Professors provide insight into daily grind

The transition between high school and college marks a monumental shift in the lives of incoming freshmen. Beyond all the newfound freedom and self-righteous energy that abounds in this busy progression, there lies at the core a large branch of Tech faculty members most commonly known as "professors."

Who are they? At Tech, they consist of a varied mixture of researchers, lecturers and instructors, all with different skill sets and goals. Some have previously ventured out into the business or financial worlds, the realm of politics and law or have at an earlier point in time made some type of paramount discovery before returning to the domain of Academia.

Some simply never left at all, rather preferring the life-long pursuit of knowledge, discovery and ultimately, tenure.

In the end, however, what will matter first and foremost for the students at Tech is the fact that for every student, a handful of these professors will become legendary, if not universally so, then at least in their own lives.

Students will come to know professors, perhaps through assistantships, research, study abroad programs or simply common interests, and the impact on a student's life may go as far as to decide his or her path in the future. So what advice do they have to offer?

"Go to class, interact with your professors and TAs, spend time reading and working problems and don't fall behind," said Dr. Leigh Bottomley.

Bottomley taught chemistry at Agnes Scott College and Tech for 14 years before accepting a position assisting the Tech Undergraduate Vice-Provost, Bob McMath, with implementing progress report grades and setting up an undergraduate research program and academic advising network.

"The position was very rewarding, but I missed the students and teaching...so when an opportunity arose to work with freshman again, I took it. I enjoy working with the undergraduate and graduate students at Georgia Tech. It is always fun when you see students really understand the chemistry behind a process or technology that is taken for granted or is 'transparent' to the public end users," Bottomley said, who now, as the General Chemistry Lab Coordinator, writes and implements labs for Chemistry 1310 and 1312 for over 1,500 students in 75 lab sections.

She is also responsible for the training of around 50 graduate teaching assistants and also working with other faculty in the School of Chemistry & Biochemistry brainstorming new ideas and curricula.

On top of students working hard to earn their grade, professors work equally hard when teaching and imbuing the next generation with everything they will need to know for the future.

Dr. Tom Morley, a current beloved professor in the Mathematics Department, does not believe that there is a simple strategy that works for all professors when trying to impart information.

"In some ways, while talking to two hundred or three hundred people simultaneously, not a whole lot of information can be conveyed, so in some respect, my job is to kind of point out what's important and somehow convince the students to get into it themselves, while providing them with the resources to do that," Morley said.

His strategy is to ground the ideas in some sort of context that will make sense to his students. He is currently teaching Calculus II and Applied Combinatorics, an upper level math class for Computer Science majors.

"Tech students are really very good at somehow taking care of themselves. It's a matter of rather than telling them things, directing them and giving them context for basically learning it themselves, because the other way you learn calculus is by doing it," Morley said.

"You don't do it by sitting there and somehow absorbing calculus terms as they come to you in class," Morley said.

Cedric Stallworth, a Computer Science instructor, was awarded Best Freshman Professor by FAB at last April's Up With the White and Gold award ceremony, in which students nominated and voted for their favorites in a wide variety of categories. Stallworth is well known amongst his pupils for his unique teaching strategies.

"Stallworth has a unique way of capturing the class's attention," said Taher Khan, a second-year Chemical Engineering major and current student of Stallworth.

And remember, always, that professors too were once college students, and they have experienced all of this before.

Dr. Bottomley attended Florida State University in the 70s for both an undergraduate and graduate degree.

"This was the time of major protests against the Vietnam War and streaking on college campuses, so there was always a lot happening," Bottomley said.

She attributes the learning and fun to the faculty and teaching assistants in the Chemistry Department at Florida State.

"I ran a stockroom while I was getting my undergraduate degree and taught chemistry labs while I was a graduate student, so I've been involved in chemical education for many years," Bottomley said.

Dr. Morley attended the University of Maryland during his undergraduate years and then continued onto Carnegie-Mellon for his graduate education.

"Maryland was an interesting place. How to survive was to not get lost in the 30,000 students walking around. I got lucky and ended up doing some research with a professor who worked at Carnegie-Mellon... Carnegie was a small place, and it was a very interesting institution. It was all fine arts and engineering and nothing in between," Morley said.

Dr. Morley is also currently involved in distance learning with high schoolers from Cobb and Fulton Counties.

"The [Calculus II] class will be simultaneously offered not only to the Tech students in Van Leer, but it will also be offered through audio and video feed to about 100 high school students, mostly seniors. So they get up in the morning and go to their school, and some proctor or teacher will turn on some equipment, which most of the time works. They see me, and I see them; they can talk to me, and I can talk to them," Morley said.

Of course, not all professors will be as enthusiastic and sympathetic as students would hope; everyone's heard of Tech's very own "four horsemen," a nickname given to the four most notorious calculus professors on campus.

At any university, there are those professors that make a name for themselves by being the best at what they do, or perhaps the most stringent at what they teach, inspiring fear for those easily lost and not-so-easily repaired GPAs that students all hold so dear.

But, despite the larger-than-life aura that comprises the essence of a professor, there lies the undeniable fact that they are also human, with hobbies and interests outside of what students associate with them.

While in school, Dr. Morley was also playing keyboard with a blues band down in Georgetown, Washington, and this musical interaction is what convinced him to go into higher education.

"The whole business of teaching and performance is something that appeals to me...even when perhaps you don't think the material is the most important in the world, somehow you can convince someone that it is, and there's a certain element of performance in that," Morley said.

Dr. Morley still plays various musical instruments, such as the guitar, mandolin, Renaissance woodwinds and electric bass, as a hobby and a side-note to his teaching.

"Anyone who's taken my course knows that I use a lot of examples from Chinese and Japanese music. I love the music from 50s and 60s Hong Kong films," Morley said.

"I also love to read...the last thing I last read was The Scar by China Miéville, a science fiction novel. Right now I'm watching the first year of Enterprise again."

Dr. Bottomley's hobbies are also very grounding: "I like to read, swim and occasionally go bird-watching, preferably at the beach."

Indeed, professors are people too.