By Susie P. Gonzalez

Trinity Professors Recall Happy Times Before Retiring

July 2009 – Together, they have taught at Trinity for more than 150 years. Six long-time professors have retired from Trinity, although three of them are not leaving academic life.

In the “gone, but not forgotten” category are:

·      Scott Baird, associate professor of English, who came to Trinity in 1974.

·      Joan Burton, professor of classical studies, 1988.

·      Robert Hockey, professor of physical education, 1981.

·      Alida Metcalf, professor of history, 1986.

·      Char Miller, professor of history, 1981.

·      Petrea Sandlin, associate professor of business administration, 1988.

Scott Baird proudly notes that he has spent 65 of his 70 years in a classroom, where he feels at home. When h

e arrived in 1974, Duncan Wimpress was president. “Talk about inflation,” he begins his reflection. “The taxes I paid this year are equivalent to what my salary was in my first year at Trinity.”  

In the intervening years, both faculty and student have become more ethnically diverse. “That’s on the surface,” he says, adding, “Underneath, they haven’t changed. They are still undergraduates on a quest for a grade.” His second observation is that faculty members have become more focused on research, leading to what Professor Baird sees as a dichotomy between being a teacher versus a professor.

“In the last 10 years, I purposely spent more time with first-year students.” He said students entering from high school need more direction and some repetition, particularly in the writing workshops and first year seminars required by Trinity’s Common Curriculum. “Students would often ask, ‘what do we need to do?’” he says. In contrast, upper division courses allowed him to be more professorial, such as listing dates when a paper was due and receiving it without additional prompting.

In retirement, he and his wife will serve as custodians of a 14-year-old grandson, and he will continue his research on the language shift on grave markers. Professor Baird plans to post much of his work online at http://www.trinity.edu/org/gravemarkers/index.htm. He can be contacted at sbairdjr@satx.rr.com.

Professor Baird says he will miss the faculty exchange of information and learning about the research of other professors. But there is one moment of human interaction he will miss dearly. That was the chance exchange a few days before the start of every semester when Georgia Lotz in the Registrar’s Office would ask, “You got the butterflies?” Each time, he would answer yes, prompting her affirming response of, “Then you can teach.” At the beginning of his last semester, he saw her and said with some emotion, “It’s time to retire because I have no butterflies.” She answered, “You have no butterflies because you know you are going to retire.”

Professor Baird says, “It is a ritual I will definitely miss. That’s how much it meant to me.”    

Other professors answered these questions:

 

n       How has the campus, your department, or your scholarship changed since you arrived at Trinity?

n      What will you miss most about Trinity?

n      What’s next for you?

n      Please provide your preferred e-mail address.

Joan Burton

1. When I came to Trinity in 1988 the University was in the process of a great rebirth, which included establishing a new Classical Studies Department.  It was exhilarating to help set the curriculum for a new multidisciplinary department, and the excitement never let up.  In the last 10 years, the department underwent a growth spurt, expanding from four to six professors and from majors in the single digits to over 40; courses now include urban studies, reception theory, mythology, gender roles, heroism, and pirates and shipbuilding.  My own scholarship shifted dramatically, from the Hellenistic period to the late Byzantine period, including gender roles; marriage laws; ancient and medieval narrative; themes of travel and displacement; conflicts between church and state; and the relations between poetry, politics, and patronage.  All along my scholarly journey, Trinity – and especially my students and colleagues – encouraged my curiosity and iconoclasm, my love of exploring new fields and finding new ways of asking questions.

2. I shall miss the thriving daily life of my department – its multitalented, kind, and exciting colleagues and staff.  I shall miss the Trinity students – their lively curiosity, seriousness, and sense of fun.  I’ve had such glorious students!  I shall miss my colleagues across the university – the easy, cross-disciplinary conversations, the lively interchanges, the sense of common purpose and hope for the future.  I shall miss the terrific staff everywhere on campus, the wonderful library, the smiles on everyone’s face, the lush greenery around campus, and community people who visit.  I shall miss partnerships with the museums.  I shall miss lunches at Panchito’s.  But as professor emerita I will be keeping in touch!

3. My husband has a job at National Institutes of Health, and I’ve taken a terrific new position at the University of Maryland, directing the Individual Studies Program (create your own major) and the Federal Semester Program.  I am delighted to be able to take advantage of my long-standing interest in interdisciplinary initiatives and in civic engagement and the federal government.  Dave and I are exploring the East Coast by bicycle and becoming fans of lacrosse. 

