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Modest
mentor earns students’ respect
In a big family, there’s no room for a big head, jokes David
Descutner, the youngest of five children. That explains why he’s
ambivalent about accolades and other types of public recognition,
even photos.
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Rick
Fatica
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| David
Descutner |
Alumni,
though, were happy to point with pride to the professor of interpersonal
communication this past fall when he became the first recipient
of the College of Communication’s L.J. Hortin Faculty Mentor
Award. Descutner was nominated by former students who’ve known
him as a professor, interim director and graduate studies director
in the School of Interpersonal Communication.
Created and supported by Tom Kuby, BSJ ’55, the annual award
is named for Loren Joseph Hortin, professor of journalism from 1947
to 1967.
“Dr. Hortin showed me how to tap my greatest potential, release
it and nurture it in others,” says Kuby, who wants to recognize
other teachers who go that extra mile by mentoring their students.
Descutner would deny he has done anything “extra” during
his 22 years of teaching at Ohio University. He would say that as
a 48-year-old academic, he does the same things he did as a 10-year-old
on the playgrounds of Midland, Pa.: He makes friends across racial,
class and gender lines and cares a lot about the people in his life.
In his childhood town near Pittsburgh, Descutner noticed early on
that his African-American buddies were punished more frequently
and severely, rarely called upon in class and not encouraged to
attend college. Through his sisters and mother, he became aware
of similar, if subtler, injustices that women face.
Descutner came to realize that education is the best medium for
challenging prejudice. He inspires students to reflect critically
on the ways that social ideas, prejudices and motives shape culture,
to be skeptical of themselves and open to others’ views and
to consider how their everyday actions contribute to or challenge
cultural patterns.
Through the years, his impact on students has earned him the Provost’s
Teaching Recognition Award, two University Professor Awards, the
Honors Tutorial College’s Outstanding Tutor Award and four
nominations for the Outstanding Graduate Faculty honor.
But it is his students’ success, not his own, that thrills
Descutner.
“When I see students about to make big mistakes, I tell them,”
he says. “You learn nothing but resentment from failure, and
it matters to me that they do well once they get out there.”
— Anne McGuinness Keyser
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