Carl Huether

Carl Huether: I think the teaching models have affected that students, by and large, pretty negatively. And I think you’ve probably still does. The lecture model has been around for an awful lot of— ever since the institute institutes of higher education came into existence. But I think it was particularly valid in the 60s and 70s. Certainly, the training that I had as a grad student, for preparation for being an assistant professor was essentially zero in terms of teaching. The entire emphasis for my five years of graduate work, were— was on research, I did a master’s degree at NC State on quantitative genetics, did not teach five minutes that for that two year master’s. I was out on a fellowship that— for my PhD at Davis, California, and only the last quarter that I was there, I volunteered to be a TA in a genetics class, just to have some sense. And so with nothing more than that, I came to the institution and was teaching three classes the first quarter. Just unbelievably crazy. And it’s still amazing to me, today, that we do so little, in preparing students for a faculty position, we have a program called Preparing Future Faculty here that’s been in existence at UC for about 20 years. Most institutions don’t have one, but we do. And it’s a fantastic program, except that very few, relatively speaking, very few graduates to take advantage, there might be 20 certificates per year that are provided through the training of that program. And we graduate, maybe, I don’t know, hundreds of graduate students. So the percentage is quite small. So, I would say in the last 20 years, we’ve done a lot better in many classes. And we are doing that because we have a organization called the Academy of Fellows, for Teaching and Learning, which is dedicated to improving teaching, we have the Center for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning. And that too, is committed to improving teaching. And there are more and more models where it’s, it’s an exchange of ideas among the students and faculty member, rather than what we’re doing now. Which is just, you know, the equivalent of a lecture. So I’ll stop. [Laughs] Is just a kind of thing you’re looking for? I mean, can we dialogue? O are you just gonna sit and listen?

RL: We’ll ask you, you mentioned the PRS system, and you said that it was brought in like a decade before you retired, and it fundamentally changed how you taught. So it was like a mini lecture. Like he said, it was sort of like an exchange of ideas between students. And I think that’s interesting, because we like, still use it now. And in my freshman bio class, we used that, we like created groups. So did you feel that that like, definitely helps change the dynamic of the classrooms?

CH: Absolutely. Changed the dynamic enormously because it got the students actively involved. Some students don’t like it yet to this day, but it’s a wonderful opportunity for student engagement. Did you have Dr. Brian Kinkel? You did? And he used it pretty regularly. And he got you into small groups. So I think this is a wonderful model. I don’t know whether history does it.

FC: We do that a lot. Also.

CH: Do you?

FC: Yeah.

CH: That’s great. Well, you did have you had it too, Kate?.

KD: I don’t have any experience with it. But my friend is a nursing major and she always talked about using it.

CH: So it’s developed the idea that I created out of it was a mini model of lecturing, maybe 10 minutes or so where, try to get a one or two major points across, and then ask a couple of questions through the personal response system. And if the students got 75, 80% of them were on board, then we simply went on if 40% of it didn’t understand it, then I’d say ‘okay, break into your groups, talk about it, and come up with the right answer.’ And that was students teaching other students and it wasn’t just a matter that one student would say, ‘listen, you dominated? The answer is D, forget it, and I’ll tell them,’ but it really was a matter of what, what, what does this mean, and someone would explain it, and maybe sometimes they get it wrong, some groups would, would be clueless at the end. But then we would ask someone to explain what, what the answer. So I think it’s a terrific model. Do— did you have any idea what percentage of classes use it today?

FC: I think most of us in the history department use some version of, you know, combining lecture and small group, small group work. I think very few history, faculty do a straight ahead, just straight lectures anymore. But you’re right. That’s how I was — I— you know, I came to graduate school. My first teaching experience was a summer course, three and a third weeks, cram everything that you’d usually teach in a quarter and a three and a third weeks. And no one gave me any training. It’s like, thrown off the deep end. Swim. Good luck.

CH: Yeah, it’s that old model that as long as you know your subject, you should be able to convey all of the appropriate information to students. And, and it’s a model that, by and large, has not worked. And I’m really, appalled that institutes of higher ed haven’t understood the value of a different kind of teaching model, getting a much better handle on how students learn.

KD: So besides the PRS, what were other things that changed while you were at the university? So like, the, by the student body, the faculty, the community relationships, the physical changes?

CH: Well, I guess one thing is that we went from a municipal institution of maybe 15, or 20,000, to a state institution of now 45,000. So that was a substantial difference, our classes got much bigger. I did not feel nearly as good about the relationships I had with students. Over the last 20 years, compared to my first 20 years, we had class sizes of 25, 35, maybe 40, which were certainly reasonable. And I could get the chance to really interact, students who are coming in much more regularly to see me, to talk with me, to ask questions about the materials and genuinely trying to understand the material. The last 20 years, I felt that was much, much less. Now one problem was I was teaching classes of 50, 60, 70— 200, 300. So my, my, I was in different classes. But the size, I think, had a tremendously negative impact. And I could, you know— hours, but I would be in my, my office hours, week after week after week and not see a single student. Did you go in to see Brian Kinkel?

RL: I did go in to see him a few times.

CH: A couple of times during the during the semester.

RL: Yes.

CH: And of course, we were a 10 week quarter versus a 15 week semester then. And you went in primarily to understand something or because there were some technical issues?

RL: I went in Actually, there was a project that we were doing a biology lab, and I needed help with it. So I went in and asked him about it. And then there was another time where I didn’t understand something in the lectures and I had to go and talk to him about it.

CH: Good. other classes did you go in as well?

RL: For my chemistry classes, I’ve been in the office hours, but that’s pretty much it.

CH: Kate?

KD: M— the classes I’ve been have been like smaller classes. So I didn’t like go to a lot of office hours just because I could ask my teacher before or after class just because I think due to the class sizes.

CH: Okay, all right. So do we need to say more about that aspect? I don’t know whether I’m answering your questions. But I’m trying to get you guys to participate.

RL: I will say that I think it’s a lot easier for us to communicate with our teachers outside of office hours, because we can really shoot them an email, or sometimes a text message. So we don’t always need to go to office hours, especially when it’s nasty cold outside like this, you don’t want to get out of your room.

