Personal interaction with professors vital to learning

By Landon Roussel     8/27/09 7:00pm

This summer provided me with a new experience. My wife and I walked El Camino de Santiago de Compostela, the Way of St. James, a millenary pilgrimage to the tomb of St. James the Apostle beginning in the Pyrenees in Southern France and ending in Santiago de Compostela, near Spain's Atlantic coast. While one of the many reasons my wife and I walked El Camino was to honor Spain's patron saint, revered as the great teacher of the Gospel to the Iberian peninsula, I'm not here to discuss the saint's particular merits. Rather, I would like to first offer tribute to another James, James Castañeda, the former Rice professor and beloved friend of the Rice community who passed away last fall. Secondly, I would like to bring to light all those other professors who were, or could be, someone's James - great life teachers who we come to love and respect.

Trekking through the historical route in Northern Spain brought back many lessons from Prof. Castañeda's class on Spanish culture and civilization, which I took at Rice as a Hispanic studies major two years ago.

Every day, he would bring in newspaper articles to tie a history topic to a current event. One of them actually bore fruit when we witnessed a heated discussion between a Basque native, impassioned about her province's plight for greater recognition, and a few unsympathetic Spaniards from Madrid. And now that I finally have to read Don Quixote, a book Castañeda read over 30 times, his description of the work's theme as "classic Spanish battle between realism and idealism" is more than mere abstraction.

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Nostalgic reminders like these from Castañeda's class and my time at Rice have brought to mind a valuable reflection: Lessons from my undergraduate experience that have stuck are the ones taught by professors like him who managed to be not just good lecturers, but good people. They provide us not just with their expertise but also with their ability to relate through their own experience, acting as personal examples and enthusiasts of their field, giving their time and attention to us students.

Prof. Castañeda was exemplary in all of these. For example, he always had a personal story for every lesson he taught in class. When discussing whether or not the running of the bulls in Pamplona should continue, to get the point across of how deeply rooted this controversial tradition is, he told us that when he attended the spectacle he witnessed a group of nuns in their full habits boisterously cheering on the runners, showing that people from all walks of life can have conflicting viewpoints.

Moreover, Castañeda was well known as an aficionado of Spanish culture. When we passed through an albergo in Castilla that displayed several pictures from King Juan Carlos' visit in its lobby, I was reminded that when the king visited the United States, it was Castañeda who was called upon to form the party that would host him. I even recall one evening in a small village near León having thought that the elderly man perched on the bench across from the church was him.

As a teacher, Prof. Castañeda always took time in class to discuss homework and tests with his own personal comments and was known to leave his office door open for us to ask questions, discuss assignments or simply chat.

Yet for an "open door" gesture to be meaningful, students have to walk through it. Thus, as this school year begins, I encourage Rice students to seek out solid professors like Castañeda who seek to do well, not just as lecturers, but also as teachers.

Now, some 15 months after graduating, the details of what I learned at Rice are becoming increasingly replaced with new ones to know for medical school. But the lectures that have stuck with me are not the organic chemistry talks in Keck Hall or the immunobiology ones in biology lab. No, they are the ones where we could interact with the professors as people and not just orators.

Don't get me wrong: Classes such as organic chemistry and immunobiology are still important for science majors and pre-meds, and courses with high enrollment will inevitably acquire a more impersonal character. But there are many opportunities for Rice students to seek out those professors who they will be able to connect with as people. Take advantage of these, especially the opportunities to get to know your professors outside of class.

I know that with the busy schedules of Rice students, interacting with professors inevitably becomes mere lip service, but it is truly worth the effort.

Some of my most valuable learning experiences were outside of the classroom setting - in professors' offices discussing a paper, on an Alternative Spring Break trip with a faculty adviser or over coffee at the Rice Memorial Center.

Professors can make themselves available but are often just as busy, if not more so than we students are, so they do not often realize how much their relationship with students can mean to them - even after they are long gone.

So here's to you, James Castañeda, and all professors who seek to enrich the lives of their students.

Landon Roussel is a Jones College alumnus.

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