The Super Bowl, you may have heard, is Sunday. This is a sure sign that another football season is coming to an end.
Which means it’s time for Tempo’s annual All-Professor Team and our choice for MVP-most valuable professor.
Our salute to the standouts of classrooms and laboratories is modeled on football’s All-American and All-NFL teams, of course, which recognize the top players at the college and professional levels, respectively.
Granted, our all-pro profs don’t have the fame of professional football players, not to mention the lucrative contracts or the compulsion to lift weights. Otherwise they’d be making Nike commercials, and their fans would be calling from their car phones to all-education radio stations to share their opinions about the professors’ latest lectures, books and research.
Alas, our intellectual all-stars often don’t even rate the kind of attention on their own campuses that is automatically extended to C-average football players who wouldn’t know Schopenhauer from shamanism.
Yet we believe it’s not inappropriate to honor our professorial stalwarts in the same way as pigskin paragons.
First and foremost, it’s a way of emphasizing our conviction that college professors have an important role in society. Think about it: If there were no professors, there would be no universities, which would mean no college football, which is the nation’s training ground for the professional game.
So let’s hear it for our champion eggheads!
Last year, we spotlighted the stars of the larger institutions in the Chicago area such as Northwestern, Loyola, De Paul and the University of Chicago, academe’s version of the Dallas Cowboys.
This year our focus is the area’s smaller colleges and universities, with a special look at Lake Forest College, a sort of U. of C. in microcosm. With a bow to football’s defensive and offensive units, our Tempo team has starting elevens (pictured on Page 1) from the humanities and the sciences. And, mirroring college football’s Heisman Trophy and pro football’s Most Valuable Player Award, we’ve picked a professor of the year.
Our selection reminds us of Mike Singletary and Mr. Chips.
He’s Arthur Holmes, a veteran professor of philosophy at Wheaton College, who loves to tackle tough questions and is winding up a spectacular and inspirational 43-year career.
A triple threat, he can teach, write and administrate. Twice he has been Wheaton College’s professor of the year, and in 1987 the national Council for the Advancement and Support of Education named him Illinois professor of the year.
He’s the author of eight books, including “Ethics: Approaching Moral Decisions” and “Philosophy: A Christian Perspective.” He has also edited two books, contributed to three others and penned the entry on “Christian Philosophy” in the Encyclopaedia Britannica.
A native of England who received his doctoral degree from Northwestern, Holmes is chairman of his college’s philosophy department and renowned for the 76 lectures of his two-semester “History of Philosophy” course, which last year were recorded on videotape by the college and one day may be made available to a wider public.
Wheaton is among 20 area colleges and universities whose faculties were eligible for Tempo’s ’94 team. Sixteen were established by Christian denominations, including Wheaton, which is evangelical Protestant; six are Roman Catholic.
The names of some schools-for example, Concordia, Judson, Rosary, North Central or Lewis-may be unfamiliar. So may the names of our all-stars-for example, Navakas, Noll, Strassberg, Chappell, Mickus and Wolff.
But take a few minutes to meet the starters, and the following other members of the squad. In the long run, they’re more important to America than Jim Kelly or Emmitt Smith:
Janet Yanos, Aurora University, social work. Won 1993 top school teaching award. Expert on infant mental health, she co-hosts (with colleague Sarah Bonkowski) a monthly call-in radio show on WRMN, “Focus on Children,” which deals with problematic situations.
Pamela Adelman, Barat College, education. Directs program for college students with learning disabilities that has been recognized in U.S. News and World Report for its excellence. Co-editor of book on this subject.
Marcia Marzec, College of St. Francis, English. Her field is medieval literature; author of novel, play and medieval romance; inspires students in classroom, helps outside it by chauffeuring students to research libraries, assisting with grant applications, escorting them to conferences.
Lois Klatt, Concordia University, physical education. Teacher-researcher in biomechanics, anatomy and exercise, contributor to book “Biomechanics in Human Movement,” consultant to Chicago White Sox, Schwinn Bicycle Co., NordicTrack Co., member of U.S. biomechanic advisers at 1984 Winter Olympics.
Marjorie Goodban, Elmhurst College, speech and language. Heads college’s speech-language-hearing clinic. Known for her work with children afflicted by Cornelia de Lange syndrome, she documented first successful therapy correcting the inability to speak, a syndrome symptom.
Jon Johnson, Elmhurst College, mathematics. Directs $725,000 National Science Foundation grant to improve high school math instruction through technology and mentors.
Luz Maria Berd, Illinois Benedictine College, languages. Developed first weekend language-immersion program in Illinois for secondary and post-secondary students of Spanish, French, German and Italian languages, widely lauded and still thriving. Member of national task force on standards in post-secondary language education.
Susan Mikula, Illinois Benedictine College, history. Expert on post-World War II Eastern Europe, offering courses on Russia and Soviet Union, she was born in Slovakia, came to U.S. as child, has studied and written on political and economic condition of Slovaks in Czechoslovakia and now in Slovakia.
