BY DR. NAYEF SAMHAT
11th President of Wofford College
Higher education has been the focus of much criticism — cost, return on investment, irrelevance — all manner of things that treat education essentially as a private material good measured by starting salaries on an individual investment of time and money over four or more years. For those of us who pursued education as a career path, it is far from a transactional bargain. To the contrary, it is a calling to guide young people in the unleashing of their minds and imaginations, to share the excitement of our disciplines and nurture the formation of learned citizens who are the foundation of a good and just society. We educate because there is a greater good — a public good — manifest in the cultivation of knowledge of the human experience in all its scale and temporality. It is, I believe, one of the most important and most undervalued contributions teachers make to the future.
It is precisely the notion that of all the living creatures on this planet, only human beings pursue knowledge and create forms of expression that are not driven solely by the survival of the species, but also by an innate curiosity of our past, present and future. We are the only ones who convey our experience through stage, canvas and instrument to portray the breadth and intensity of life’s emotions. That we are excited and intrigued by art, by distant images of nebulae colliding millions of light years past, by the philosophy of the ancients, the clash of ideas and the telling of histories, by the glories of literature and transformations of technology, tells us that the body of what we know and how we know it is fundamental to our very existence, to our humanity.
The president, provost and professors who hold named, endowed professorships answer essential questions about teaching, learning and the enduring value of a liberal arts education.
What we know and how we know do not arise in a vacuum, appearing suddenly out of the ether; rather it is because we learn how to learn from those who teach us knowledge. This is not always an efficient process or a process without challenge and failure.
Knowledge and learning, whose physical manifestation once might have been seen in a long row of volumes of the Encyclopaedia Britannica on a bookshelf, are too often regarded as easily accessible through the internet’s infinite number of pages and opinions that explain and justify anything anyone wants to know or believe. It is a diffuse webpage-by-webpage understanding of the world, of ideas with networks of like-minded believers forging virtual bonds of understanding. None of that teaches one how to think, how to write, how to ask questions, build arguments, test ideas and propositions. The beauty of serendipity is lost and with it that sudden and unexpected discovery of something that excites the imagination. It is akin to relying on our phone or car screen map apps to navigate from here to there, giving only a narrow view of the geography around us. The travel atlas or foldout map told us so much more of our world, the small towns, the many roads and points of interest, bodies of water and all sorts of boundary lines. Such detail of that world seems superfluous nowadays.
The next frontier of expedient learning, artificial intelligence, is upon us. Commonplace now are the stories of students (and the rest of us, too) relying on AI to write papers, complete assignments or do just about anything because it is efficient and somewhat reliable. The rapid development of AI has learning and teaching turned upside down. As Hua Hsu recently wrote in The New Yorker, “(E)ducation … rests on a belief that, alongside the practical things students might retain, some arcane idea mentioned in passing might take root in their mind, blossoming years in the future. AI allows any of us to feel like an expert, but it is risk, doubt and failure that make us human.” The art and act of engaging in research, the point and counterpoint of critical thinking and the ability to communicate accurately, competently and persuasively are what foster understanding and expertise. It is a process characterized by trial and error and relentless editing as, gradually, arguments and ideas acquire a form that instills accomplishment and pride. It is anything but efficient, yet the product, not always earning an “A” grade, is nonetheless a piece of one’s sense of self-realization.
What the insistence on efficiency in learning and the substitution of AI for effort means for the thought process, the ability to think critically, to ask questions, to communicate orally and with the written word, remains to be seen. But in my mind, it raises the stakes for teachers and teaching. To ask why we teach is to repeat the point made above: It is a calling to guide young people in the unleashing of their minds and imaginations, to share the excitement of our disciplines and nurture the formation of learned citizens who are the foundation of a good and just society. It is to contribute to the flourishing of the human experience by making a difference in the lives of young people for the present and their, and our, future.
How wonderful a calling that is.
BY DR. TIM SCHMITZ
Willimon Family Provost and Professor of History
I think there are two ways to answer the question: “Why do you teach?”
The first answer is personal. My parents were both public-school teachers. I also lived in a small town that was home to a regional state university. I grew up in and around schools of all levels. Numerous professors lived in my neighborhood. I delivered their newspapers. One taught geography. Another was from Germany and taught history. Stuart Penn lost a lung to an injury in World War II and went on to Yale to study philosophy. Others taught psychology, art, music and communications — all in a neighborhood of 50 or so houses. They loved their work, and all of them seemed to have led interesting, rewarding lives.
