Favorite Teacher at MSU

gtapp · Post by **gtapp** » Wed May 04, 2005 6:08 pm

My favorite teacher was John Hanton. I had an excellent Physics teacher. I believe his name was Denny Lee.

Cat Grad · Post by **Cat Grad** » Wed May 04, 2005 6:27 pm

Don Collins.

BozoneCat · Post by **BozoneCat** » Wed May 04, 2005 7:52 pm

Dr. Don was awesome. I was very sad for him when he was basically forced into retirement. It was a huge loss for MSU.

I also had a blast with Greg Francis (physics).

mslacat · Post by **mslacat** » Wed May 04, 2005 9:48 pm

I had Denny Lee and Don Colins and both were worthy of the award. Two architecture professors I would like to mention were....

Francis Woods: This gentleman taught almost too the day of his death. He lived a life most of us would only dream of and would come in late to Studio and just mesmerize us with his first hand stories, of Frank Lloyd Wright, Louis Kahn or Corbu. Imagine Obi Won Konobi with a T-Square, and a wicked sense of humor. A very quite man who would rip a hole in your final project and you would actually enjoy it!

Elmira Smyrl: When I took classes from Elmira she was in her mid 70's and wore black leather pants

. Elmira taught the infamous "Building Construction" classes and was known as a weed out professor. She personally ran out over 1/2 of the student I knew who quit Architecture. My favorite line from her, was one day in a small dark conference room in Cheever Hall she herded our small design class into it. Put her foot up on the table leaned forward with her elbow on her knee, in her tight red leather pants and said "Lets talk about the erection process!" :-& Scared the living @%*# out of me

mquast53000 · Post by **mquast53000** » Thu May 05, 2005 9:03 am

I really like Steve Swinford in the Sociology Dept. He was one of the rare teachers that actually cared about his students as people.

Ponycat · Post by **Ponycat** » Thu May 05, 2005 10:20 am

Swinny was good. I actually liked Lawson as well, but Dr. Don was my all time favorite.

briannell · Post by **briannell** » Thu May 05, 2005 10:33 am

Hard to pick just one, enjoyed many of them.

Dr. Don was great! SO much fun. Hey what did you think of his home movies of him and that Grizzly bear? Did he bring Buffy the bear or wolves into your class? I'm surprised stunts like that didn't get him "retired" sooner, but he was just so popular with the students.

Peterson made Chem actually worth attending, he enjoyed blowing things up. He was goofy, but better than your average chem class. Microbiology/virology with Pincus was good also.

R.Nell

El_Gato · Post by **El_Gato** » Thu May 05, 2005 11:22 am

Copeland; economics.

Never had a teacher do a better job of mixing everyday life into his teaching.

I'll never forget him auctioning off seats when his classes were overfull or his use of Sausage Egg McMuffins in explaining "marginal utility"...

Also had a great Philosophy prof at one point but don't recall his name. Looked like a 60's flower child; lots of leather (including leather braid head-band). He talked about how he was just waiting for another "great cause" to ride off on his Hog & protest. My favorite was when we had a couple weeks of open forum and some gal wanted to discuss abortion. He said he wouldn't discuss it because the debate was centered around when the fetus became a human being. "As far as I'm concerned" he said, "no one under the age of 21 is a human being...".

briannell · Post by **briannell** » Thu May 05, 2005 12:07 pm

Did you have a least favorite class? Anyone have Trout for English, good Prof but morbid choice of reading materials. oh, and for me Football fundamentals really blew, for the simple fact that at 105 pounds it did not feel good to have every MSU FB taking the class try and nail my butt to the ground. And having 245 lb. LB (Morgan Harris) tackle me every chance he got left me looking like I just came out of one of those WWF cage matches. And yes it was a required course!

r. nell

Cat Grad · Post by **Cat Grad** » Thu May 05, 2005 12:13 pm

Thought the entire English department sucked. Sometime during the 80s they had the audacity to circulate a petition in their classes attempting to get the same pay as the engineering or architecture profs with the line of reasoning: "A Phd is a Phd and should be worth the same."

94VegasCat · Post by **94VegasCat** » Thu May 05, 2005 4:22 pm

Dr. Don! Only class that I really wanted to attend on a regular basis. I think I made it to most of them, but I don't remember.

gtapp · Post by **gtapp** » Thu May 05, 2005 7:54 pm

Many different teachers from many different departments have been listed. I guess that confirms what a great school MSU is!!!

DCC2MSU · Post by **DCC2MSU** » Thu May 05, 2005 8:47 pm

Dan Shaffer - Chemical Engineering

Bleedinbluengold · Post by **Bleedinbluengold** » Mon May 09, 2005 9:04 am

DCC2MSU wrote:Dan Shaffer - Chemical Engineering

INDEED! There is/was no better engineering prof.

McCandless was my...."advisor".....He wa-a-a-a-s awwwwsum, dude!

I agree with Don Collins and Denny Lee. Best classes in terms of just generating enthusiasm to learn.