I have been teaching political science for over twenty years: almost eighteen years as a professor at the University of New Mexico (2005-today), one year as a lecturer at University of California, Davis (2004-2005), and four years as a graduate teaching assistant at UC Davis (1999-2004). For most of those twenty-five years, my teaching philosophy remained mostly unchanged. My goal was to foster student interest and understanding through four key principles: enthusiasm, professionalism, creativity, and relevance. By committing myself to these principles, I hoped to have a lasting impact on the students I teach.
While my teaching is still firmly rooted in those principles, I only recently began to fully understand my role as a university professor. Yes, I teach American politics. I do not take this job lightly, especially during a time when an already notoriously uninformed public is bombarded by mis—or dis—information. I also use American politics to teach students to think critically. Consider, for instance, the question of the nature of representation in a world of misinformation. Assume a constituency believes that 2+2=5 and they elect a candidate to the U.S. Congress who takes positions that 2+2=5. Is that legislator being a “good” representative? This is the sort of question that goes beyond the nuts-and-bolts of the American political system and require students to think critically about complex concepts, such as the meaning of representation.
But I have only recently come to fully appreciate another dimension to teaching at a university. What I have learned is that in addition to teaching political science, I am a mentor and advisor who, on any given day, might be a life-changer for my students.
It is becoming increasingly clear to me that students seem to be working harder than ever to get into college and have little idea what to do once they are in college. And once they are in college, they are unsure about what to do after college. Indeed, most of my office hours are no longer spent discussing course material. Rather, they are spent helping students settle on a major, find an internship, decide between graduate or law school, approach their professors or potential employers, balance their academic and work lives, decide on a career path, and so on. Students’ issues are sometimes so complex that I find myself leaning not just on my decades of experience as a student and teacher, but also my seventeen years as a father and twenty-five years as a youth sports coach.
This realization has shaped my teaching philosophy in important ways. I work hard to be understanding, compassionate, and empathetic. I make sure students realize that they are being heard. I try to motivate and encourage them. And I challenge myself to ensure every student I teach or advise learns something new. This could range from a new understanding of the nature of political representation to finding an exciting internship opportunity.
Over time, my teaching philosophy has become indistinguishable from my mentoring philosophy. My teaching approach is student-centered in the sense that I make every effort to listen to, understand, and respect students’ goals and interests in an environment built on mutual trust. And my objective is to help students find the support they need so that they can retain the hope and optimism they deserve in college.
My typical semester consists of teaching well beyond my contracted 2-2 load. In addition to some combination of two undergraduate and graduate courses on American politics, I routinely facilitate: an internship course of around twenty students (POLS 491); an independent study with five undergraduate interns in the Fred Harris Congressional Internship Program in Washington, DC (POLS 496); a directed reading for a small group of graduate students preparing to take comprehensive exams (POLS 599); three graduate students whose dissertations I chair (POLS 699); a senior honors section for students completing their thesis (POLS 497); and independent studies for undergraduate students looking for research experience or participating in programs such as the Melon Mays Undergraduates Fellowship or the McNair Scholars Program (POLS 499). I also recently completed a three-year stint teaching in the First-Year Learning Communities Program through UNM’s University College. It is not uncommon for me to teach close to two hundred students a semester, not including those I mentor informally.