My parents’ house contained books and magazines. When I was around 8 years old, my maternal grandfather retired as a plumber and opened a small bookstore on the main square of Effingham, Ill. So I was fortunate to have grown up surrounded by books, readers, writers and knowledge. Still, I didn’t know I wanted an academic life for myself. I thought about law school or the State Department, but I didn’t consider graduate school in history until I was a senior in college, after I had already applied to law schools. I took the GRE and looked into doctoral programs. I was fortunate to have been offered a full fellowship from Indiana University. Without that support from a public institution in a different state, as well as two federal grants, this career path would have been unavailable to me.
Looking back on it, I wonder how I could have chosen anything else.
Sometimes, while struggling to work on my dissertation, I regretted the decision. However, I’m glad I stayed with it. Education — doing the work we do on this campus — is so much more important than I could articulate when I was in graduate school. It becomes clearer every year. That’s the second part of my answer to the question: because what we do really matters.
At Wofford and at other colleges and universities, our work is education. It’s worth pausing for a moment on the term. Education isn’t simply learning, nor is it merely skill acquisition, job training or development of “workforce readiness.” It is a higher goal that encompasses those other terms. Education is a formal process, mentored by experts in their fields, explored through a curriculum established by those experts and aimed at a broad goal rather than a narrow one. Education is about knowledge acquisition and career preparation, but more fundamentally it’s about learning how to learn and developing the skills and habits of mind that an individual needs to navigate a complex and rapidly changing world. Liberal arts institutions like Wofford are particularly good at education because they are heirs to the traditions of medieval universities and those of the Italian Renaissance, which aimed to produce students of character who thought critically, communicated effectively and were proficient in a variety of pursuits.
Educating the next generation of citizens is, in my view, more important than it has ever been. It is an antidote to much of what ails our society because the process of education runs counter to so much of what contemporary society demands. Education is about taking the time to reflect and consider, to pursue deeper understanding, rather than reacting in the moment. It is about recognizing that questions can be deep and complex and that simple tropes, memes and superficiality do little to solve problems. Most fundamentally, education is a slow process that requires hard work and discipline. It is the antithesis of the hot take on social media. It’s about the pursuit of truth and the deployment of appropriate skepticism rather than the drive to generate likes on X or Bluesky or Facebook. Our students learn to reason clearly and ethically while navigating an information ecosystem shaped increasingly by AI-written content, bots and disinformation.
Finally, a person who benefits from such an education can look inward and at the human experience, pausing to imagine how individual and collective lives can be improved. Bernie Dunlap’s presidential seminar focused on an ancient and fundamental question: “What is the good life?” (in the sense of the ancient Greek notion of eudaimonia). Asking that question, taking the time to reflect upon it and knowing how to answer it are in many ways the culmination of what we do. Education is the process through which our descendants will continue to be able to pursue virtue, meaning and purposefulness.
BY DR. TRACY REVELS
Laura and Winston Hoy Professor of Humanities (history)
Revels and history honors thesis student Rachel Dozier ’26. Dozier is a Chinese and history double major from Hemingway, S.C.
Everything I know about being a professor, I learned from two sources: Dr. William Warren Rogers and Sherlock Holmes.
Rogers was my dissertation director at Florida State University. The consummate historian and teacher, he was a prolific researcher and writer, an entertaining and fascinating lecturer, and a wise and gentle mentor. There’s rarely a day when I don’t find myself asking, “What would Dr. Rogers do?” I know the answer is always work hard, have fun and be kind. As for Sherlock, I believe all historians are detectives at heart. We’re seeking to tell the story of events we didn’t witness. We craft narratives from primary sources, building sound arguments based on clues our predecessors left behind. There’s no greater mystery than the past, and no more necessary time for exploring it than the present. Holmes never hesitated to take risks to get to the truth. I don’t have to engage in battles of wits with evil math professors (thank goodness!), but I try to be fearless in the classroom, to approach my subject with an overabundance of enthusiasm and a willingness to be silly or passionate as the case requires, in hopes of inspiring my students.
I know I can never be as esteemed as Dr. Rogers, or as clever as Sherlock Holmes, but it’s an honor to follow in their footsteps and aim for their standards.
