Newsweek lists historian Kathleen Canning among great professors students love
There are few better fixes for insomnia than listening to a professor read her PowerPoint to you, slide by slide. And that can be a good thing, especially if you've been up all night playing Rock Band. But discovering a teacher who wakes you up instead of putting you to sleep is one of the most rewarding college experiences you can have. A great professor can get you excited about a whole new subject, influence which major you choose, and maybe even change your life. As we discovered in an informal search for some of America's top profs, what sets these faculty stars apart are their abilities to excite and inspire their students, and to break down the wall that too often separates the classroom from the real world....
The students in Kathleen Canning's senior seminar at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, are often grateful that they have a week between sessions to reflect—and, sometimes, to cool off. What gets Canning's students riled up aren't the usual hot-button issues like race relations or abortion, though. It's history, specifically the politics of the Weimar Republic and World War II and how they are studied and understood today. Armed with primary texts, period artwork, and a heavy dose of enthusiasm, Canning presents a vivid picture of Germany at the end of World War I, then helps her students care about those long-ago people, places, and events. "She teaches us how mistakes from the past can be relevant today," explains Jordan Friedland, '09. Every week Canning lectures for an hour, then steps back to allow discussion. "It's key to listen, to let the students grab the material, work with it, and get as far as they can," she says. After two decades at U-M, she's learned that can be pretty far. Discussion of topics like "what qualifies as a war crime" can get emotional, but her students rarely complain. Instead, they ask difficult questions like, "Was the rape of a German woman by a Russian soldier different from the rape of a Jewish woman in Auschwitz?" In a class of history buffs (some with personal ties to the Holocaust), Canning helps students find their voice, knowing full well that those voices are likely to be raised. Rigorous debate is a good thing, Canning says, but when things get too hot she intervenes. She summarizes what was said, reframes the question, and then steers the discussion back to more neutral ground with a skill that continually amazes her students. Fittingly, it seems, this professor is also a diplomat.
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The students in Kathleen Canning's senior seminar at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, are often grateful that they have a week between sessions to reflect—and, sometimes, to cool off. What gets Canning's students riled up aren't the usual hot-button issues like race relations or abortion, though. It's history, specifically the politics of the Weimar Republic and World War II and how they are studied and understood today. Armed with primary texts, period artwork, and a heavy dose of enthusiasm, Canning presents a vivid picture of Germany at the end of World War I, then helps her students care about those long-ago people, places, and events. "She teaches us how mistakes from the past can be relevant today," explains Jordan Friedland, '09. Every week Canning lectures for an hour, then steps back to allow discussion. "It's key to listen, to let the students grab the material, work with it, and get as far as they can," she says. After two decades at U-M, she's learned that can be pretty far. Discussion of topics like "what qualifies as a war crime" can get emotional, but her students rarely complain. Instead, they ask difficult questions like, "Was the rape of a German woman by a Russian soldier different from the rape of a Jewish woman in Auschwitz?" In a class of history buffs (some with personal ties to the Holocaust), Canning helps students find their voice, knowing full well that those voices are likely to be raised. Rigorous debate is a good thing, Canning says, but when things get too hot she intervenes. She summarizes what was said, reframes the question, and then steers the discussion back to more neutral ground with a skill that continually amazes her students. Fittingly, it seems, this professor is also a diplomat.