi Professor of Environmental Health and Human Habitation, Harvard School of Public Health, the senior honorand with 28 years of service, will represent the group as the speaker at the Harvard Extension Alumni Association Banquet on June 3, 2003 in Quincy House.

As this year's honorands mused about their early years of teaching in the Extension School, several points were made. "I remember a quaint and thoughtful Extension School practice under Dean Reginald Phelps," recalled Raymond Comeau, Assistant Dean of University Extension and Director of Foreign Language Instruction for Continuing Education. "He would send all faculty a weekly dinner allowance check, which I used dutifully at the Dudley House cafeteria before going to French class." "I remember being told that the Extension School never canceled classes," remarked James Ross Chisholm, Jr., Instructor in Drawing, Painting, and Design, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. "One night the snow was so high I couldn't open my door, so I called the Extension School and was greeted with great mirth. It was the beginning of the Blizzard of '78!" Wayne Ishikawa, Lecturer in Extension, Harvard University, observed, "In the early days of the Extension School I would have 60 students in my elementary French class, and the tuition was $35 for credit students and $25 for noncredit students."

What is it about Extension School teaching that has encouraged these honorands to return year after year? "George Buckley, Petros Koutrakis, and I see Extension School teaching as part of our vocation," said Spengler of his co-instructors in ENVR E-101 and E-102 Environmental Management I and II. "We hope to make the students we teach more thoughtful about environmental consequences in their jobs and everyday lives." Spengler also believes that the Extension School has led to educational innovation. "The conversion of our courses to distance mode has allowed us to enhance communications with our students," he said. Other honorands agreed that the use of technology, including the Internet, has improved their teaching in recent years.

Students, however, provide the biggest incentive. The common theme in all the honorands' reminiscences was the seriousness and motivation of Extension School students. "One day I announced to my Harvard College class that I would have to miss the next Monday and I received a standing ovation," recalled L. Dodge Fernald, Lecturer on Psychology, Harvard University, "but when I made the same announcement that night to my Extension School students, one student stood up and said, 'Well, what are we going to do about that?' Extension students come to learn." Raymond Lum, Asian Bibliographer, Harvard College Library, quipped, "One of my former students, a lawyer, showed me part of a transcript of a court case in which he was involved entreating the judge to hurry the case along so he could get to his Chinese class."

Some of the honorands' comments and anecdotes illustrate the common notion that Extension School students sometimes take courses for social as well as intellectual reasons. "I don't know if it's a quality of music lovers, but the students in my classes are very nice to one another," remarked Cynthia Verba, Lecturer in Extension and Director of Fellowships at Harvard's Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. Fernald added, "Two of my former students visited me recently to express satisfaction with my psychology course and with my suggestion that students form study groups. They brought not only their gratitude but also their newborn baby."

"Teaching in the Extension School is one of the most important experiences I have ever had," said Chisholm. Verba, summing up many of the sentiments, observed, "I find a special store of energy once I set foot in the classroom. I'm hooked!"