BY DR. KAREN GOODCHILD
Chapman Family Professor of Humanities (art history) and academic director of Interim
At times, I think I know a painting inside and out — after all, I’ve taught it countless times. But then a student, with fresh eyes, points out something I’ve never noticed, sparking new questions. Art, which both reflects and shapes human culture, deserves such persistent scrutiny.
There is a movement in art history that is called “slow looking.” Basically, the idea is you silently sit and look at a work of art for an extended period of time, from 10 minutes to an entire hour. My students dread doing this at first, but then are astounded to find that the more you look, the more you see. The practice of looking — again and again — at objects and texts is what keeps me passionate as a teacher and a scholar.
Over the last few years, I’ve reshaped my classes so students engage deeply with individual pieces. Ultimately, the relationships they build with works of art will lead them to questions about history, religion, philosophy, science, mathematics or language. Time is needed for this critical inquiry. Deep thinking and wrestling with complex texts, problems or images creates habits of mind that are themselves the purpose of education.
BY DR. CLAYTON WHISNANT
Chapman Family Professor of Humanities and chair of the Department of History
I have long wondered if my career path as a teacher was set very early on in life. My mother was an elementary school teacher; my father, of course, taught college-level chemistry, first at a small college in northern Wisconsin and later for years at Wofford. I tried my hand briefly at doing some work outside of academia, but I quickly realized that I like reading and being around people who read. So, I went to graduate school and have never looked back.
What keeps me going is watching students make connections, develop pride in learning and sometimes simply get curious about something they have never thought about before. I know that history is not everyone’s cup of tea, so to speak, but I think it is important, and I love the chance to show them why it matters. Some students have loved my Middle Eastern course for the way it throws light on so many of today’s global events. Others have thanked me for the mind-expanding philosophers that I introduced in my class on cultural theory or the groundbreaking films of the 1970s they watched during Interim that they had always wanted to see. Some have simply expressed their gratitude for the help I have given them with their writing. I love feeling that I might have made a difference in the lives of some people, and I am thankful for the chance to share with them a little of their interests, dreams, concerns and life journey in the process.
BY DR. CHRISTINE DINKINS
William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of Philosophy
When I was 5, my group piano teacher, Mrs. Shaak, noticed me helping classmates with hand position and ear training while she worked with others. She told my parents, “She’s going to be a teacher when she grows up.” Apparently, I had already discovered how much I love helping others learn.
For me, teaching and learning are inseparable. I learn as much from and with my students as I hope they learn from me — and I want them to learn from one another, too. My Ph.D. work in philosophy focused on the Socratic method, and I hold fast to Socrates’ ideal of the teacher-learner: someone more committed to helping others examine their assumptions and values than to simply transmitting knowledge. Of course, I share my expertise, but my deeper aim is to support students in building their own understanding through individual inquiry and collaborative dialogue.
Teaching and learning matter profoundly in a democracy. I want my students to think critically about what they hear from politicians, media and social platforms. I want them to understand the “why” behind their values — and how to live those values in community. I remind them that a liberal arts education is a great privilege, and it comes with great responsibility.
My hope is that they’ll go on to make a meaningful, positive difference in the world. And it’s my job — and my joy — to help them develop the knowledge, skills and self-understanding to do just that.
BY DR. PHILIP SWICEGOOD
James Family Professor of Finance
I recently read that the two most important days in a person’s life are:
- The day you are born.
- The day you discover why.
My vocation as a professor allows me to be instrumental in helping students discover that second important day in their lives. As I look back on my 20 years at Wofford, the most poignant and rewarding moments are those when students have turned a corner in their understanding about themselves and their place in this world. It’s priceless.
BY DR. NATALIE GRINNELL
Reeves Family Professor in Humanities (English)
I have my father’s baby book on a shelf in my home office (see below). In the space for a lock of baby’s hair is a single sentence: “It took so long for Ray Jr. to grow his hair that mother could not bear to cut a lock.”
I don’t remember how old I was when I first read her words, but I do remember the feeling of gently tracing my grandmother’s elegant writing, imagining her feelings about her longawaited son, and wondering how she felt about a 10-year engagement or moving hundreds of miles from her family to marry. I couldn’t quite imagine it, even though I’d seen her house and I’d stood outside the five-and-dime that she and my grandfather owned. Her life was, and is, a mystery to me, but touching the lines she wrote helped me make a connection, hear a voice from the past. For a few moments, she was alive to me.
