Questions, Comments, and Observations: Celebrating the Teaching Legacy of Professor Richard Lundman

• In Event: Reflections in Honor of the Life and Influence of Professor Richard Lundman

Abstract

What constitutes good teaching? Whereas the scholarship on teaching and learning provides myriad findings in response to this question, an examination of Professor Richard Lundman’s approach to teaching is equally instructive. Professor Lundman received the Ohio State University Distinguished Teaching Award (the University’s highest honor for teaching) in 1998, and he touched the lives of thousands of students during his 40+ year teaching career. This presentation celebrates Professor Lundman’s teaching legacy by highlighting hallmarks of his pedagogy. Long before “experiential learning” emerged as a popular paradigm in higher education, Professor Lundman dispatched his students to do ride-alongs with police officers and took them to juvenile halls. Similarly, before campus-wide dialogues on “student-centered” teaching and learning became common, Professor Lundman was engaging his “student colleagues” one-on-one in the classroom and beyond through questions, comments, and observations. Professor Lundman was a naturally gifted teacher who loved to share his passion for learning. He embodied what it means to teach, and a number of practical take-aways from his example are provided in this presentation.

Author

• James E. Sutton, Hobart & William Smith Colleges