You’re on your way to Evanston to attend a college class in geography.
You haven’t really thought much about geography since high school. That was the last time you studied the subject and it was so long ago, our country had only 48 states, which made memorizing all the capitals slightly easier than today.
Then and now, geography is not something that exactly stirs the blood. On a word-association test, you’d probably say “boring” or “preferable to algebra” in response to “geography.”
But you’ve heard about an extremely popular geography course that has been taught every spring quarter for the past 25 years at Northwestern University by a professor named John Hudson, and you decide to sit in and see what the secret is.
Lecturing from 7 to 8:30 p.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays, Hudson consistently attracts 250 students to Geography C13, a survey of North America.
It is thought to be Northwestern’s longest-running elective course, an academic equivalent of “A Chorus Line” and “Cats,” which hold Broadway’s longevity record with a mere 15 consecutive years (“Cats” is still counting).
The comparison to commercial theater isn’t altogether fanciful.
As college buffs know, an elective course is one that isn’t required for graduation or a major.
Thus, if an elective draws a big audience, you assume it’s either a gut course–meaning a high grade for low effort–or the prof is a smash as a one-person show, filling the seats because of an ability to challenge and inform and inspire and entertain, like a talented actor with brains.
The reviews you’ve gotten say that Hudson is a hit for the latter reason, that he’s a wonderful teacher–imaginative, knowledgeable and wryly funny.
This 55-year-old pedagogue is too modest for a superstar. When you asked him on the phone for his assessment of the course’s success, he first discounted the notion that it’s a piece of cake, and then deflected the idea that his skill is responsible before finally crediting the inherent appeal of good ol’ geography itself.
“Geography’s a subject that you get out of what you put in. You can study calculus forever, and you may never get it. With geography, you study an hour, and you get an hour’s worth of knowledge.”
Unfortunately, perhaps, few Northwestern students have access to this particular brand of cost-effective learning, because John Crandall Hudson is the only professor of geography on the faculty.
Geography never has been a major program at Northwestern, in contrast to other Big Ten schools, such as Wisconsin, Ohio State, Minnesota and Penn State, which are national leaders in the specialty.
But when Hudson joined the university in 1971, he was among a half-dozen other professors in the geography department; a decade ago, however, the department was closed, a victim of changing intellectual trends and curricular priorities, and Hudson is now assigned to the anthropology department (although he has never even taken a course in that subject).
Students can still choose geography as a second major, and Hudson teaches geography courses on cartography, atmospheric science and Geographic Information Systems, a new and increasingly important computer-based field, as well as the hardy perennial that is Geography C13.
“The fact that this class is still going strong shows the interest in geography,” the Last Geographer had said on the phone.
– – –
You’re curious and expectant as you walk into Room 217 at Fisk Hall on the Evanston campus a half-hour before class.
The room is a spacious, 400-seat auditorium with a stage and a balcony, where most students like to sit.
Hudson, who speaks from a lectern at stage left, breaks the class into two 40-minute segments, lowering the lights and showing slides of maps and photographs on a huge screen as he lectures, at a rate of a slide every 30 seconds–160 a night.
It’s a Tuesday night, and because the Bulls are playing Miami in the playoffs, you figure the class turnout is sure to be hurt.
But Hudson is used to formidable competition.
“It’s not only the Bulls,” he says. “Tonight’s the final installment of `Roseanne,’ and my wife tells me it’s also when the woman is having her baby on another sitcom. I can’t think of the name.”
That would be “Mad About You,” on NBC.
“Right,” he says, then chuckles. “Sometimes students in the balcony will watch the Bulls. But it’s OK; they keep the sound off.”
Hudson doesn’t take the roll. He encourages attendance by giving weekly, 10-minute map quizzes that count for 20 percent of the final grade (and you get to throw out two of the eight quizzes).
“We’ll probably have a reasonable turnout, around 200,” he says, then smiles. “The big problem is we’re studying Canada tonight. A foreign country! They’d like to skip this one.”
– – –
As it happens, 183 students show up–officially enrolled students, that is. There are also some who have dropped the class but attend from time to time anyway, just because they like it. And one student has brought her aunt, who’s visiting from another state.
A few minutes before class, you interview Laini Wolman, 20, a journalism major from Longmeadow, Mass. Like virtually everyone in the course, she’s a senior. (By senior year, you have room for electives.)
You ask why she signed up. “My boyfriend took the class last year and loved it. He said it was like getting to go on vacation twice a week to a different place.
