Communique - September 2000

	PTSP Home Communiqué An Interview with Thomas Huber
September 2000 An Interview with Thomas Huber What has it meant for you to be a member of the President's Teaching Scholars? Tom: The fact that the university created this program to recognize teaching on an equal footing with scholarship gives teaching a high profile at this institution. Teaching is becoming very important again at the university — as important as research. This is in large part due to the outside pressures of citizens and legislators who have asked for accountability from their institutions of higher education. But it is also a recognition by faculty that the two functions are really just two sides of the same coin. I think being a President's Teaching Scholar has been a privilege, a real kudo for those who are actively involved in the program because we are lending ourselves to the greater good of recognizing good teaching, trying to understand the relationship between teaching and learning, and making teaching visible and important on all four campuses. Some say that professors should be spending more time teaching and less time doing research. What connection do you see between teaching and research? Tom: The President's Teaching Scholars are all outstanding teachers and researchers. The fact that they do original research is what makes the group so engaged and interested in their disciplines and therefore in their roles as teachers. In many disciplines, having students conduct research is one of the best ways to educate them. Students get involved in a research project and learn to analyze issues and gain skills in problem solving and communication. The students achieve mastery of a subject that would be hard to accomplish in a lecture setting. They also become involved in the development of new knowledge — a very stimulating and exciting prospect for students and faculty alike. As I said before, there is more of a demand for accountability among our publics, and we have to think about how to communicate with them about the kind of research we do. In my own case I have tried to take what I have learned as a geographer directly to people outside the university. I've written a series of books in which I try to interest the public about the geography of the world around them — especially in Colorado and the West. For example, Colorado: The Place of Nature and the Nature of Place looks at twelve places in nature in Colorado both from the perspectives of natural and human environments. The book is written for the educated and interested layperson and discusses how the human and natural landscapes of Colorado are connected and meaningful. Colorado Byways is a guide through natural and historic landscapes of the state. These are linear slices of landscape that traverse many of the special environments that make Colorado what it is. I hoped in writing this book to get people to see and understand more about the complex relationships we have with our world. My wife and I recently co-authored a book titled The Alaska Highway — A Geographical Discovery. We spent a lot of time looking at the landscapes this highway traverses and trying to explain why the landscapes are the way they are. We tried to synthesize the natural and human dimensions of the environment. What are the threats and what are the opportunities that exist for the natural and human worlds along the Alaska Highway? One problem in my discipline is just getting people to understand what the discipline of geography actually encompasses. The common notion is that the study of geography consists of memorizing countries, towns, and natural features on maps. But geography is very much the study of the dynamic interaction between people and landscapes. People choose to live in a location for a particular reason; take the people who came to Colorado for mining, for example. Geography is the study of the entire kaleidoscope of spatial interactions within and among the physical and social worlds — often where these two worlds intersect. I have also written a book with Bob Larkin on the geography of the San Luis Valley in Colorado. It was a particularly interesting study of the dichotomous character of the valley — the juxtapositions between the Hispanic culture and Mormonism, the near-desert climate with the vast underground water reserves, and the long history of occupation and exploration in this modern, high-tech place we know as Colorado. I am also just finishing a book with a photographer on aerial views of Colorado. The aerial photos of the myriad landscapes give a unique perspective to the land below. The text about the geography of the places in the book is much more meaningful because the ³big² view of the land is all-encompassing. How has being a member of the President's Teaching Scholars affected your teaching and your interaction with students and colleagues? Tom: In conversations with other Teaching Scholars, I have been reminded that there are many different ways of teaching and learning. I have borrowed ideas from other Teaching Scholars, but I can see that there is no one right way to teach. The interactions with the Teaching Scholars have made it clear to me that it is ok to do your own thing, as long as your own thing works. There are as many ways to teach well and have students learn as there are faculty members. I love these conversations with the Teaching Scholars because they give me a boost and recharge my batteries, so to speak. I hear about teaching from a group of bright, interested people, and it reenergizes me to the task. Several of the tools I use for teaching are also used by the other Teaching Scholars. What I mostly do is work a lot with students in the field. I especially like to go into the mountains and do student research projects. This last fall, for example, I took my Natural Hazards class and Mountain Environments class up to Crested Butte. This is a beautiful, bucolic place with a lot of natural and human environmental changes happening. I had the class look at the tremendous number of landslides in the area. I try to get them to figure out why the landslides are occurring and how we can mitigate the hazard. There is also a development boom going on up there where development is encroaching on wetlands and coming close to some of the mass wasting in the area. It's a good way for students to see