Search 
MyUMUC 
WebTycho Center for Teaching and Learning
Faculty Excellence at UMUC
 |
Faculty Interview
|
| Interviewer: | Please tell us about your chosen discipline—how long have you worked in or taught it? What made you interested in the area? What keeps you interested in the area? |
| Robert Champ: | I've taught English since the early 1980s when I began my graduate career at Loyola University of Chicago. I've been interested in literature for as long as I can remember. As a boy of ten I was writing poems and little plays which my sister and I would perform for our parents. I started reading good literature early and was delighted to find there was a venue where I could talk, about it to others—school, first as a student and then as a teacher. I have no idea where this great interest came from, but it continues to this day. It sounds mystical, I know. How does a passion develop? |
| Interviewer: | How would you describe your teaching style or philosophy? What experiences or person(s) have influenced your style or philosophy? |
| Robert Champ: | The Roman satirist Horace said that the purpose of poetry is to "instruct and delight." That is pretty much the approach I take to teaching. My chief desire is that students come to see me as a real human being, one with a sense of humor, a sense of seriousness, and a love of literature. My chief aim is to have students come away from the class with a desire to read and to learn more about the writers and works we have read. For this reason, I try to give each student a great deal of individual attention. I see myself as an ambassador for my discipline. Throughout the years, I have had experiences in high school and college with teachers who inspired and helped further imbue me with the sense of beauty, power, and nobility in English and American literature. There is no special person that I want to point to: all of them were passionate about great writing. Some looked at literature with an almost religious reverence; others found in it the means to demolish the foibles of humankind, and reveled in the power of writers who undertook to do so. Because of them, I try to communicate my own humility before the awesome fact of literary genius, and to laugh at our common weaknesses. |
| Interviewer: | What do you find most satisfying about teaching in your chosen format(s)? What do you find challenging about teaching in your chosen format(s)? |
| Robert Champ: | First, the online format gives me a good deal of freedom. I can work when I want. Second, the format eliminates all those factors that might subtly influence me. I don't know whether my students are very attractive or plain, fat or thin or somewhere in between, have pleasant voices or unpleasant voices, etc. What I am aware of is a personality and a mind on the other side of the computer. I see the person in all his or her purity, so to speak. I also love reading and commenting on student contributions. One of the most satisfying aspects is simply using the format well, as students have often told me I do. Keeping up with all the posts is a challenge. I try to comment on all my students' posts for every conference. I'm not always able to do so because I have so many students (I teach four classes), but I think every student deserves special attention from an instructor. |
| Interviewer: | Please explain if you do something special or unique in your approach and how you developed that approach. What do you think it is about your approach that appeals to students? |
| Robert Champ: | As I have said, I try to respond to all of my students' replies to assignments—and do so in a kind way that leaves students' egos intact, even when they are egregiously wrong about a matter. (This is much harder for me to do in grading papers because the editor in me sometimes comes out strongly.) Students obviously feel good about an instructor who values what they have to say, and who is interested in building a bond with them. I also try to communicate my passion for the work, which students appreciate—who, after all, wants a teacher who is completely matter-of-fact? In the online environment, I like to use Class Announcements to show students what I'm like as a person. In the Conferences, I will have links to different websites, some in which the chief object is entertainment, some quite serious investigations into the work we are reading. |
| Interviewer: | What suggestion would you give to students who are interested in majoring or working in your discipline? |
| Robert Champ: | English is a major that can be applied to many professions—law, journalism, publishing (to name the most obvious). Thus, a student need never fear that an English degree will be useless. If a student wants to teach, he or she must, beyond all else, have a passion for words and good writing, plus the need to share that passion with others. If you don't have passion, don't consider teaching. I would also advise students to read beyond their classroom texts, to acquaint themselves as much as possible with the critical thinking about writers and their works. |
| Interviewer: | What suggestion would you give to new faculty who are interested in teaching in your discipline at UMUC? |
| Robert Champ: | Be ready to take on the challenge of technology, even if you plan to teach face-to-face. Be flexible. You never know what someone will ask you to do. Be prepared to deal with adult students who have many demands on their time, usually from families and full time jobs. It is a joy to teach these students because of their commitment to education and the knowledge that maturity has brought them. But they won't always be able to perform according to your schedule. (This is especially true of online students, who are often military personnel with duties that take them away from their computers for a week or more.) |
Faculty Excellence at UMUC Home
