The Professor as Educator

Tyrone L. Adams
@ The University of Louisiana at Lafayette



My experience at The University of Florida as a Saint Petersburg Junior College transfer student from August 1988 to May 1990, under the tutelage of Donald E. Williams was, simply put, remarkable. Often, young scholars exaggerate the impact that one of their professors may have had on them in essays of this commemorative genre. Such is not the case here. I can safely say that Professor Williams left an indelible mark on my thinking, writing, and love for knowledge. His kind words, a flowing force in my mind; his lectures, still stirring in my memory; and, his cautious ability to meander through the puffery in my missives, imparting the timeless lessons of precision, brevity, and curiosity. Of course, "brevity" will probably not be evident in this essay.

When Professors Lynne Webb (my "theories" professor at Florida) and Kellie W. Roberts (my trusty speech and debate coach) asked that I write an essay addressing Dr. Williams' approach to communication education, every cell in my body felt renewed, reinvigorated, and even a little reborn. This was a professional honor and opportunity to thank the man who had done so much for me. Though, upon less intoxicating reflection, I must also admit that I sensed an undercurrent of sheer panic eroding my joy. Unquestionably, such an essay would have to pass through the courteous, but painfully authoritative eyes, of the man that I once called, and still do call, "Mentor."

Some of you may well know the terror of which I speak. You simply did not offer an essay to Professor Williams. You debated the merits of your thoughts for weeks after the assignment -- even after the grade had been assigned.

Imagine on any given day, knocking on one of your professor's office doors to this type of greeting: "Oh, why hello there Tyrone. Won't you come into my office? I was just reflecting upon your most recent essay concenring the Hegelian dialectic. I so very much wanted to talk with you about some of your keen insights and, unfortunately, obvious miscues that you have with the tensions between Hegel's notion of the Greek thesis-antithesis-synthesis tripartite. Do you have an hour this afternoon? Perhaps, we could go to the library and find some works which consider these ideas more formally?" To which I usually replied, "Um, er, okay."

Either Professor Williams was: (A) that good of a teacher and did this with all of his students [a distinct possibility], (B) really into Hegel [not a distinct possibility], or (C) was strategically trying to get rid of me [probably]. Needless to say, I didn't knock on his door much anymore.

Since this essay is being dissected by Professor Williams (and probably graded), it would be embarrassing not to provide the reader with a perfunctory preview. It is my belief that three educational motives drive (what I term) the Williamsonian praxis toward communication education, and are orchestrated toward fomenting the never-ending pursuit of enlightenment and self-actualization in each and every one of his students. Manifested, they are: (I) exposure to alternative thinking systems and cultures; (II) the recognition of the self and its function among nature; and (III) the responsibility that each individual carries in maintaining a sense of community in a cacophony of self-involved want. To be certain, this is not an all-inclusive list. Yet, it does earmark the chief lessons learned by me, and many of those who alongside me, experienced the full recoil of his lectures and review. These are Professor Williams' armatures for empowering a sense of self-determination and hunger for knowledge.

Please understand that this essay will use the first person voice since it is entirely impossible to write about such personal issues and memories in third person.

I. Exposure to Alternative Thinking Systems and Cultures

Dr. Williams is driven to ensure that each of his students dare to unravel the logics-of-mind conditioning his or her thoughts. This passion smacks of Bloom's observation in subtle, but important, ways; for, the Williamsonian approach to analyzing rhetoric seeks to understand the "tangents" involved in creating advocacy. Why do we think the way that we do? This soft-Socratic approach (where the student's proposition is counter-questioned by contrary example and situational hypothesis testing) is the engine propelling the Williamsonian praxis. And, inquiry, in its most unabridged and celebrated form, is the nexus from which his entire instruction unfolds; the lost art of asking questions, and not necessarily arriving at answers; the utter sophistication of not requiring intellectual closure to understand artifacts in their natural state. Inquiry as a state of being.

Appreciating the diversity of opinion prevalent in both the individual and its larger aggregate the community or culture (Platonically: writ large), Williamsonian praxis leaves the student with no other option than to face the infinite mirror of his or her own self. Oscar Wilde pens (1891) that, "Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing worth knowing can be taught." "The sound of one hand clapping" Professor Williams would frequently say, "leaves much to be desired." Considering the personal antithesis of one's external textual inquiry is, for Professor Williams, simply a prerequisite to understanding qua. Frequently, he would prod me toward my own personal antitheses, "Though your logic is sound here, Tyrone, and your words quite slippery, is it not true that more is to be asked of the self? What of the self, Tyrone?"

Deep words, questions, and thoughts at the dawning of a pupil's mind. This man was asking me what my contribution to the world would be!

II. Recognizing the Self and its Role in Nature

As our inquiry into the textual realm of the written, spoken, and visual symbol continued both inside and outside of class, Dr. Williams would never be too removed to ask me what was "on my mind" to spur the "Don-effect" already taking place in that particular void. This was serious business, now, asking a barely twenty-something at The University of Florida what was on his mind. At the time, to be quite honest, simple thoughts held my consciousness; things like cheap bean burritos, rarely consistent football games, cheaper beer, loud Springsteen, and the opposite sex. I never told him this, of course, but I am all too sure that he probably knew. Still, as the context of my youthful consciousness seemed to mature, in part, as a result of his unyielding instruction, so did my gaze into this flesh-space of meat we call the self. At the closing of my adolescence (perhaps), at a moment in time when I firmly believed in a stable Platonic order to the Universe (or universe), the progressive ontologia driving my mind was finally heuristic: As the known universe, physical or otherwise, expanded in my understanding, so did the known quadrants of my personal being. Or, to put it another way, Dr. Williams forced me to deal with myself by teaching me how to inquire. As I held the world up to critical scrutiny, I also began holding myself up to critical scrutiny.