CH: Yeah, that’s a good point. Very true. I have to say, I don’t really remember getting that many emails from students, either, once we’ve, we’ve came into the new modern era. But then, you know, I would say that the fundamental change was Blackboard. Blackboard allow just a totally different concept, the idea that you could present your PowerPoint presentations to the students via Blackboard before class, and that at least a reasonable number of students came into the class either with a copy of it, or with the computer where they got it. I think that was another fundamental change. So you could really get a lot of that information without having to write everything down.

RL: Do you remember what Blackboard like, came into play? At UC?

CH: Oh, gosh.

RL: At least relative to when you retired?

CH: What would you guess? 1990? Something like that?

FC: Um no, it was I— So I was in graduate school, I got my doctorate in 93. The first email system we had was— the first time I remember using an email system here was 1995. And it was a very primitive mainframe kind of email, that you all wouldn’t have ever had to deal with it. It was awful. Blackboard, probably not. Until the late 90s,

CH: Late 90s.

FC: I remember.

CH: That makes sense.

FC:

One year teaching once a week, in a winter quarter. And I had— we had— it was on Monday, I’m sorry, I missed. We didn’t have Martin Luther King Day. So we mess and then the next week, there was a snowstorm at school was called off. So I didn’t meet with the students for two weeks. And we didn’t have email. So I think we— I met with the students, I might have met with the students twice, we had two weeks off because of the holiday and the snow. And then we picked up again. So it would have been the fifth week of class halfway, almost halfway through the quarter. And there was no way for me to contact the students.

CH: Yeah. So you’re probably right, maybe the late 90s. And obviously PRS came in after that, although probably not a long time after. So the two fundamental technologic changes, in my view, the ability to give the students the information outside of class, and PRS. And we had a faculty member in the English department named Barbara Walvoord. She eventually left went to Notre Dame. But her model was to get the students to have most of the content outside of the classroom, and then just get into a conversation about material. She was— happened to be teaching check Shakespeare, so they would listen to all of their videos, etc. outside of class, and that was a model that that really, I think, is one that we should try to emulate. And we try to do it now. Because after all, getting the students to clarify their understanding of materials in the classroom makes a whole lot more sense than sitting there and looking at the video. And so another thing we could do through Blackboard was to give not only our PowerPoints, but I would show video— provide videos for them as well through there. So those those were transformational, I think, and fundamentally different than the 60s, 70s, and 80s. I remember I got my first Mac computer in 82 or 83, little SE-2, wasn’t worth a damn but that was the beginning of the— and then as Fritz said, we didn’t get in there for another 15 years or so.

RL: So how did like you see in the area around Cincinnati compared to where you were living in California? So what were some of the similarities and differences like racism, gender roles and classmates?

CH: Say that again, Rachel.

RL: like the differences between UC and where you lived around Cincinnati, compared to where you were living in California.

CH: Okay, so Davis, California was a town of about 30,000, compared to 450 at that time here in Cincinnati, Cincinnati is now less than 300. But at that time, it was 4— 450 to 500. And Davis, California’s, which is now and was then a university school with an enormous amount of biking. So we lived in the town of Davis, but that was still only 10 minutes away in my standard routine would be to bike where it’s here in Cincinnati. first few years anyway, we lived 15 miles from campus, and so very different circumstances. Well, Davis, California, all of California, compared to Ohio, you probably know— California has so much progress— progressive thinking. And 10 years later, it will come to, to Ohio and to Cincinnati. What was the Will Rogers saying that he wanted to be in Cincinnati when the earth came to an end, because they were always 10 years later than, than anyplace else. And, and I think that was true, then. And unfortunately, by and large, it’s true now, even though democrats control the council a lot more, there’s still so much conservatism in it.

RL: Okay, so um, sorry. So when you return to cin— so when you return to Cincinnati after being in California for the 11 years, was there any reason that like, Is there any reason that stuck out in your mind or made you glad to be back in Cincinnati?

CH: Family relationships, almost exclusively. That’s what brought us back. Our four parents, we’re here. And we have been away for that 11 years, not all in California, just three years in California. But sure, that was the biggest thing by far. Although I thought the University of Cincinnati was an exciting place. It was so much fun to be in a department of faculty with 11 or 12 colleagues, who fundamentally respected each other, worked together, we used to have a little thing where if you had your door closed, you were working on your research or teaching. If a colleague could take his key and just tap on the door, and that would immediately say, ‘come on in’ because that’s the kind of relationship that was developed. I don’t— the last 20 or 30 years was fundamentally different than that as we grew to a department of 25 members rather than 11 or 12. All of that closeness and camaraderie dissipated. Sadly, in my opinion. I don’t know if that got pretty to your question.

RL: What is your favorite part place in our memory of Cincinnati or UC

CH: Gee, I don’t— I know I answered these questions before [laughs]. Well, again, I think relationships, faculty relationships, student relationship, I still keep in touch with a surprising number of grad students. I’m sure it Fritz in both faculty members do the same way. So singularly, I would answer that is due to faculty, camaraderie, social interactions. I mean, after all, that’s an awful lot of what education is about, what universities about, what life is about.

KD: You, um, can you talk more about your involvement with like, the programs at UC, I know, you mentioned that you were— sorry— that you mentioned like you were the acting vice provost, the Associate Dean and the Director of Honors in the McMicken College of Arts and Sciences and to just talk about that.

CH: Sure. And it’s nice because you’re both in the Honors Program now. When I was the director— and let me go back and tell you that my recollection is the Honors program started, I was at 74 to 77, a guy named Hal Fishbein ran it 71 to 74. He was a faculty member in, in psychology. And then it was created with a fellow in physics named Bill Joiner. So I think he took it over— he created or, it was it was created in 1968. I think that’s correct. And at that time, it was strictly an Arts and Sciences honors program, not a university wide, and there might have been 60 to 80, members of the honors program. And when I was there, from 74, to 77, I really wanted to expand it to a university base. And I’m happy to say I think we clearly moved it in that direction. But it was still small enough that we would have the honors students down to our home, we lived in Clifton at that point. And it was a terrific opportunity to get a chance to know the students. And we went away. There were other honors programs in the state of Ohio. So we would typically go to state parks, and we would spend the weekend— getting to know the other honors students in the other universities. Do you do that now?

KD: There is like an honors retreat at the beginning of the year, as well as like, there’s like different opportunities to like, meet other people, but it’s like, specifically in the University of Cincinnati on there’s not like, throughout Ohio.

CH: Okay, um, and tell me how you participate in honors today.