This is why I fell in love with the written word and why I write and teach and talk about the literature of the past. Every time I open a book or touch the ink of a medieval manuscript, I hear the voices of the past stretching into the present. And if I can share that feeling with even a single student, the miracle of the written word, then I will consider my life well spent.
BY SHERI REYNOLDS
John C. Cobb Endowed Chair in the Humanities (English)
One day at a red light, I pulled up behind a car with a bumper sticker that read: “Don’t Believe Everything You Think.” At first, I just laughed because, of course, I believe everything I think. Who doesn’t? But I know I’m sometimes wrong, and my initial reactions and instincts are often placeholders until I’ve had time to mull over whatever I’m considering.
Over time, “Don’t Believe Everything You Think” has become my mantra, guiding me both as a learner and a teacher. In my classes, I nudge students beyond their first impressions or assumptions. How else might we understand this character’s motives? What lies beneath the surface of this scene? How would the story shift if told from another point of view? I invite students to share insights from other disciplines, personal travels, creative experiences — anything that might deepen or complicate our shared inquiry. I want my students to celebrate complexity and lean into paradox with curiosity and delight.
BY DR. ANNE RODRICK
Reeves Family Professor of History
I was 14 when I fell in love with the Victorians. My father was at a new diplomatic post in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and we moved there in June, as the rainy season began. My mother had packed a box of books to take with us, and among those books was Charles Dickens’ “Bleak House.” I opened it up, took a deep breath and didn’t look up again for about 400 pages. I was enchanted. It took me a bit longer to realize I could READ VICTORIAN LITERATURE FOR A LIVING if I was very, very lucky, and along the way I discovered I was actually a historian, not a literary scholar.
My undergraduate advisor, the late T. W. Heyck, helped me find my circuitous way to grad school at the University of Texas at Austin: I started with a 9-month-old baby, having read nothing more demanding than “Pat the Bunny” for nearly a year. When I finally stepped into a classroom, I was terrified that I would hate it, that I would be terrible at it, that I would immediately go back to the corporate world. But once again — I was enchanted. And energized. And excited. I’m still in love with the Victorians. I still regularly reread “Bleak House.” And I’m still completely energized and excited by my students.
BY DR. MARK FERGUSON ’94
T.R. Garrison Professor of Humanities and chair of the Department of Theatre
One of the places where I feel most at home, the most myself, is in a rehearsal hall working on the staging of a play. When you work on a performance, you’re solving a series of problems that require you to be curious about the world in ways that are both broad and deep. So we get to work with politics and psychology and music, the complexities of relationships, the granular details of desire, motivation, conflict, but also with what feel like essential questions about the human condition.
Helping students figure out how to communicate that stuff, how to be radically present and empathetic, to open their hearts and minds to function as sharp and effective storytelling instruments, is hard and seems important — which is what makes it fun and rewarding. I also learn so much from them, and I’ve always loved learning things. But this is at the heart of it: Engaging in a practical, material way (as you must in theatre) with questions about the nature and purpose of human existence, seems like one of the best ways I know to spend time and energy. That’s why I became a teacher and why I’m glad I have stayed one.
BY DR. TIMOTHY TERRELL
Stackhouse Professor of Economics and Business
I have some of the world’s best students here at Wofford, and it’s my privilege to get to work with some truly lovely human beings. I love helping them develop their curiosity about the world and figure out a framework for seeing life around them. I think economics, as a study of human behavior, can be a powerful part of that framework. So when I can tell that a student is moving past seeing my classes as just a step toward a degree and has a personal interest in understanding the economic way of thinking, that keeps me going.
We’re working on the whole person at Wofford, which the liberal arts model is designed for, I’d say. I’m sold on that model, even though I didn’t graduate from liberal arts institutions myself. It’s important to work across disciplines and do more than take courses that seem directly related to an intended career. If students intend to work in banking or run a business or develop a new medication, they may not think they need classes in history or philosophy or religion or the arts. But they need all of these things and more, because we’re pushing students to become more reflective, to cultivate good judgment, to ask the right questions and to have strong moral character. If I can be a part of that, whether in a classroom, on a travel Interim to South America or just in an impromptu conversation, that’s what ultimately keeps me motivated.