4. My e-mail address is jburton@trinity.edu.  I can also be reached at jburton1@umd.edu (notice the numeral 1). 

Robert Hockey

1. I arrived at Trinity in 1981 from Northern Michigan University. I was very happy to escape the snow – 251 inches the last year in Marquette. I was hired as chair of a small department with only approximately 10 students majoring in Physical Education. The program was reduced to a minor before I had a chance to expand it. However, the minor was structured so that students in the program could get into graduate school in programs such as Exercise Science or Sports Medicine, if they completed the right courses. During the last five years the program has expanded to emphasize Sports Management as well as Exercise Science and we now have more than 60 students in the minor program. During this time we were fortunate to “re-model” the old Sams Center and we now have the Bell Center, one of the best facilities of its class in the country. There are very few, if any, Division III schools in the country with a facility as good as this.

2. The thing I will miss the most is the interaction with the students. I really enjoyed getting to know the students in my classes and in the program and learned a lot from them. I still hear from several of the students from the past telling me how much they enjoyed my classes, asking for additional information, and telling me that they are still implementing through things they learned from me.

3. I plan to relax for the next several months, travel a little, including a trip back to Australia. I would like to teach a couple of classes each year online. I feel that I have learned a lot over the last 50 years and would still like to be able to share this with young people interested in exercise, fitness and health.

4. I will use my Trinity e-mail address for the next several years, rhockey@trinity.edu.

Petrea Sandlin:

1. My first year at Trinity was the 1988-89 school year, when I was invited to be a visiting professor. At first, it seemed so different because I had never been on a small campus. I earned all three of my degrees at UT Austin, which had an enrollment of 48,000 to 50,000, and I had also taught at UTSA which was growing rapidly.  It didn’t take me long to realize the benefits of a small school, however.  The students’ grades were much better, the classes were smaller, and best of all, I often saw my students outside of class and had an opportunity to get to know them. While walking to the Coates Center at lunchtime, I would encounter several of my students. At UT, I never saw one of my students outside class.

One of the courses I taught was Intermediate Financial Accounting, a junior level course, with 10 students enrolled.  In fall 2008, I taught two sections of that course and I had 35 students, from finance and accounting concentrations, in each section.

In 1997, a state law took effect that required all students who planned to take the national CPA exam to have credit for 150 semester hours, including 12 accounting courses.  This law has now been passed in almost every state.  Our accounting concentration was part of the Department of Business Administration, and when we set up a master of science in accounting degree – which would enable our students to meet the CPA requirements – our five-year program became a subset of Business Administration.  When this structure was being planned in 1994, I was asked by the Dean to be the director of the five-year accounting program, and I have now completed 15 years. Our accounting faculty members and I have worked diligently to make this program successful.

In 1996, I started our Accounting Internship program, and we had 20 accounting majors. This program has continued and grown, and our majors can now serve a full-time accounting internship in the spring semester of their senior year in San Antonio, Houston, Dallas, or Austin.  In spring 2009, we had 36 students in internships.  Our master’s program started in fall 1997, and it, too, has been successful.  Thirty students will be enrolled in our graduate class in fall 2009, and each year approximately 90 percent of the graduates of our master’s program start their accounting careers with the one of the four international accounting firms (like PricewaterhouseCoopers) which are known as the “big four.”

2. What I will miss most about Trinity are the students.  I have always enjoyed getting to know them and have served as an academic adviser for many. I have attended their athletic events and often gotten to know their parents, and sometimes their grandparents.  It is rewarding to see these students who have worked hard and earned good grades receive offers for internships and for permanent jobs.

3. The first thing I am going to do after retirement is have a knee replacement.  I have needed it for three years, and I have put it off because I didn’t think that I would have adequate time for the physical therapy that is required as a follow-up.  Now, I don’t have any excuse for putting it off any longer.

4. My e-mail address will remain psandlin@trinity.edu, and I look forward to hearing from former students.

Two history professors – Alida Metcalf and Char Miller – are leaving Trinity but will remain in academia.

Professor Metcalf said it has been a “great privilege to teach at Trinity for 22 years, to work with colleagues all across campus, and to have received the support of so many talented members of the staff. I leave with many regrets. However, I am not going far, and I do hope that I will remain in touch with many of you. I have accepted a position in the history department at Rice University. There I will be working to develop a strong focus in Latin American history, and in the history of Brazil, in both the undergraduate and graduate programs.” 

Her contact information is Alida.C.Metcalf@rice.edu.

Professor Miller recalled “wonderfully enduring relationships” with Trinity students. “In Fall 2007, I started a one-year stint as a visiting professor of history and environmental analysis at Pomona College; when they asked me to stay a second I did a quick check of the relative humidity in Claremont, Calif., and San Antonio, and, well, could hardly say no. On July 1, I will become director of the environmental analysis program at Pomona and serve as the W. M. Keck Professor of Environmental Analysis.” He, too, says he and his wife Judi leave Trinity and the larger community “with considerable regret. We are most grateful to all those who made our lives in South Texas so full, so rich.”

His contact information is char.miller@pomona.edu.

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