RL: So with the Honors Program, for the university, you have to meet certain requirements, like every year, you have to have an honors experience. And that can be anything from like creating your own to— like, so if you go on a mission trip, and you want to make it an honors experience, like it’s mainly about reflection, I would say. And so like you experience it, and then you reflect on it, and then you present it. And there are some that are— what are some of the ones?

KD: I know like specifically for I went on like an it’s called Leadershape. Yeah. And it’s like an honors retreat in the first week of winter break. So that was in a way— and that was also a way to, like meet other students in the Honors Program. And there’s also like, I guess, I recently got accepted into the Honors Ambassadors, so you can go to like the gateway— oh, used to take a class called Gateway to University Honors. And that’s like, where you just learn more about the honors program as a whole as well, as you develop your learning portfolio. So we have like, a website where we like showcase everything we’ve done.

CH: What is Honors Ambassador?

KD: Um, it’s kind of like, I guess, just like a regular school ambassador, but specifically for the honors program. So like, we help out at like, the gateway classes, the different events, so we would like help lead, like their daughter’s retreat in summer, or like in the fall, and then we also help out just like the different Honors events, like throughout the year.

CH: Do you go to high schools as an ambassador?

KD: I don’t believe we do.

CH: How many honors students are there today?

RL: Oh gosh, I have no idea.

KD: That’s a good question.

CH: I, I’m betting that they’re close to 1000.

KD: I would guess that there is. We could search that.

CH: You’re going to look that up? [Laughs}

FC: That’s a major technological change right there. That you can— you can just get those answers right away.

CH: Yech. Well, while you’re doing that, that’s, that’s one of the things that come up in all classes. I hope now, certainly, before I retired, I remember there were some questions a student asked that I couldn’t answer. And somebody would look it up while we were sitting in class. So I think that’s a tremendous aspect. And you guys are so good at that now.

RL: To go back, when you asked me about are going to like office hours, I feel like a lot of my questions I can find like the answers on Blackboard or I can like easily email one of my professors. So like just the whole, like, technology has really changed.

CH: Well, do you miss the fact that you’re not interacting with them? I mean, one of the reasons that students early on particularly would come in what some, I think unfairly called brown-nosing was that they were looking for a capacity to get letters of recommendation, because an awful lot of biology majors, in the first 20 years or so, the standard way to get into med school was to be a biology major. That’s changed dramatically, now. You can be an English major just as well as a biology. But at that point, everybody— Caducea was a big pre med society, and people understood early on that you had to have the right kind of recommendations. So I don’t know whether you guys worry about that now,

KD: For my major specific classes, I feel like my biggest class has only been like, maybe like 30 to 40 people. So it’s like, I feel like I still get to know the professor just because of like, the class sizes. Like being— I mean, I guess 3040 is like kind of big, but like, they’re kind of like, smaller. And like, since I’m a communication major, often the classes are very interactive. So like, the teachers will ask us questions— or the professors will ask us questions and like, we share like personal experiences. And I feel like I get to know the professor’s better. Like they get to

CH: Yeah, things like public speaking.

KD: Public speaking, or like the interpersonal communication, you have to like talk about like your relationship. So you kind of like you learn more about the professor as well, as they learn about you.

CH: Well. And you both take special topics, honors, specials, always classes like this one. That’s exactly right. I’m happy to say that we were the originators of that special topics, honors class during the 74 to 77 period. And I think it’s been a wonderful model. At that point, when we originated it, there was no money available to give to departments in order to encourage them to do it. But now, it’s not a minor amount of money. That is encouraging students. Anyway, you have to take x number of honors classes, x number of experiences. And it would be fun to figure out what percentage of students who are in the Honors Program actually graduate with honors, and I suspect is substantially less than the number of students who are actually in the program.

KD: well, you have to get five experiences while you’re in college. And it’s like— but some, like, if you study abroad, that’s like two experiences. So I think it kind of like depends what you do, because I feel like they are easier to get than you would think if you like— because a lot of the things that like, like, I guess a lot of different things that people are already doing can count as honors experiences, they just need to fill out the like form in order to like it. Or like just, I know that like, I have to take like, two years of English. So like my second year of English counted— they offered it like the honors program. So it was like easier to get experience. So I wonder how many people graduate with honors.

CH: You have any idea how many special topics courses are being offered, in any a given semester?

RL: I have no idea.

KD: I think it’s probably around like, maybe— I, I’m just guessing, obviously. But like maybe 10 because there’s like different. Like the study abroad once you like take a class for a semester. And then you go like, so one was like to Cuba. I know my friends have gone to like Iceland. So I think they offer at least five of those.

RL: Yeah.

KD: A semester.

RL: Study tour months?

KD: Yeah, yeah, study tours.

RL: So they go over like the first week of winter break or over spring break.

CH: Oh, I see. So it’s not for an entire semester.

RL: No.

CH: It’s only for a week. And you take the semester of course beforehand. About Iceland, presumably. So go for a week. Oh, that’s pretty derivative. Sounds like a nice idea. Are you both going to do it.

KD: Hopefully. I don’t know, though. Because you have to bet like it’s a certain amount of money. Sometimes. I know, the honors program does, like, offer like grants. So but it’s like you wouldn’t have to put your own towards this financial.

RL: I did find a number for the honors program for the 15, 16 process. They had 172 applications. And 102 students were admitted. So about 100 for each incoming class, I guess

CH: Wow. So that’s much lower than I thought. That means there’s only maybe 400 in the in the program.

RL: Probably less when people like drop it once they get older if they can’t stay in the program.

CH: Yeah, yes. There’s certainly— there was a dropout rate that many years ago and probably a dropout rate now. But we didn’t mind. That was you could be in the Honors Program. Even if you didn’t graduate with the accolade of honors. It was okay. As long as you took advantage of what you felt was important for you. But I— it sounds like there’s an awful lot of good opportunity. You wonder why. Only 172— my gosh. How many students aren’t there something like 4000 freshmen at— or at least five or 6000 freshmen at UC?

FC: That sounds about right.

CH: So why only 172 of them? I mean, the, the requirements for getting in are not that difficult. What, what, what are they? 1200 SAT or 30?

RL: 3.2 GPA and then

CH: Well, heck these days. Who doesn’t have a 3.2 GPA? And is probably graduating from college even.

