I owe the high quality of my UW-Madison undergraduate degree to a long list of outstanding professors who not only taught facts but who sparked intellectual curiosity and academic growth in their students.
I have space to recognize only six of them who truly went above and beyond. More than anyone, these professors lived up to UW-Madison's legendary credo that ""the great University of Wisconsin should ever encourage that continual and fearless sifting and winnowing by which alone truth can be found.""
David Danaher of the Slavic languages department taught ""The Writings of Vaclav Havel,"" a survey of the works of Czechoslovakia's renowned dissident playwright-turned-president. Most literature classes tend to be eye-drooping after awhile, but Danaher was unfailingly dynamic and intellectually provocative.
Instead of writing long, boring essays or bluebook tests, he had us write poems, letters and plays employing Havelian themes and styles. I was inspired by Havel's humanism, self-awareness and faithfulness to truth before any party or ideology, and my inspiration was surely due as much to Danaher's teaching as to Havel's writing. His impending departure will be a tremendous loss to UW-Madison.
Charles Franklin of the political science department forced students to see beyond their assumptions about politics and to examine statistical data before drawing conclusions.
He showed us how to present concise, logical arguments backed by empirical evidence, and he subjected us to the nerve-wracking but valuable experience of his unorthodox exam format—which consisted of coming to his office individually and presenting the class material to him while he fired questions at you.
Scott Gehlbach of the political science department challenged students to take our grasps of both politics and economics to the next level. His lectures were low-key but high-yield, and his semi-sadistic tendency to give pop quizzes encouraged us to stay on top of the difficult class readings.
His tough but interesting course on the economic transitions of post-communist countries truly stretched the bounds of my academic abilities.
Francine Hirsch of the History department took her students on an exhaustive but lively journey through 70 years of the Soviet Union. Far from plodding monotonously through arbitrary names and dates, Hirsch made the material come alive with an engaging style of epic storytelling, and her care in placing the information in proper historical context improved our understanding of communism's bloody rise and largely peaceful fall.
Barbara Ingham taught one of the most useful classes in my academic career, ""The Science of Food."" Through her flawlessly organized online lectures, she explained exactly what we put in our bodies every day and what some of those complicated-sounding ingredients on labels actually do to our food.
Her straight-forward, accessible approach to the nutritional contents of food gave hundreds of her students a better idea of how to maintain a healthy, natural, well-balanced diet.
Finally, Nancy Worcester taught a fascinating ""Women's Bodies in Health and Disease,"" a class which—take it from me—is valuable in as many ways for guys as it is for girls.
Worcester's overarching theme is that a feminist is simply one who believes in equal rights for men and women. True, she makes no pretense of being fair and balanced, but the information she provides fills a large gap in the physical and sociological education of many students.
The extent of her passion for women's studies appeared once when she threw out an exam question on which students were confused, saying, ""I'd rather have you know the information than trip yourselves up over two points on some test.""
My education at UW-Madison has been incalculably enriched by these and other professors, as well as by good friends, cheap liquor and of course, you, the readers. Your colorful, profanity-laced letters have given me numerous hours of entertainment.
Considering that I've been eviscerated as everything from ""an ignorant and hypocritical liberal"" to ""a right-wing defender of the corporate status quo,"" I figure I must be doing something right.
It has been a great four years of college and a pleasure to write for The Daily Cardinal. I wish you all the best. Don't ever stop sifting.
