What's in a Name?

It was the first day of AGR 140 Plant Science on August 25, 2005. Class started at 10:30, and at 10:33 I walked around the built-in lab table that separates me from the class. After my normal first day greetings, I proceeded to introduce all 32 students by name to each other from memory. Chris called that creepy. I guess I had to take that as a compliment...you take them where you can get them. To the student it must have looked like I already knew the names (I only knew five), but to me it was a long-practiced skill I have honed since my first TA position when I was 20 years old.

I wake up most mornings long before the rooster crows...(had to throw in an agricultural metaphor to cover the stereotypes) and my mind starts racing with everything that needs to be accomplished that day. Being the only horticulture faculty on campus, I have a lot to juggle from running the greenhouses and other farm programs, handling my university responsibilities, and getting ready for class. As of Spring 2006, I will have been responsible for teaching 19 different classes outright, creating six new classes in agriculture since arriving in 2001, and playing a part in three other classes. So getting ready for classes each semester is never the status quo. Oh, I also manage a greenhouse staff of up to 10 students a semester and have a handful of graduate students and all my undergraduate advisees. So how does the actual teaching excellence occur?

It starts with that name. Kalen just transferred from the University of Kentucky to complete his senior year at Murray State University and play baseball for us. I was in my greenhouse supervisors meeting the second day of class, and he arrived early and took a seat. My staff and I were eating, and while heating my lunch, I asked him what was the big difference so far between the universities. He simply stated, "You already know my name."

Teaching excellence is not about being the smartest one in the room. It's about caring for each individual sitting in front of you. It's about striving to make an educational difference in each of their lives. As part of my fall line-up I'm teaching two freshman-level classes, and I have one outcome goal for each first day of class. It's actually a simple one...to have each of my new students in some way talk about me outside of class to someone else. It doesn't matter if they thought I was creepy or crazy or so off the wall that they have to call home—it's about the bond I formed when I called them by name. It's about them wanting to come back the second day to see what our class is all about. That's when you know you're going to succeed. The students know they are actual persons with names and not just another faceless young person in college.

I have a simple teaching philosophy that I practice each day. Due to time constraints I don't read any teaching journals or books, so I don't know if someone has coined the term before, but I call it a Teaching Triad. Each day I believe in three interactions for my classes. The first is that I can teach my students; the second is the students can teach each other; and the third and most important is my students can teach me. They teach me so many things. I wasn't raised on a farm, but our students that raise food for you and me have taught and continue to teach me a lot about farming. Sometimes they teach me about life as well. The second day of AGR 140, I asked who believes they can change the world. There was some mumbling, but I distinctly heard that someone believed he could. After a second query, Jarod said he could. I thought he was going to say he would develop a new crop that would cure all the world's health problems, but he said it could be as simple as not choosing to drink and drive...thus saving some innocent family from great loss. This third aspect plays out time and time again in class. Dianna is in my AGR 160 Horticulture Science class. She is a non-traditional student and as everyone was introducing themselves the first day, she said she had been through one career in life and wanted a change. She's here studying habitat conservation, construction and restoration thus making my class an elective for her BIS degree. On the second day of class I used her story to reach the rest of my students on the real purpose of their college education...to find a career that you can feel passionate about each and every day you wake up. I applaud the Diannas of the world who are not afraid to make a difference in their own lives. And as a teacher you can't be afraid to make a difference in your students. By listening, I do learn, and everyone in the triad benefits.

I stood in front of 16 Agriculture Education majors in the AGR 360 Greenhouse Management and Production lab on that first Thursday and asked, "So you want to be like me?" We then proceeded to discuss the traits of a good teacher. Dr. Morgan would have been proud of them. They used terms like compassionate, sincere, knowledgeable, and yes, Amber even said fun. Most of them were in my lab because a high school teacher had made a difference in their lives. We have such tremendous responsibility to the young people in our classes that sometimes it's just plain scary. We have to be educators, but at other times we need to be surrogate parents, role models, and yes, at times even cheerleaders and entertainers.

When do we start making a difference in their lives? A couple desks in front of Dianna was a young woman named Erin from the other Nashville. She wasn't sure what direction her college career was going to take; it was either between her declared major of agriculture education or horticulture. By day's end Erin had officially changed majors to horticulture. We didn't even really talk about horticulture the first day, so what did I do to change her life? I simply cared that she was in my class, and I let her know she was important enough to know her name.

My favorite writing is What is Success? by Ralph Waldo Emerson. The last few lines state: to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived; this is to have succeeded.

Teaching excellence is getting to know your students and making a personal difference in their lives and letting them make one in yours. To have the Joshs call you Doc long after they have graduated and phone when they get the new job in Florida. It's the Connallys that allow your daughter to be the flower girl at her wedding and let you be in the hospital room hours after the birth of her first child. It's the Philips that just call to say hi and ask if you want to play golf. It's the Kellys and Jills who support you when you arrive at a new university and believe in you from day one. It's the non-traditional students like Kath that grow everyday and show everyone around her that being a good, honest person is the best thing in life. It's about the Sarahs who make sure they come see you when they hear you're in the store and have that ear-to-ear smile. It's about the Erics who open their doors in Macon, GA to let your family stay while on their vacation trip back and forth to Disney World. It's about the Justins who shine beyond everyone's expectations and become the outstanding student in Agriculture. It's the Jasons who will simply be great horticulturists and change the appearance of our world. It's about the Kris-Anns who come to MSU wanting an associate's degree and end up starting their master's this semester after receiving national acclaim...and who also think enough to nominate you for awards I probably don't deserve.

I have never been to a senior breakfast before this past May 4th...I'm always teaching that morning. (Sorry, Dr. Brockway. I just have to give the underclassmen one last lecture.) I was impressed to see all the students there, but I was also more impressed to see faculty all dressed up waiting on the students. (There is another example of teaching excellence!) I was sitting with my eight seniors simply because they wanted me there. The next thing I know my name was called out as the Student Government Association's Max Carmen Outstanding Teaching of the Year recipient. Few events have humbled me more. Besides my wedding to Pati, the birth of my daughter Tara, the death of my parents, and having Dr. Z drape the hood over my head on the Texas A&M University stage, this will be a memory I have until my mind no longer functions. Some there probably said who is that? Others said it's the horticulture guy! All I know is after being here just four years, I can't rest on reaching the top, otherwise I have only one place to go.

As I look up and see the photos of my students and me at graduation above my desk at home as I write this run-on sentence Saturday morning at 5:30A.M., I realize why I teach. It's for the students who want a photo with me in my long black dress and French pastry hat after graduation where I hollered out their names from the front few rows because I wanted to be there and did not have to be there. It's for the parents who are so happy you have taken care of and guided their sons and daughters through college that they give you a ham. It's for the first day of classes when you meet your new freshman and hope that one day they will want to take a photo with you as well.

In closing I want to say a couple of thanks. Thanks to my peers and bosses in the School of Agriculture who, despite our few numbers and many students, continue to make a difference each day, and thanks also for allowing me the freedom to oversee our horticulture program. Thanks to CTLT for your continued commitment to improve teaching here and for bringing in Dr. Ricky Cox. And lastly, thanks to Dr. Cox for giving me all those gentle reminders that I volunteered many weeks ago to write this article for him. Writing this article brought on a flood of wonderful memories I have gathered at Murray State University in my short stay, and wow, what a wonderful way to start my day.