 DR. SCOTT REID, professor of chemistry and fan of encouragement
Chemistry professor Dr. Scott Reid puts a lot of stock in the good that comes from simple encouragement. He should. It was a teacher who spotted something in Reid when he was a young grad student and encouraged him to try teaching. Would the shoe fit? “I never thought I’d be very good at it because I’d always been a pretty shy kid.” Reid says. “Getting up in front of a class and talking didn’t appeal to me. For example, teaching freshman chemistry to 170 kids, speaking for an hour — non-stop — can be somewhat terrifying if you’re not used to it.
“So early on I concentrated on preparing my lectures. While I may never be the greatest lecturer, I think I do a good job responding to students, determining if something isn’t working, if my students didn’t understand anything I just taught them. I’m willing to go back to the drawing board and present the topic again from a different perspective. In that way teaching is a lot like research. If you’re not willing to put in the time, if you’re not invested in it, it won’t succeed. You can’t mail it in.
“For example, with my freshman class I meet with each student individually to go over the first exam. If a student didn’t do well, we discuss why and what they have to do to improve. I think that’s very important but it takes a lot of time. But when I look back at the teachers who affected me the most, they were the ones who really cared. That’s hard to do when you have a class of 170 students or even 15 students. But if you can convey that — and, of course, the best way to convey it is to believe it — it has a powerful impact. And as long as I think that, I’ll continue to do it.”
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