how the natural forces in an environment and the human development may be headed on a collision course. One time another professor and I took students on a hike across England from the east to west coast. We started in Whitby, on the North Sea coast, and walked through the north moors country and the lake district until we came to the Irish sea on the west. It was primarily an undergraduate course, but we had people along who were ages 13 to 73 — we had a great time and all learned a lot. One of our most interesting geographical observations was the importance of pubs to rural English life. They are the social centers of everything that happens in rural England. If you want to know what is going on, you go into a pub and talk to the locals. Pubs are not like bars in the United States, although the ale is pretty good. Pubs are more family oriented and serve as an important source of communication within the community. The natural landscapes we observed in England have all been altered by humans. There are Roman, Anglo-Saxon, and Danish ruins. The landscape can change dramatically in a very short distance so we got to see a great deal of variety even in this relatively short cross-country trek. Walking across a country with so much history and studying the geography was a remarkable experience. It's unusual for us to do this kind of a trip, though. Mostly we do field trips within Colorado. The field experiences really turn on students to geography. They just can't have that kind of experience in the classroom or any other way. I can't believe how many of my students will say that they have never been to mountains. Our population in Colorado Springs is more transient as a result of the military and the high tech industries so that may be why people haven't made it to the mountains yet. But they certainly get excited when we take them there, and they can observe what we are talking about in class. Many of the courses I teach are project based so students work together in teams on projects. I encourage them to work in groups because I think they learn as much from each other as they do from me. I have students tell me that some geography classes they have taken, with the field trips and the group learning, have changed their lives. Students feel connected to the subject matter and each other and it is a dynamic that seems to work well. Lecturing isn't a bad approach to teaching; in fact I use it a lot myself, but it isn't the only method that one can or should use. Do you have any thoughts on future directions for the President's Teaching Scholars and/or the university? Tom: One of the special things about being involved with the President's Teaching Scholars is that it has helped me better understand what's happening on the other campuses. I believe the understanding goes the other way as well, and Teaching Scholars from the other three campuses are able to understand University of Colorado at Colorado Springs (UCCS) better. The UCCS campus has always been somewhat isolated from the rest of the system — the traffic between Colorado Springs and Denver is only making this gap worse. Yet, the UCCS campus is growing with the Colorado Springs region, and I think we are becoming more identified for our special strengths. Dave Anderson, for example, won a universitywide award in Teaching with Technology and the Geography Department recently won a Program of Excellence Award from the CCHE. We must be doing some things right. We want to become the best university possible, and I think we are headed in the right direction. It's great to go to Teaching Scholars retreats and feel that everyone from all four campuses is interested about what is going on the other campuses, and everyone is on an equal footing. There is a feeling of connectedness and genuine esprit de corps that I hope continues. I think the Teaching Scholars also go back to their campuses energized by the conversations they have had with other Teaching Scholars. They serve as examples for being committed to good teaching and exploring innovations in teaching. The most important activity that the Teaching Scholars have going on right now, and that hopefully will continue, is our work to establish a research center for teaching, learning, and assessment. This was an action item decided upon at one of our last retreats. This center will look at the processes of learning and teaching in a very formal way and address questions such as: What makes a good teacher? What makes an engaged student? The President's Teaching Scholars have been writing some requests for proposals and seeking small grants to fund some research in this area, but we have much bigger ideas for the center. The center would incorporate existing faculty with visiting specialists in the field. Bill Briggs, J.J.Cohen, and Marty Bickman have all done work on the proposal for establishing the center. This summer, Clayton Lewis, Laura Goodwin, and I, along with Mary Ann Shea, have tried to keep the momentum going on this project. I have always been an advocate of the President's Teaching Scholars actually doing something and contributing concretely to the university. New initiatives like this give us the opportunity to do so. The President's Teaching Scholars have finally achieved a critical mass; we have over 50 very talented teachers and scholars with great ideas, talents, connections, and more. Now more than ever, we are capable of serving as a proactive and productive force for the benefit of the university. I hope the new president will want to continue to support the President's Teaching Scholars. Previous presidents have supported PTS over the past ten years, and they have asked for our input on various issues. They have respected our status as Teaching Scholars and listened to what we have to say. Hopefully, that will continue because, I believe, this group has a great deal to offer the University of Colorado.
*Communiqué,* a publication about the President's Teaching Scholars Program, is published twice per year by the University of Colorado. Copyright ©1997 - 2002 The Regents of the University of Colorado, a body corporate. Program Director: Mary Ann Shea 360 UCB, Boulder, CO 80309-0360 Phone: (303) 492-4985 E-mail: MaryAnn.Shea@Colorado.EDU

September 2000

An Interview with Thomas Huber

What has it meant for you to be a member of the President's Teaching Scholars?