Jonathan Lewis, Illinois Benedictine College, sociology. Contributor to several texts on teaching, including last year’s “Teaching Critical Thinking” (Prentice-Hall). Coordinator and mentor of project for Council on Independent Colleges in which doctoral candidates from Loyola University are introduced to teaching at small liberal arts colleges such as Illinois Benedictine.
Brother Mark McVann, Lewis University, religious studies. Editor of Listening: A Journal of Religion and Culture. Has lectured throughout U.S. and in Kenya, Sri Lanka, India and Singapore, moderator of college’s Peace Education Committee, which sponsors annual teach-in focusing on issues of international injustice and war.
Sister Mary Lauranne Lifka, Lewis University, history. Chairs history department, has published four books and more than 300 papers and articles.
James Ellor, National-Louis University, human services. Holder of a doctorate in pastoral counseling, directs gerontology study, served as chief investigator in hunger study for Du Page Community Foundation.
Howard Mueller, North Central College, religious studies. Recipient of school’s second fully endowed $1 million professorship. As student of African religions, he lived in Sierra Leone from 1965-68. His course, “Death and Dying,” is among most popular; in spring he begins sabbatical in Netherlands to look at church response to euthanasia there.
Steven Bouma-Prediger, North Park College, philosophy. Chairs philosophy department, takes students on camping-study trip annually to Adirondack Mountains. Co-drafter of a statement for coalition of evangelical Christians which affirms ecological responsibility from a biblical perspective. All-conference defensive back for college football team; photographer, vegetarian, canoeist, leads wilderness survival outings.
Sister Clemente Davlin, Rosary College, English. Recipient of school’s top teaching award, admired for her classes on Shakespeare and Chaucer, now writing book on the medieval poem “Piers Plowman.”
Richard Dello Buono, Rosary College, sociology. Researches institutions of Latin America, now concentrating on Cuba. Brilliant teacher and workaholic known to send faxes and voice-mail messages to colleagues in middle of night.
Margaret Carroll, St. Xavier University, education. Voted top teacher in 1991; teaches special education; author of four books, including “The Home as Learning Center, the Family as Educator” and “Around the World in Metropolitan Chicago: A School Field Trip Guide to Ethnic Museums and Restaurants.” She and husband restoring 103-year-old Victorian house.
Don Moon, Shimer College, philosophy, physics. President of innovative, 120-student college, admired teacher, has graduate degrees in divinity and nuclear reactor engineering, part-time pastoral assistant at Christ Episcopal Church in Waukegan.
Eileen Buchanan, Shimer College, humanities, theater. In Shimer fashion, she wears two hats as teacher and vice president for development; has acted in Chicago theaters; directs plays, student of poet Homer, master motivator.
Samir Massouh, Trinity College, biblical studies. Born in Beirut, he’s participant in Arabic translation of Bible; also writing survey of Old Testament, working on Arabic grammar text and Arab-Hebrew dictionary. Teaches adult Sunday school class at his Elmbrook church.
The Special Team
Modern football has developed the special team for kickoffs and punts-in a sense, the sport’s connective tissue. Our All-Professor Special Team is involved with a connective tissue of life-the arts:
Marva Lee Pitchford Jolly, Chicago State University, art. An acclaimed sculptor whose “story pots” in clay have been exhibited and collected widely, she was commissioned to create ceramic, L-shaped wall on campus, “Old People Say,” celebrating the wisdom of the elderly.
Shirley Mordine, Columbia College, dance. Established school’s dance center; founder of Mordine and Company dance troupe, praised by critic as “cutting edge of contemporary dance.”
Michael Rabiger, Columbia College, film. Directed 20 documentary films for British Broadcasting Corp., author of text on documentaries, leads college’s first documentary workshop for European film students this summer.
Catherine Slade, Columbia College, theater. Actor and acting teacher. Her performance in lead of “Lulu,” an American Repertory Theatre production, was cited by The New York Times as among the best of the 1980s.
Richard Fischer, Concordia University, music. Directs school’s Wind Symphony, assistant conductor of Symphony of Oak Park, music director of Elmwood Park Civic Ballet.
John Pitman Weber, Elmhurst College, art. Painter and muralist whose work has been exhibited nationally. Has murals in Paris and at the Harold Washington Library Center.
Del Rey Loven, Judson College, art. Fine-arts chairman whose leadership has seen 700 percent increase in students majoring in art; created computer graphics lab and internship program at private firms.
Lawrence Sisk, Lewis University, music. As composer, conductor and tenor soloist, he has directed university choir, sung at university events and premiered his “Passion According to St. John” at Glen Ellyn church where he is choirmaster.
Elizabeth Buccheri, North Park College, music. Teaches piano, music; is principal accompanist for Chicago Symphony Chorus and rehearsal accompanist-coach for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra; an assistant conductor at Lyric Opera; founded Chamber Music at North Park, an annual concert series often featuring Chicago Symphony Orchestra musicians.
Patricia Erens, Rosary College, film. Teaches “Japanese Culture Through Film,” demonstrating practices and customs in class. Author of six books, including “The Jew in American Cinema” and “Akira Kurosawa: A Guide to References and Resources.”
Jackie Bell, Trinity College, music. Directs college choir. Has won college’s top teaching award and Sears Roebuck Foundation award for teaching excellence.
