May 9, 2008

As Presbyterian College’s newest Professor of the Year, Dr. Brian Beasley finds himself at a junction familiar to those great professors who have preceded him – on the corner of Humility Street and Intimidation Avenue.

Joining some of the college’s academic heavyweights as Professor of the Year, the Daniel Professor of Mathematics understands fully the company he is keeping.

It’s certainly very humbling, and I know you hear that a lot in this type of situation, but it’s very true,” Beasley said. “It’s very humbling to think about the incredible colleagues who have gone before me. Having been here 20 years, I knew most of these folks, if not all of them, and still do, of course.

“It’s also a little intimidating – the notion that you’ve stepped into a new ballgame. At PC, the wonderful thing is that you expect the expectation. You expect people to say, ‘Great. Now keep it up.’ That’s a good thing.”

Bolstered by his colleagues in every department – by their encouragement, their ideas, and their knowledge – Beasley said he wants to meet the challenge of being Professor of the Year head-on.

“I see myself next year wanting to maintain that momentum,” he said. “I’m thinking, how can I tweak my own teaching? What has worked that I want to keep year after year? And what could I be doing to improve on other areas?”

In his department, for example, math professors utilized a grant to incorporate the history of mathematics into their courses.

“We’ve worked on that as a department and my colleagues have shared and encouraged each other because you can imagine the reaction of the students to find out they’re taking a math course and they’ll be writing a history paper,” Beasley said.  “Some of them are not thrilled.”

But students will benefit in the long, said Beasley

“There is an ongoing challenge to make those assignments relevant,” he said. “The whole reason we incorporate math history throughout the courses instead of having a separate course is for them to see that it’s relevant. When we study calculus and the derivative, we don’t want them to think that the derivative popped out of the clear blue one day. It was years and years of developing these ideas before mathematicians came up with a notation or a correct definition or an application. That’s one specific example of how I want to keep pushing myself. Where else would you have students taking a math course and getting in touch with the liberal arts with a math history paper at the same time?”

Beasley chuckles at the notion of the math professor stereotype – the stern number cruncher that sees everything as an equation. Instead, he recalls an answer to the question, “How do your students know you?” -- “Pretty hard tests. Pretty bad puns.”

Humor is as much a tool in the classroom to keep students interested and engaged in math as are the index cards he asks them fill out with their interests and their history so that he might learn more about them as people.

“I want them to understand from day one that I want to get to know them beyond just another face, “ he said. “… And I try to get a sense of the students who have some math anxiety, so I try to use humor to help them relax and, in one sense, to catch them off guard and to keep them on their toes. If they are starting to tune out in class, they may not know what I’m going to say next. If they ask a question and I place it back to them and a student gives a good answer, I’m going to say, ‘I’m impressed.’ And I expect them to say back, ‘Like a waffle.’

“It’s silly. It’s corny. But it keeps them engaged. I feel like they expect that after awhile. I hope that what I’m doing in my own silly, corny way is creating a positive learning environment where students realize that it’s all right to ask a question. You’re not going to look foolish. In fact, as I remind them, at least five other people probably have that same question and they’re hoping someone else is going to ask it.”

A 20-year veteran at PC, Beasley counts himself lucky to have found both his calling and the place to practice it. While pursuing his doctorate in the early 1990s, his affinity for the college kept him moving forward.

“What kept me going during my quest for a doctorate – a very difficult quest – was the notion that I had found where I wanted to be,” he said. “I knew I needed that doctorate because I wanted to teach at PC. From moment one, I knew this was the place I had been seeking. Now, that’s due to the fact that teaching is paramount here. The students care. The faculty cares. What I discovered over the years after I finished my doctorate … was that this was the perfect fit for me as someone who values teaching above all and yet who realizes that I, too, am a lifelong student.”

The son of Doug and Shelby Beasley of Augusta, Ga., Beasley and his wife, Kathy, have two sons – Matt and Mike.




posted by Hal Milam