Tom: The fact that the university created this program to recognize teaching on an equal footing with scholarship gives teaching a high profile at this institution. Teaching is becoming very important again at the university — as important as research. This is in large part due to the outside pressures of citizens and legislators who have asked for accountability from their institutions of higher education. But it is also a recognition by faculty that the two functions are really just two sides of the same coin.

I think being a President's Teaching Scholar has been a privilege, a real kudo for those who are actively involved in the program because we are lending ourselves to the greater good of recognizing good teaching, trying to understand the relationship between teaching and learning, and making teaching visible and important on all four campuses.

Some say that professors should be spending more time teaching and less time doing research. What connection do you see between teaching and research?

Tom: The President's Teaching Scholars are all outstanding teachers and researchers. The fact that they do original research is what makes the group so engaged and interested in their disciplines and therefore in their roles as teachers. In many disciplines, having students conduct research is one of the best ways to educate them. Students get involved in a research project and learn to analyze issues and gain skills in problem solving and communication. The students achieve mastery of a subject that would be hard to accomplish in a lecture setting. They also become involved in the development of new knowledge — a very stimulating and exciting prospect for students and faculty alike.

As I said before, there is more of a demand for accountability among our publics, and we have to think about how to communicate with them about the kind of research we do. In my own case I have tried to take what I have learned as a geographer directly to people outside the university. I've written a series of books in which I try to interest the public about the geography of the world around them — especially in Colorado and the West.

For example, Colorado: The Place of Nature and the Nature of Place looks at twelve places in nature in Colorado both from the perspectives of natural and human environments. The book is written for the educated and interested layperson and discusses how the human and natural landscapes of Colorado are connected and meaningful.

Colorado Byways is a guide through natural and historic landscapes of the state. These are linear slices of landscape that traverse many of the special environments that make Colorado what it is. I hoped in writing this book to get people to see and understand more about the complex relationships we have with our world.

My wife and I recently co-authored a book titled The Alaska Highway — A Geographical Discovery. We spent a lot of time looking at the landscapes this highway traverses and trying to explain why the landscapes are the way they are. We tried to synthesize the natural and human dimensions of the environment. What are the threats and what are the opportunities that exist for the natural and human worlds along the Alaska Highway?

One problem in my discipline is just getting people to understand what the discipline of geography actually encompasses. The common notion is that the study of geography consists of memorizing countries, towns, and natural features on maps. But geography is very much the study of the dynamic interaction between people and landscapes. People choose to live in a location for a particular reason; take the people who came to Colorado for mining, for example. Geography is the study of the entire kaleidoscope of spatial interactions within and among the physical and social worlds — often where these two worlds intersect.

I have also written a book with Bob Larkin on the geography of the San Luis Valley in Colorado. It was a particularly interesting study of the dichotomous character of the valley — the juxtapositions between the Hispanic culture and Mormonism, the near-desert climate with the vast underground water reserves, and the long history of occupation and exploration in this modern, high-tech place we know as Colorado.

I am also just finishing a book with a photographer on aerial views of Colorado. The aerial photos of the myriad landscapes give a unique perspective to the land below. The text about the geography of the places in the book is much more meaningful because the ³big² view of the land is all-encompassing.

How has being a member of the President's Teaching Scholars affected your teaching and your interaction with students and colleagues?

Tom: In conversations with other Teaching Scholars, I have been reminded that there are many different ways of teaching and learning. I have borrowed ideas from other Teaching Scholars, but I can see that there is no one right way to teach. The interactions with the Teaching Scholars have made it clear to me that it is ok to do your own thing, as long as your own thing works. There are as many ways to teach well and have students learn as there are faculty members. I love these conversations with the Teaching Scholars because they give me a boost and recharge my batteries, so to speak. I hear about teaching from a group of bright, interested people, and it reenergizes me to the task.

Several of the tools I use for teaching are also used by the other Teaching Scholars. What I mostly do is work a lot with students in the field. I especially like to go into the mountains and do student research projects. This last fall, for example, I took my Natural Hazards class and Mountain Environments class up to Crested Butte. This is a beautiful, bucolic place with a lot of natural and human environmental changes happening. I had the class look at the tremendous number of landslides in the area. I try to get them to figure out why the landslides are occurring and how we can mitigate the hazard. There is also a development boom going on up there where development is encroaching on wetlands and coming close to some of the mass wasting in the area. It's a good way for students to see how the natural forces in an environment and the human development may be headed on a collision course.

