By Chelsea Hennessy
The Clarence Day Award for Outstanding Teaching is no small matter at Rhodes College. Twenty-one years later we are featuring it! Along with recognition comes a substantial stipend. So what does it take to win? Three years of positive student evaluations, colleague assessments, and creative pedagogy are required. The love and admiration of students and faculty is not easily won–just look at ratemyprof.com. In 1988, Terry Hill won.
A near-resident of Frasier Jelke, Professor Hill’s talents certainly lie in the sciences. He teaches the infamous Intro to Bio, sure to yield a nervous glance of apprehension amongst first-year students. Although Professor Hill isn’t one of those so-called “warm and fuzzy teachers,” core biology is actually one of his favorite classes.
“I’m working with students who are absolutely brand new to college, several of whom are about to make some big mistakes because they are clueless to a meaningful degree about what college holds for them. Those students are about to come up hard against it first here with me. I’m in a position to try not necessarily to steer them around the train wreck, but to give them enough warning so that when they do encounter the trouble, then it doesn’t come as a complete shock. The majority however, simply need some guidance and good strategies.” Those harangued sighs about core biology don’t last forever. By the course’s end, the students “aren’t necessarily perfectly firmly grounded, willing to accept their imperfections and willing to buckle down, but at least they are on the right path,” Hill says.
Eventually students reach the upper level, at which point they are met by a completely different experience. Advanced cell biology is no walk in the park, but for Professor Hill, imparting the intricacies of his specialty is quite rewarding. “That’s my area, I do my research there. I get to not just teach students the facts of cell bio but also to show them how it is that one discovers things about cells. That is the fundamental difference between a professor and a teacher— a professor is out there discovering things. It’s very satisfying to be able to play the proper role of professor.”
These science veterans realize what is coming and learn to recognize the value of their lectures. “He is the best lecturer I’ve ever had. It’s incredible really; the lectures are so precise and calculated. You could probably survive without the book, and they are each perfectly timed to the minute,” says Caroline Lee ’11.
Professor Hill is responsible (at least in part) for the first-year transformation, as well as the continued senior passion long after the novelty is gone. The Clarence day award simply paid tribute to his achievement. He admits, “I do a good job. There are lots of different ways to do a good job; many of them are the kinds of things that don’t get noticed. Mine is one that does get noticed. So I’d say like almost all professors here I have certain kinds of gifts and I was lucky enough to find myself in an area in which they could be used and they happen to not be the quiet gifts.”