Mark Higbee has observed in a lot of classrooms over the
years. So when the Eastern Michigan University professor
visited full-time lecturer Mark Whitters' class on a fall
day in 2009, he knew he was witnessing something special.
Whitters' lecture on ancient Rome hit that rare professorial
sweet spot - rich in content, yet so engaging that it seemed
more like a conversation with the class of 33 students.
Almost every student in the class had a comment or a question.
Rather than shutting down further questions, Whitters'
responses drew more people into the discussion.
 |
ENRICHING HISTORY: Mark Whitters, a history
lecturer, addresses his History 101 Western
Civilization
class. Whitters was recently received
Eastern
Michigan University's Outstanding Teaching
Award fo Full-Time Lecturers.
He will receive a
plaque and a $1,000 check. |
"I was struck by how fully and naturally his classroom
style seemed to eliminate this distance between the expert
and the students," Higbee said. "... He had created a class,
long before I walked in, in which 30 undergraduates were
seriously thinking about ancient Rome and how it changed
over time."
Whitters is the winner of this year's Outstanding Teaching
Award for Full-Time Lecturers. A reception in his honor
will take place at University House April 20. Whitters
will receive a $1,000 check and a plaque.
“I'm humbled by the award and grateful to the many
faculty members who put forward recommendations,” said
Whitters. “I'd love to pay it back, somehow. I
almost feel a little guilty taking the money when funds
are so short.”
Whitters is an internationally respected scholar of Biblical
studies and world history. But his gift as a teacher is
his ability to bridge the distance between the expert and
the newbie.
"(He) understands that effective learning depends upon
the connection between expert and learner, rather than
just upon the brilliance of the teacher," Higbee said.
Whitters has traveled extensively and studied abroad in
Beirut, Lebanon. In addition, he received his doctorate
in religious studies from the Catholic University of America;
master's degrees in classical studies from the University
of Michigan and in Semitics and Near Eastern Studies from
the University of Minnesota; and his bachelor's degree
in the classics from Grinnell College.
He speaks eight languages and reads seven; has published
five articles in Biblical Studies journals; and co-edited "The
Ancient World," part of the seven-volume Encyclopedia of
World History
"His specialty (in the history of biblical languages)
makes him an indispensable instructor for the current Religious
Studies Minor and the newly formed Jewish Studies," said
Kate Mehuron, a history professor and department head.
Whitters teaches three history courses — "World
Civilization," "Western Civilization" and "Comparative
Study of Religion"
— with a contagious passion for the material
and an abiding willingness to meet students where they
are. He's embraced a teaching format, originally brought
to EMU by Higbee, called Reacting to the Past. The format
uses a competitive role-playing game to bring history to
life for students. Whitters even teaches an entire first-year
world history course - History 179 - built around the format.
"The students own the class. And, in this day and age,
that's what a lot of students need to experience — that
they're a contributor to their own education," Whitters
said. "It's this sense of being able to do their own research
and draw their own conclusions."
Even more so than his regular classes, the "Reacting" pedagogy
turns his classroom into a community of learners who depend
on — and are enriched by — each other,
with Whitters as an ally. If you're a contributor to EMU,
he points out, you have a different kind of involvement
than if you're a consumer of EMU.
Whitters, who lives in Detroit, has taught History 100
through extended programs at the EMU Detroit campus. There,
he found the role-playing game helps urban teens dig into
a subject that they might easily dismiss as dry and abstract.
That he does some of his best work in a community setting
should come as no surprise. Whitters is himself a member
of a religious community, an ecumenical brotherhood called
Servants of the Word. The group focuses on living a simple,
communal, celibate life and serving God by serving others.
When he's not teaching at EMU, he works as part of the
Street Team for Youth Works Detroit, finding and funding
minimum-wage jobs for 20-to-30 Detroit teens. Through his
Catholic parish in Detroit, he's also started a racial
dialogue group, Men of Victory. In addition, he's formed
a discussion group for EMU faculty called the Socratic
Club.
"I think (community is) something the system leaves out," he
said. "We're so focused on goals and consumption and achievement
and being on the fast track that we're totally consumed
with the system. There's a need to humanize our lives.
Relationships are important to me."
It shows. Students and faculty alike find Whitters' office
a safe place to have a spiritual conversation in the otherwise
secular world of a state university.
"The faculty here has been wonderfully supportive of my
work in Detroit, and they've gone out of their way to open
a niche for me," said Whitters, who began teaching an EMU
in 2005 and was pleased and thankful to find colleagues
who accepted him for who he is. "I didn't expect them to
be so receptive to someone as committed as I am to religion.
That wasn't the case, in such a concrete way, at other
state universities where I've taught."