KD: Well, I’m wondering if like the numbers higher, because you can be like, well, I guess was it like I’m a transition student. So I wasn’t admitted my first semester of freshman year, but I like applied and got accepted my second semester freshman year. So I’m wondering if the number is higher, like, just if you include the transition students instead of just like, people who got accepted directly?

CH: So we don’t know, Rachel, have your 172. How many of those might have been transition students. Yeah. Well, it’s interesting. I mean, that says that there’s a fair amount of competition if they if they only take more or less one out of two. But

RL: So, sort of changing gears, but what interested you about botany and then what made you go into genetics afterwards?

CH: I was interested in botany, mostly because my parents, my dad was a horticultural buff. He sold printing ink as, as a business, but he loved the orchard kind of work. We had a two acre piece of property in Clifton, and we had many fruit trees and grew a lot of vegetables. So I grew up in that atmosphere. And I went to Ohio State in the College of Agriculture, to be a horticulturalist. And it wasn’t until my junior year that I took a course, in genetics, and general genetics, just like that, I changed completely what I was interested in and took every single course in genetics that I could take at Ohio State. But remember, now this is 55, to 59. And in 1953, we learned from Watson and Crick, that DNA was the basis of heredity. And, you know, now you think of that you learned this, this in the fifth grade. But it was only in my years in— genetics I took in 57. But it was not known that much anything about DNA. And we were just really trying to find out about replication of it, the structure of it and that kind of thing. So, I was committed to genetics. And at least an example, then, of how my undergraduate career fundamentally changed my life, fundamentally, and one course did it. I couldn’t get enough of genetics. And I loved the fact that— there was strictly lecture then, of course— but the instructor would give us all kinds of problems sets to take home, and, and get the answers do and then he would put the answers in the library. Now, of course, you get them online, as I did, but when I was teaching, but it was just a thrill for me to go into the library and look at all of the questions that I would answer and get my answers compare. And when I— it was almost more fun to miss it, rather than to get it correct. Because I really— oh, what is this that I didn’t understand? And again, at that time, it was the faculty member was readily available at Ohio State. And so I would often ‘hey, this is the number 14, I just don’t understand how you got it.’ And what an excitement it was. It was learning as best is what— and to this to my entire 40 years, I wanted to do exactly the same thing with my biology classes. So putting problem sets into the system was a fundamental for me. It really was exciting. And do you have that in biology does, does Brian do that now?

RL: I’m not a biology anymore. I only took the one semester.

CH: Well yeah, you took the one semester.

RL: He did. He did the PRS questions, but he didn’t do anything

CH: outside of class problems?

RL: Yeah, not really

CH: Interesting, but you really like the way he taught his class.

RL: I did.

CH: And why don’t you describe a little bit about— Do you know, Kate, how Kinkel teaches biology 101, 2 and 3?

RL: I don’t— so, what he does is he gives you a few sections of the textbook to read and then he did these things called learning outcomes. So he has like his goals for what he wants to teach you for the day or for the class period. And so you would go through your textbook, and it wasn’t mandatory to write them down or anything, but it really helps. Because when you went to class you already knew, like, if you had notes, then you like, had the information in front of you already, in your own words. So as soon as you would walk in, you sit down with your groups, you take out your little PRS clicker, you’ll put up like five questions on the board. And you would do those individually without your notes. And then he would go over the answers. And you could ask questions if you needed to. And then he, like went through some slides. And then he would occasionally throw in a question where we could do it with our groups, but you would still have to answer individually. And then he had these little Scantron sheets, and he would give you a question to do with your group. And then you would like scratch off the answers like A, B, C, D, or E. And if you’d like, scratched off, and it wasn’t the right answer, and then you just had to keep on scratching it off until you found the right one. But that would be like a group score, but you would get like individual work and group work and the combination of both of them. And it was just a lot of interaction between people. And it was a lot of fun, honestly.

CH: Probably more so than any other class you’ve taken.

RL: Yeah.

CH: Yeah.

RL: Biology wasn’t my favorite subject, but it definitely made it fun to go to.

CH: So it’s a great example of an interactive model. And I think he’s using the technologic capabilities very nicely. He’s giving you the assignments beforehand. I showed Blackboard as a part of that PRS an important part of it. And so he’s lecturing a very small amount of time, during any given class period.

RL: Yeah. And I think that helps them because a lot of people zone out very easily, that when you’re interacting more, it makes it easier to focus, you know,

CH: Do you get a sense, Rachel, that most students like it? Or would they just assume sit back, be passive listen to a lecture?

RL: I think some people would rather just have a lecture because it makes it easier to skip class. But for the people who are in majors, that are like, especially like competitive, like med school majors, and people who want to go to pharmacy school or grad school those places. I think they’re more, they like it a lot more because they can learn more, I think that seems to be what actually happens.

CH: So, so you’re suggesting that maybe the, the obviously, the more motivated to learn the one that’s more interested in learning would like it, the one that’s less interested in learning, which is some sit back. But to that degree to, I would hope that it would encourage the lesser motivated to really get excited about that enough to where they might participate.

KD: Yeah, also, obviously, remember, information. When you’re done with the class, you don’t just like completely forget it, you know, it sticks in here.

RL: And then the learning outcomes help too, because it wasn’t just like a lecture, you get lectured in class, and then you have homework and then you’re done with it. You have to like go through the textbook yourself, like learning the materials outside of class, put it in your own words.

CH: Well, you see, that’s very much the model that I was suggesting Barbara Walvoord with her Shakespeare, he’s wanting you to learn the material outside of class through a ver—variety of ways. Blackboard, his notes, your textbook, and then using the interactive model while in class. I took

KD: A couple education classes last semester. And that was actually one of our biggest focuses was we I’m blanking on the name right now. But like, that’s like, one of the things we learned was like, it works best if you give the students the material outside of classes, have them learn on their own. And then in class, you do the activities.

RL: Is it the flipped classroom?

KD: Yeah.

RL: Okay. I did something like that in my high school classes, too. They would post videos online, and then you learn it outside and go back in and talk.

CH: It’s called the flipped classroom. Yeah, that’s right. Well, Fritz it a model that, that historians are using more and more?