One time another professor and I took students on a hike across England from the east to west coast. We started in Whitby, on the North Sea coast, and walked through the north moors country and the lake district until we came to the Irish sea on the west. It was primarily an undergraduate course, but we had people along who were ages 13 to 73 — we had a great time and all learned a lot.

One of our most interesting geographical observations was the importance of pubs to rural English life. They are the social centers of everything that happens in rural England. If you want to know what is going on, you go into a pub and talk to the locals. Pubs are not like bars in the United States, although the ale is pretty good. Pubs are more family oriented and serve as an important source of communication within the community.

The natural landscapes we observed in England have all been altered by humans. There are Roman, Anglo-Saxon, and Danish ruins. The landscape can change dramatically in a very short distance so we got to see a great deal of variety even in this relatively short cross-country trek. Walking across a country with so much history and studying the geography was a remarkable experience.

It's unusual for us to do this kind of a trip, though. Mostly we do field trips within Colorado. The field experiences really turn on students to geography. They just can't have that kind of experience in the classroom or any other way. I can't believe how many of my students will say that they have never been to mountains. Our population in Colorado Springs is more transient as a result of the military and the high tech industries so that may be why people haven't made it to the mountains yet. But they certainly get excited when we take them there, and they can observe what we are talking about in class.

Many of the courses I teach are project based so students work together in teams on projects. I encourage them to work in groups because I think they learn as much from each other as they do from me. I have students tell me that some geography classes they have taken, with the field trips and the group learning, have changed their lives. Students feel connected to the subject matter and each other and it is a dynamic that seems to work well. Lecturing isn't a bad approach to teaching; in fact I use it a lot myself, but it isn't the only method that one can or should use.

Do you have any thoughts on future directions for the President's Teaching Scholars and/or the university?

Tom: One of the special things about being involved with the President's Teaching Scholars is that it has helped me better understand what's happening on the other campuses. I believe the understanding goes the other way as well, and Teaching Scholars from the other three campuses are able to understand University of Colorado at Colorado Springs (UCCS) better. The UCCS campus has always been somewhat isolated from the rest of the system — the traffic between Colorado Springs and Denver is only making this gap worse.

Yet, the UCCS campus is growing with the Colorado Springs region, and I think we are becoming more identified for our special strengths. Dave Anderson, for example, won a universitywide award in Teaching with Technology and the Geography Department recently won a Program of Excellence Award from the CCHE. We must be doing some things right. We want to become the best university possible, and I think we are headed in the right direction.

It's great to go to Teaching Scholars retreats and feel that everyone from all four campuses is interested about what is going on the other campuses, and everyone is on an equal footing. There is a feeling of connectedness and genuine esprit de corps that I hope continues.

I think the Teaching Scholars also go back to their campuses energized by the conversations they have had with other Teaching Scholars. They serve as examples for being committed to good teaching and exploring innovations in teaching.

The most important activity that the Teaching Scholars have going on right now, and that hopefully will continue, is our work to establish a research center for teaching, learning, and assessment. This was an action item decided upon at one of our last retreats. This center will look at the processes of learning and teaching in a very formal way and address questions such as: What makes a good teacher? What makes an engaged student?

The President's Teaching Scholars have been writing some requests for proposals and seeking small grants to fund some research in this area, but we have much bigger ideas for the center. The center would incorporate existing faculty with visiting specialists in the field. Bill Briggs, J.J.Cohen, and Marty Bickman have all done work on the proposal for establishing the center. This summer, Clayton Lewis, Laura Goodwin, and I, along with Mary Ann Shea, have tried to keep the momentum going on this project.

I have always been an advocate of the President's Teaching Scholars actually doing something and contributing concretely to the university. New initiatives like this give us the opportunity to do so. The President's Teaching Scholars have finally achieved a critical mass; we have over 50 very talented teachers and scholars with great ideas, talents, connections, and more. Now more than ever, we are capable of serving as a proactive and productive force for the benefit of the university.

I hope the new president will want to continue to support the President's Teaching Scholars. Previous presidents have supported PTS over the past ten years, and they have asked for our input on various issues. They have respected our status as Teaching Scholars and listened to what we have to say. Hopefully, that will continue because, I believe, this group has a great deal to offer the University of Colorado.

Communiqué, a publication about the President's Teaching Scholars Program, is published twice per year by the University of Colorado. Copyright ©1997 - 2002 The Regents of the University of Colorado, a body corporate.

Program Director: Mary Ann Shea 360 UCB, Boulder, CO 80309-0360 Phone: (303) 492-4985 E-mail: MaryAnn.Shea@Colorado.EDU