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William Day Frederick Hagerman Stephen Hays, James Andrews Steve Hays Rodney Hood Seldon Strother Jack Matthews L.J. Hortin Gerald Dykstra Victor Whitehouse, Albert Gubitz, Gerald Dykstra Donald Clippinger Robert DeMott Walt Abendroth Edgar Whan, David Keck, Jeff Connor Seabury Quinn Ronald Socciarelli, Harold Robison, James Stewart Guido Stempel Father John Augustiniak Robin Lacy Robert Baker Waltraud Bald Janet Slater Karen Nulf Robert Winters Richard Danner, Dru Evarts, Daniel Keyes Hugh Bloemer Ralph Kliesch Art Marinelli Jr. Paul Hersey

Richard Danner, Dru Evarts, Daniel Keyes Good wasn't good enough In response to your "Who is your favorite prof?" request, I'd like to tell you about three that had a great impact in three very different ways. First, (Professor Emeritus of Modern Languages) Richard Danner combined wit with extremely demanding standards. When students were signing up for classes, people would say, "You don't want Danner, he's too tough." Indeed, those students were right. You had to have your homework done every day and be prepared to answer in class. His grading scale was a wake-up call to most students. No English could be spoken in the class (you even had to "um" in French ‹ which is "ur"). And his tests were hard. But each quarter for two years, about 95 percent of the students in our class would return for the next quarter in his class ‹ often working their schedules around his class. The bottom line was that students can, and will, rise to high expectations. But just as importantly, we were learning French and were light-years more proficient than many of our non-Danner peers. He had a friendly, yet demanding, demeanor that not only inspires me to write to you, but I have written to him over the years, thanking him for his high expectations. Dru Evarts, journalism professor in the College of Communications, was another demanding teacher. I had her for news editing, one of the make-or-break classes in the journalism sequence. This class was four hours long on a Monday night, and you were not allowed to make mistakes. (Talk about headaches after class!) One misspelled word was an automatic "C" ‹ as long as it was not a formal name, in which case it was an "F," also the case for any factual error. Now this was the standard for all upper-level journalism classes, and what makes her class stand out was that when I got a job in Washington, D.C., right out of college, work was identical to that Monday night class. Because of that class and Dru Evarts, I went to a job that would have overwhelmed many people, but I jumped right in with exacting standards that impressed my veteran co-workers. Finally, as a journalism student, I made sure that I was writing extensively each quarter. So when I had journalism classes of a more technical nature (history of journalism, ethics, law, layout, etc.), I always made sure to take a creative writing class. I was fortunate to be able to take those classes with (Professor Emeritus of English) Daniel Keyes three quarters. During my first quarter with Keyes, he had just sold the French play rights to "Flowers for Algernon." Here was a world-renowned author still making money on a book he had written 20 years earlier. But more importantly, here was a master of the craft of writing sharing wisdom with students. And while he encouraged students to stay within certain rules of good fiction writing, he encouraged "writing outside the box." And after all, here was a man whose first book completely redefined the way a novel could be written. At the same time, he was writing "Unveiling Claudia: A True Story of Serial Murder" and shared with us what the realities of that process were. "Unveiling Claudia" was the second of his nonfiction books exploring multiple personalities, with the first being the highly acclaimed "The Minds of Billy Milligan." So for students who wanted to write books, you could not have a better person to critique your writing while at the same time sharing the realities of the publishing business. These were three very different teachers with very different styles. However, they shared a common thread, and that was the absolute belief that "good enough is not good enough" and that anything short of full mastery of your task was unacceptable. After all, we were not high school students in need of hand-holding when the times got tough, we were college students (and OU students to boot), and we needed to be prepared for a world that does not pull its punches. Every day, I am thankful for the talented educators I had at Ohio University. Steve Maag, BSJ '86 Matthews, N.C.