FC: To some extent, I stopped lecturing in 2012. I was a good lecturer. And it worked well for me. For those five students who are paying attention. But I was teaching a intro to US history class. And so the those five students who are always in the class who were paying attention, did well, and the rest of them look bored to tears. And I was getting bored. You know, this is like, I don’t know how many times I’ve given some version of that lecture. And I, you know— and there was beginning to be much more emphasis on interactive learning, and I took one the— you know, I went to a seminar after the end of the, after the end of that school year, where we talked about how to do more interactive teaching. I had already done some interactive teaching in some upper level classes that worked really well. You know, so I had students assigned to, to, to come to class prepared to— their group would do the presentation or I would— we would interact and I would ask that group questions that they should know from having done the readings. And that seemed to work pretty well especially for the upper level classes. There I experimented with it a lot and you know, sometimes it seemed to work really well and other times, you know, larger classes sometimes didn’t as well.

CH: Yeah. But I think we’re certainly learning that that’s a much better model for student learning than the old model. I remember back in the 60s and 70s, we would use the old acetate, where you would roll it on— you have a overhead projector, and the acetates there and you write down the information that you’re trying to get across, and the student would record it in, in their notebook. And that’s the way the lecture went. We have to week— quarter after quarter. And such a tremendously different model allow, I think we have progressed enormously.

FC: I changed most of my, my lectures. So I usually wrote out a narrative didn’t necessarily follow it exactly. And so when I switch to a more interactive model, I went in and re edited those narratives, and then start posting them on Blackboard ahead of the class, along with the, the, you know, reading assignments in the textbooks. And I think that worked pretty well. So I, you know, I had moved pretty much to flipping the classroom.

CH: Yeah. That’s good. And you’re suggesting that a number of your colleagues in history, which I would have thought was probably one of the last places that might

FC: Well there are still some of us I think, who do at least part of their classes is straight ahead lectures. But we— I think, especially the younger faculty have, I think just, yeah, are sort of interactive. Doing interactive classrooms is native to them. That’s how they learned. They understand the technology, and feel really comfortable with it. So I think there’s, you know, as more and more of— of our— we have more and more newer faculty, I think that’s just really changing. So

CH: So this interactive model now the rule or the exception in your classes?

KD: I feel like it depends, because some of my classes seem to be more like a flipped classroom and others have been more just like actual lecture. I have a marketing minor. So my two business classes I’ve taken, just because of like the sheer size of the class, I think it’s like 275 to 400. They’ve been just like lecture is I think with like that amount of people. It’d be hard to do like a flipped classroom. But it sounds like your biology professor

CH: Kinkel’s classes. A couple hundred, isn’t it?

RL: Yeah, it’s in Zimmer auditorium, the big one. So it’s at least 150, 200. And the same with my chemistry class. That was a pretty big one too.

CH: That did you take only one biology semester?

RL: I only needed one credit. I want to do a pharmacy school after I graduated with my undergrad in chemistry. And I only needed one credit of biology. So I just did.

CH: Okay, good. No. So you’re going for a Pharm D? Terrific. Well, you’ll you’ll make a lot more money than faculty. Anyway. Okay, good. Thanks for your interactions on that.

RL: I have one more question. So we have like, LA is an SI. So like Supplemental Instruction and Learning Assistants, I guess. And in biology, my freshman bio class, we had LA’s that like walked around and help us. They would help us answer questions or we could ask them stuff if we needed to. And then our SI tutors, they, I don’t know if any of your classes have them.

KD: They don’t, but they don’t know what you’re talking about.

RL: So they create like worksheets and stuff outside of the classroom. So my chemistry class does it a lot. And there are like three or four of them. And they each have their individual session. So if you have a class during one of those sessions, you can go to a different one. And they just like go over the material that we went over in class. They have them like two times a week, was there anything like that?

CH: These are not connected with the lab just with the lecture?

RL: Just with the lecture.

CH: No, had nothing like that. In fact, we didn’t have TA’s in our lecture classes at all. One of the negative aspects of teaching it in my opinion at that point, particularly was all of the hours you spend grading exams. Without TA’s that’s a that’s a real challenge. Particularly in classes of 50 or 60. But no, we didn’t have that Rachel. And I that sounds like an excellent addition. But you haven’t seen that in your classes?

KD: No, but I also haven’t taken any science classes. So I have been— we haven’t had anything.

CH: Well. Yeah, I mean, in theory, you could use that model outside of science. Yeah, I haven’t

KD: I haven’t had anything like that for any of my classes. But I know a lot of my friends who have taken science classes, like constantly like to talk about how helpful it is to have that in side sessions.

RL: Yeah, it’s just like an extra little like, reinforcement, the material outside of class.

FC: For, for large history intro courses, the model now is pretty much the, the faculty member lectures twice a week. And then there are— then there are, I think they call them recitation sections with a graduate student and, and that’s intended to do what sounds like what you’re, you’re describing. So there’s, you know, a small group with the graduate student and a place to, you know, interact and ask questions and get a better idea of what’s going on.

RL: [Inaudible] classes have recitation sections too that we have to go to. So you get even more.

CH: Again, though, not with the lab component, but

RL: No, with just the just the lecture.

CH: Yeah. Well, that’s terrific. And in these essays in Las are presuming undergraduates, as well as graduates.

RL: Yeah. So our recitation instructors are normally graduate students that have taken the classes before from our professors. But the LA’s is and SI’s they can be undergraduate students, and they normally have taken the classic the previous year.

CH: Yeah, yeah.

FC: Interesting.

CH: I shouldn’t have so cavalierly said no. To your point about did we do that before? Because I actually remember a number of years where I had undergraduate students who had received A’s in the course the previous year, and asked them to be assistant TA’s is what I called them. And what we did was give them one or two academic credits for being involved. And it worked out beautifully. So that, yeah, I mean, I didn’t do that in all classes. I only did it in my genetics class, but it worked quite well there.

KD: Okay, well, I guess to go back, I guess backtracking to just like your involvement at UC, could you touch more on your— like what you did as the Associate Dean in the College of Arts and Sciences?