To be embarrassingly honest, I remember looking at myself in the mirror one lazy Sunday afternoon in Hoggetowne, having just read the section on experientialism from what was then Scott and Brock's (pre-Chesboro) Methods of Rhetorical Criticism, snottily imitating Dr. Williams' distinctive voice, "What are you thinking, Tyrone?" My moment of sophomoric hubris was followed with a more intentional self-dialectic using the same question, this time in my real voice, "What are you thinking...Tyrone?" Freakish chills outclassed the smug grin formed by my ignorance. While it might seem strange, I highly encourage everyone to try this at home. For, at that very moment, I made the Williamsonian leap -- for better or worse -- into the study of me. All due to the still haunting question: "What are you thinking, Tyrone?" I remember walking out of Dauer Hall the first day he dared ask this to, and of, me, mumbling to myself, "What am I thinking? Why are you asking me, dude? Don't you get paid to tell me what to think..."

While many of my pinched-brow compatriots from "American Public Address," "Rhetorical Criticism," or "Theories of Argumentation" and I considered the nature of the universe and the meaning of the individual over our morning cokes outside Turlington (GPA), I remain convinced that Professor Williams was preparing his line of questioning, sometimes days in advance of his lectures. Being perturbed at having to now think, we would together plot appropriate methods to answer his questions in an AFL/CIO-approved Teamster-like fashion to present the ruse of having a unified front. An Alinsky or Marxissant socialist-triangle of pack-credibility that we hoped might counterbalance our having merely glanced at the readings to be discussed that day. This proved to be an imprudent technique since Williamsonian inquiry is highly-specialized and individualized; meaning, that Dr. Williams could recall miscues that we had previously made in class with exactitude, begging for our consistency. He used our statements to unravel both the inadequacy of our responses, and our meager attempt to cling to one another for safety. There was no cliched "safety in numbers." He was making us all think. And, man, it really, really hurt.

Which, now that I have had more time to think upon the dynamic, is the culmination and essence of Williamsonian pedagogy: He was stripping us of our mediocrity in an effort to spur individual responsibility. No longer would the appreciated ennui of our student group-think be allowed to thrive unmentioned, ignored, tolerated; he would fail us all, if need be. There was a standard, even to his seemingly gummy advocacy of cultural logic systems, which at the time, escaped my full appreciation. During my first semester with Dr. Williams, I came close to the edge of my academic existence repeatedly. As did almost everyone, I now hear. And for that, and the B-, B, and B+ he "gave" me, I am eternally thankful.

These lessons, however, were not allowed to exist in the vacuum of self-indulgence. Like a red-herring postmodern footnote, Dr. Williams would often mention the individual's responsibility, if not duty, to society. By that, I am certain that he meant the informed individual who had metamorphosed beyond the flesh into the realm of free inquiry; and by society, I am also certain that he meant that congregation-of-will desirous of promoting and extending intellectual liberty from one generation to another. In agreement with Lichtenberg's (made somewhere from 1765-99, history is unclear) sentiments that "A schoolteacher or professor cannot educate individuals, he educates only species..." I believe Dr. Williams not to be a mere "professor." He, and his subsequent logics operating in my mind, transcend the belittling state-commodified existence of instruction that would have us mechanistically impart knowledge as fast-food chains do simple cheeseburgers. To me, he personifies Nietzsche's Zarathustra in the most positive way; he is the mastermind of future Zeitgeists not yet imagined or explored; he is, and will always represent, the catalyst of my individual mind. As, I am fully certain, he does for many others. His reach throughout the discipline is broad, subtle, and profound.

The example that Dr. Williams provides the academic class as a researcher, teacher, and provider of service, overshadows anything that I, or my fellow essayists, could ever even dream to muster in this lifetime. His legacy is a celebration of diversity measured in genuine uniqueness; not so much a celebration of cultural diversity, though that history is more than evident in our journals. But, a celebration of individual diversity. The legacy that Dr. Williams leaves behind cannot be touched, seen, heard, tasted, or smelled. It reaches beyond the pale of empirical positivism. One will not find his true endowment to us in his publications, nor the minutes of our associational meetings. It is a logical and spiritual presence that, for me, has made an everlasting impression among my experiences with the academic conversation. He has taught his students, and the students of his students, how to engage the academic conversation.

As a first semester major in the Department of Communication Studies at The University of Florida, I encountered many students who feverishly worked their schedules to avoid Professor Williams' classes. He was both respected and feared, in the Machiavellian sense. Pity, too. It was for this very reason that I subjected myself to his disciplinal instruction. He taught me, and many others, that our place in society, in nature, should be at the service of others. He taught me, above all else, how to be human in a world all too willing to transform my existence into a bureaucratic cogwheel. He taught me how to think beyond the shadow of my own misperceptions. And, he taught me to think and write beyond the compartmentalized nature of our disciplinary methodological madness. I have found all of these lessons to be vitally important when engaging my students, rather than merely teaching them.

If, someday, you happen upon a communication scholar trained at The University of Florida between the years of 1959 and 1995, and he or she questions reality more than providing answers for it, you will more than likely be in contact with the apotheosis of Dr. Donald E. Williams.

Thank you, Professor Donald E. Williams.