“And Professor Hudson has a terrific sense of humor. He’s sardonic and cutting. I just wish it was easier. Some seniors take this thinking it’s a joke, but he expects you to learn something. Every night you get history and sociology and geology and anthropology–all the `ologies.’ “
You also talk to Michael Rizzo, 21, an economics senior from Louisville. “Frankly, I wanted to keep my Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays clear. But I heard the lectures were pretty good, and I’m learning a surprising amount. I didn’t realize how little I knew.”
That reminds you of something Hudson said on the phone: “Students haven’t been taught much geography, and they know they don’t know it. So they’re interested, and geography can be made interesting. I like teaching this class. These students have a serious but not a sober attitude. The class is fun. Geography is fun.”
You had underlined that last sentence. Geography is fun. You wondered if you had heard right.
– – –
Hudson begins, and suddenly you’re taking notes again in a classroom, something you haven’t done in years. It’s depressing. But gradually, inexorably, miraculously, you find yourself paying closer and closer attention to what he is saying about topics that you would normally consider to be the most mundane and unglamorous imaginable.
At the moment, you are actually being drawn into and caring about something you never heard of before called the Canadian Shield.
Click. A map of Canada. “It’s there in the center of the country. Geologically speaking, it’s the largest of the regions of North America–almost 2 million square miles. We used to call it a massive slab of granitic rock. It’s not really a single slab, and its geology is fairly complex. But it is the oldest rock anywhere at the surface in the world . . . three billion years old.”
Hudson describes the interior of Canada as being shaped much like a toilet seat, with Hudson Bay representing you-know-what in this simile.
You’ll remember that. And while it would be inaccurate to say that geography has suddenly attained the level of Fun for you, somehow the concept doesn’t seem quite as far-fetched.
– – –
Hudson also delves into the upper Great Lakes area of the U.S. “The history of this region has been one of exploitation.” First fur, then forests, then iron ore and other metals.
“The white pine forest of the Great Lakes region was a unique resource, but it was logged out and destroyed by the 1920s, and for reasons no one can understand, it has not been regenerated. . . .”
Click. A photo of a statue of Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox at Bemidji, Minn. “This is the guy who did it–Paul Bunyan, who also is alleged to have had an unnatural relationship with his animal friend here.
“People think of big Paul as an old folk hero. In fact, he was very much like Betty Crocker–a public relations gimmick.” It seems that a Minnesota advertising man hired by the Red River Lumber Co. began popularizing the Bunyan legend in 1914. (Although no one is sure, the tales were said to have originated in lumber camps.)
“The purpose was to show how lumber companies were heroically chopping down the virgin forests at an enormous rate, which many years ago was thought to be a good thing.”
– – –
A sample from the midterm exam (the answer comes later):
1. A Great Lakes ship passing from Duluth to Gary to Cleveland back to Gary would, in order, carry the following sequence of cargoes:
A. Iron ore, empty, coal.
B. Coal, empty, iron ore.
C. Coal, iron ore, empty.
D. Iron ore, coal, empty.
– – –
Back to class. Click. A scene of a vast, forested area in central Canada. “Environmentally, Canada has a very different structure than the United States. We have a prosperous agricultural heartland, and in the middle of Canada they’ve got just more boreal forests.” These are forests where winters are so severe that maples and oaks can’t survive, only conifers and species like the aspen.
“If you go from Washington, D.C., to Omaha, about 1,500 miles, the entire trip would be across productive territory. If you went from Ottawa to Winnipeg, which is the same distance across Canada, you only encounter about 12 people. . . .
“One of the great problems of making Canada into a country, then, is that it snaps apart very easily at Lake Superior. The eastern half is where most of the people live. The western portion is not as well settled, but at least it’s not sparsely settled. But in the middle, there’s very, very little in the way of population. . . .”
– – –
Poor central Canada. You’re sympathetic, but feel much better about living in comparatively tropical Chicago.
By the way, the exam answer is A.
And the grade you give Hudson? Also an A? Absolutely.
And was it . . . fun?
Fun is always in the eye of the pathetic, long-suffering student who must take tests and be graded. But you do come away with a renewed appreciation for teachers who know their stuff and love teaching it. And, of course, for being out of school and never, ever having to study for exams again in your entire life.
DO YOU MAKE THE GRADE? TEST YOURSELF AND FIND OUT!
Match these geographical areas with the products or activities they are known for.
1. Black Hills
2. Colorado Plateau
3. High Plains
4. Lower Rio Grande Valley
5. Permian Basin
6. Snake River Plain
A. Irrigated potatoes
B. Oil and gas
C. Beef feeding and meat packing
D. Gold
E. Uranium
F. Winter vegetables
Answers: 1.D; 2.E; 3.C; 4.F; 5.B; 6.A