CH: Most of my role as Associate Dean, was to be the Director of Honors. I had an unbelievable title that I’m not sure I can repeat, but I think it was Associate Dean for Educational Innovations. Associate Dean for Educational Innovations and Director of Honors. The innovation and— in education, never got off the ground, I spent practically all of my time with the Honors Program. At that time, we had only one Associate Dean, and at that I was the one and others for me and after me. Now, of course, the Director of Honors is a is a provostial position, not a College of Arts and Sciences position. And there are many more associate deans in Arts and Sciences. Now. There are more than there’s one for undergraduate education, undergraduate education, one for research. But But it wasn’t at that point. When I was the active, or one of the interim Vice Provost, it was with one of your colleagues here in history Gene Lewis Dr. Lewis was Provost of the university. And there was an interim time for five months when I was his singular associate or Interim Vice Provost. There was only one right now. I would bet there’s probably eight or 10, Vice Provost within the office, and I happened to be on the website for the Provost a few weeks ago. And I counted the number of staff that report to the provost. And there are 35. 30— ff you go out on the Provostial list now and you go under staff, you can count the 35 individuals that are part of the provost, prvostial office, and at that time, and that’s not including Peter Landgren. And if we don’t include Gene Lewis, myself, and a business person, were the only two that were in the provost office at that time, and that was in the 70s. So this is just— talk about proliferation. And some of that has to do with being a state university. Some of it has to do with a much larger size. And I don’t know what the rest of it is, in terms of why we have 35 instead of two. But the faculty often lament that there’s been a lot more— I mean— the faculty did not go from the equivalent of two to 35. That’s whatever, you know, a 17%— 17 times increase. It would be interesting to see the number of faculty in the College of Arts and Sciences in 1970 versus 2016. I’ll bet you that there’s— it’s, it’s not even the double. At that time, I would bet we had maybe 350. And any guesses to how many A&S faculty there are now?

FC: I have no idea. Our department has fluctuated significantly. When Gene Lewis came in the late 50s, I think he said there were six history faculty. By 1970, I think we’re into into the mid 20s. And when I was here in graduate school, I think it was about the same. And then it dropped off substantially. They dropped to as low as 15 full time. And what Valerie Hardcastle became dean, she boosted our numbers back up to the low 20s.

CH: That was around 2000?

FC: I think so. Well-no— I’m not sure. I think she was left the deanship around 2012. I think she’d only been in that position for maybe five or six years. Right now, what’s happened is that everything, you know— for instance, I’m retiring at the end of this year. I’m not being replaced by a full time faculty member— they’re going to patch my area together with adjuncts. With some vague promises that sometime in the future, they will, you know— the dean and the provost will replace me full time. But it’s been very difficult in the last five years or so, to get a new— to replace a full time faculty member or to even get a, you know, a new budget line. And it depends on the priorities of the dean and the provost office.

CH: Yeah, sure. Well, so it sounds like there’s some commonality here. As I said, in 66, we had 11, or 12 faculty in biology by early to mid 70s, partly because we were gearing up to be a state institution and getting state— substantial increase in funding, we went to probably a couple of dozen. And I’ll bet Now there may be 28 or 29. So we have been a very steady, and you’re getting fluctuations, but you’re not that much larger now with 45,000 students instead of 20,000. So there’s just no question that the number of faculty have not kept up with the dramatic increase in administrative positions. And some of that’s good. Now there’s a whole division in Arts and Sciences for advising. I don’t know how many there are, but there must be four or five people maybe, maybe full time. Yeah, advice, students and probably for the for the good. But I mentioned earlier that when I came in 66, for the for the next 10 years, it was a model that faculty could be paid three or 400 bucks a year more if they were willing to be the faculty advisor to 30 or 40 students. And the nicest part of that was that every student was required every quarter to come in and get the signature of the faculty member on what they were taking next quarter. Well, that was a great opportunity for interaction with the students. But that went by the board and, and I— probably rightly so because some faculty were quite happy to take a few hundred more bucks. But they didn’t give a damn about knowing the details of what, what were all the requirements. So a student would come in and say, ‘yeah, Joe, Okay, it looks good to me get out of here.’ And and then Joe would come, you know and the senior year and say, ‘I didn’t take these three or four classes that are required for me to graduate,’ and it was a heck of a mess. But now we’ve got really professional advisors. So that was another dramatic change. And I think over the time, the administration did understand, hey, the faculty just aren’t doing it in terms of advising.

RL: I actually even have a few advisors. Because I have my, McMicken, like Arts and Sciences, Chemistry advisor, I have my honors advisor, and I have my pre-professional advisor. So I’ve got a bunch of them.

CH: Pre-professional, Pre-Pharm advisor. And you have, yeah okay. And you have a— a chemistry advisor, kind of a randomly chosen faculty member or someone who’s dedicated to that.

RL: It’s like in the, McMicken advising offices, I guess, but it’s just a randomly chosen one from that.

CH: Hm. Okay. Well, I’m in biology, I’m happy to say that maybe 15 years ago, now, we went to a model where we hired a faculty member who also taught, but her job was to be the biology major advisor. So she would see the hundred or so majors every year, and work with them on making sure that they did what they needed to do.

RL: And I think we do have, his name was Dr. Bruce, Ault.

CH: Sure, Bruce Ault, sure.

RL: He was involved with the chemistry program. And I think he was like, the advisor for the whole chemistry program, maybe, which might be similar to what you were talking about. But—

CH: Yeah, but Bruce is a much more accomplished, faculty member, you know. He’s a fellow of the graduate school and all kinds of things. So this, he doesn’t spend anywhere near the time that Mary Fox spent, as a advisor for student.

RL: Because I did go to him a few times. And just make sure you ask him about my courses and what I should be taking for like the rest of my few years. And he said it looked good. But he did tell us that we could come in and ask him about advice and questions that we needed to, along with our other McMicken advisors so.

CH: Okay, good.

KD: I also have like, I think, three or four, I like my honors advisor, a McMicken advisor, communications advisor, and then like a co-op advisor.

CH: And what do you guys do with the honors advisor? What— how do they advise?

KD: What my experience with my honors advisor, is I had to— we had to meet with them our freshman year? And just kind of like, I think they just want to like get get to know us more. So they I talked about, like, the courses I’m taking, like, what brought me to UC, kind of like basic questions. And I think now they’re there for like, if we have questions about like, learning portfolio and just general questions about the honors program, I think, like, the different experiences we have to get. So I think there’d be like— but, I don’t think we’re required to meet with them.

RL: No, we’re not like states are the same thing. And she also like, offered me— she said, ‘well, what kind of like work are you interested in? What kind of experiences do you want to have?’ And I told her, I was like, what I wanted to do. And she said— and she wrote me down a list and said, ‘here are some of the things that you could possibly do’

KD: That’s— again, I like said, like the different things I was involved in, in my honors visor was like, Oh, you can turn this into an honors experience if you want it to. So I think they’re kind of just like, helping you. I think they’re probably just helping us make sure that like we do graduate with honors, and we’re not just like—

CH: Are these honors staff that are so how many are there now? I mean, do you know how many staff there are in the honors program?

RL: So like

KD: Probably like at least 10. Because I know they also they’re not not only advisors, they also teach the gateway classes. And some of them I think teach like actual, like classes to the honors program. And I know like, specifically like Ashley Weber is in charge of like the leadershape program.

CH: But they’re, they’re, they are members of the Honors Program. They’re not the faculty member in the Department.

KD: Yeah, they’re just like specifically in honors program.

CH: Well, that’s terrific. You and again, honors in the 70s was the director and a part time administrative assistant, and that was it. We didn’t have any so all of the above it was done by the director of the program. But, but 60 or 80 compared to 400. Well, that’s great. You so you both feel very good about your opportunities through the Honors Program.

KD: Yeah, yeah. I really I enjoy it. I wasn’t I mean, yeah like—

CH: By the way do it— did either of you go to Turner’s are Snyder’s to be in the Honors dorm? I see is Turner’s, Turner’s is the honors dorm.

KD: I lived in Turner just because, like I posted on a Facebook page, and I found roommates that way, which is another way of how technology ahs kind of like, changed the university experience. But I lived in the Honors dorm, but I wasn’t in honors when I started.

CH: Oh, really? So you got into the honors dorm, without being— I didn’t realize that was possible.

KD: Well, two of my three roommates are in the Honors Program. So I think that’s

CH: Now did you stay for your second— did you stay in Turner’s?

KD: No, I live in an apartment. But um, yeah— but I don’t feel like— because I wasn’t in honors. My first semester I like felt— like it would like affect me at all. [Inaudible]

CH: Yeah. Okay, so that’s another nice opportunity. You live at home?

RL: lived in Morgen Hall last year. I lived on the 12th floor last year. And then this year, I live on the ninth floor.

CH: Morgen’s? Oh, yeah, yeah, Morgen’s. That’s a wonderful new facility. Yeah. One of the great things that UC— most other institutions, I guessed it, as well. Over 25 years ago, we started this concept of helping hands. Helping hands. You had it when you moved into Morgen’s or the Turner’s? Faculty and staff volunteer during the couple of days, three days that you’re allowed to move in, in the fall semester. And so we get to help move you in. So we all have our T-shirts on, and we stand out there with our carts, and we your parents drive you up. You guys don’t— have never heard of this one.

KD: We had, like, um, I guess just students who like,

CH: Oh, students do it as well.

KD: You can move in, I think like two or three days early, and then you help, like move the other students. So it sounds like what you guys did is just like what students do now.

CH: Yeah, you know, our students are always around as well. But there was a great opportunity to get to meet some faculty members. And the Provost would be out there doing it, a lot of the administrative personnel. So it’s— still they do it every year. And anyway, the nice part is I got over the years, I got to be a helping hand in every single dorm in UC, and I would have said that one of the ones Morgens, Scioto, only a couple of years old. But I thought those were probably number one. But then Turner, Schneider, Scheider I guess is the is the one for athletes. But there— they are very nice, modular units. And then you go to Calhoun and oh my god. Calhoun is just a mess to get into.

KD: Yeah, no, Dabney, I think still has like, um, they don’t have like air conditioning. They have like this space. Yeah, the unit

RL: So my mom was she looked in Calhoun and during the orientation when we stayed in either sit on the couch. She showed me her room in Calhoun

CH: It didn’t change!

RL: we spent one night there and she said it’s literally the same thing and I was like, ‘I’m not living here.’ I actually spent a lot of time in Turner because a lot of my friends through the honors program lived in Turner. So I was over there a lot and they came to Morgens a lot.

CH: Did you consider staying there as a sophomore or wanting to get out?

RL: I don’t know. I liked Turner but Morgens has the kitchen. And I actually brought two of my friends that lived in Turner last year over to Morgens to live with me this year. And they like it too. But I like Morgen’s a lot and that’s why I left there for the second year.

CH: Yeah, that’s good. I know that there are some honor students who stay the second year in Turner’s as well because it’s such a good program are such a good place to to live.

KD: Yeah. One of my roommates from last year, when we lived at Turner’s now like an RA in Turner because like she really liked living in Turner.

CH: Oh really? Good, good. By the way to either review work for pay?

RL: Um, I work at a movie theater, but not like

CH: You work at a?

RL: A movie theater in Blue Ash.

CH: A movie theater in Blue Ash and just check tickets, kind of thing?

KD: I’m a server there, they, like, serve food, so that’s what I do.

CH: And one of you is at Floyd’s? Yeah, you’re at Floyd’s. And so how often do you work?

KD: Um, well, last semester, I worked Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, but this semester, my classes changed. I just work on Friday. But I also work at Skyline Chili in Mason. So,

CH: How many hours a week do you work? Typically?

KD: Um, it kind of depends on the week, but normally, I probably I think I work like, like, six to 10 hours a week.

CH: Okay, six to 10. No more than that for you?

RL: It depends if I work. I normally work Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday, if we do like all four of the days, but I just cut it back to two. So it’s normally like, I think like, about 10 hours, maybe 12, or weekend?

CH: Okay. Well, I would say that that’s another big difference, then versus now, I don’t think the students had near the commitment to outside jobs that they do now. I would guess the typical students a day might be working 20 to 30 hours a week. And I don’t recall students working anywhere near that in the 60s and 70s.

KD: I know some of my friends work like 40 hours a week while also going to school.

CH: Yeah, it’s crazy. And it clearly impacts on education they receive. So I would encourage you both don’t work more than 10 hours a week. That— 10 hours you can absorb. But more than that, it begins to really affect you. You’re going to get the chance to work all the rest of your life. You don’t have to push it now. So how are we doing?

FC: Just checking? Do you guys have some more questions? Are you? Okay,

KD: Do you have any other things you want to add? Like?

CH: Well, I want to ask you, what are you— What are the next steps? What What do you now do with this? And how are you kind of summarizing all of this good stuff? Well, hopefully good stuff, for for the course? What, what? What’s down the road? We’ve got 10 more weeks, eight more weeks. So what will you be doing next? Have you finished all of your— have your fellow students finished all of your—

FC: David Lee Smith is out of town. So they’re— that group is going to interview him? I think next Thursday or Friday, and then the following Wednesday class we’ll discuss the interviews. I’ve assigned them to each of the students to at least index the interview. So at, you know, three minutes and 30 seconds from Dr. Huether there’s talked about it— If the class was larger, I would require an actual transcript of the interview. But there’s just— we don’t that’s very time consuming. And we don’t have you know, the, the number of students in each team to do that. Why don’t you tell him about what we did last week?

KD: Is that that genealogy? Okay. We went to the Cincinnati Public Library, and we did— I guess we researched you on ancestry.com.

CH: Really?

KD: Yeah.

CH: Oh! Good. What did you find?

KD: We found your junior and senior yearbooks from Ohio State. We found both of your parents gravestones.

RL: We found your father’s draft registration card.

CH: Really? Wow. Good for you.

FC: You should send him what you did. It’s very interesting. All of the groups did a wonderful job either— actually exceeded my expectations.

CH:

And you used ancestry.com.

KD:

We found the Europe from the 1940 census.

RL:

And the 1930 one when your parents lived on Ohio Avenue, and then we found that you have to sister.

KD:

And that your mom’s mom, or your grandma lived with you.

CH:

Yes. Did you find out that my grandfather was a tailor?

RL:

We did not.

CH:

Did not. Okay.

RL: It was kind of hard because your father’s name was the same one as yours. So it was like difficult to distinguish who was who, so we had to look at dates to make sure that we were looking at the right thing.

CH: Well, it did kind of mess things up. My parents called me junior I mean, I was Carl A. Huether Jr. But they didn’t like this little Carl, big Carl kind of thing you know when somebody who is Carl as well which one do you want. So they nicknamed me through my middle name of Albert they that’s how I got the name Bert.

FC: So next week we’re going to go to a downtown firm called Gray and Pape that does— it’s their cultural resource managers, which means that they— probably their biggest business is when there is a construction project that’s funded with federal money. They have to go— they have to look at what kind of historic cultural resources may be impacted. So for instance, with plans for the new I-75 Bridge, they have had to study the corridor where that bridge is going to go. What are the historic buildings? Are there any graveyards that are going to be disturbed. They did the— an analysis of Washington Park, before Washington Park was completely rehabbed. And I think one of the things are going to talk about— they’ve also done a lot of work on Music Hall. And they’ll talk about how they did that work. But this— o partly to introduce them to that kind of work in general, but also, I want them to learn how to research the history of a building. So for instance, you know, the place that you lived with your parents on Ohio Avenue— what did that building look like what can we learn about that building? What can we learn about the neighborhood around? Sort of, so the idea would be to place you in this— you and your family in this neighborhood. And maybe follow, you know, follow you. You know, your parents lived on Ohio Avenue at one point, and then they lived somewhere else. And then you came back after being away in college. Where did you— where did you and your wife live? What does that say about? You know, what were the demographics of that neighborhood? What did that house look like? So, partly to teach the technique, and also to put you in a wider perspective, not just who you are and what you did, but who would you have interacted in your— within your neighborhoods? And did that change over time? Or, you know, we’re, you know, we’ve learned that Gene Lewis, at one point lived on Woodside Place, which is, you know, in a building that’s no longer there. He lived in Amberley Village for a while, when he was a brand new assistant professor, he shared an apartment out in the west side of town. And so this all tells us something about who you are, and what the environment was that you lived in. So partly, partly to build a more robust biography of each of you, but also to teach that technique.

CH: May I ask then, will these students potentially become interviewers for the legacy project that we’ve envisioned?

FC: I haven’t talked about that that much. But the, the, the plan is to— this course is kind of a pilot for developing a an oral history project with retired faculty in general. We’re figuring out, you know, we’re using you as guinea pigs to try to figure out how best to do that. But the idea would be that sometime in the very near future, we would have students who are trained in doing oral histories and would assign them to additional retired faculty. We need to talk about how we’re going to, you know, make that happen. But that’s, you know, one of the options might be that students from this class because you’ve had the training, we might, you know, if we can find funding, we might hire you— you know, for a few hours of semester to do additional oral histories with, with additional faculty.

CH: So to put that in the, in the perspective, that’s how this course came about. The Emeriti Association Board was interested in the oral history concept. There are a number of other institutions of higher ed around the country that are having these kinds of oral histories. And I think it’s increasingly clear that they have something to offer. Our college of medicine, to its credit, has been doing it for a number of years. And in fact, they have in the archives, some of their work. I looked at one with Dean Daniels, and they interviewed him regarding the common kinds of changes that occurred during his deanship. Well, this is a good part of history. And it’s increasingly obvious to professional organizations. My own human genetics, society, understood that we are, we were losing some of the really big names in human genetics, because they were, they were old, and they were dying. And we wanted to have oral histories from them as to how they saw the perspective change over a 20 or 30, or 40 year period. So it was on that basis that we all got together and started talking about it and we came up, you came up with this great idea of having this course. But, but it is ultimately with the intent of being able to use you because we, we didn’t know how to get interviewers, and how to have them be good interviewers. What college of medicine, does this test, go to Daniel’s and says, Hey, who would you like to be your interviewer? And so it’s another colleague with whom he’s comfortable. And that guy just kind of dialogues with him. Well, I think probably this kind of thing is of your training is a lot better than what a colleague.

FC So we’re still trying to figure out how to do all of this. But you know, hopefully, yeah, we will, we’ll figure out the next steps. And then we’ll, you know, we’ll be contacting you all. And if you know, if you’re interested in continuing to do so the oral histories, and I think we would probably try to match the faculty member with a student who had perhaps similar interests. So, you know— you know, someone, you might interview someone from communications or English. At least some connection and, you know, perhaps we would have someone who had gone through the pharmacy school, you know, had been, you know, pharmacy faculty and had to interview them, you

CH: Yeah. Or, frankly, Bruce Ault would be an excellent example. This guy has been a significant doer at the University of Cincinnati. He’s been involved in an awful lot of good things. And it would be great to get some good oral history here.

FC: And he’s a nice guy.

CH: Yeah, he is a nice guy. In fact, if you continue the course next year, all with the one o encourage interviewing.

FC: Okay, well. Why don’t we stop here and.