Image provided by: Texas A&M University
About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (April 7, 1988)
Chris Sawyer, a philosophy professor from the University of Oklahoma, presents a lecture in a recent philosophy colloquium. The College of Business gives teachers the option of allowing their numerical evaluations to be put on file in the Sterling C. Evans Library for student access, Laura Arth, a counselor in the college, says. But A&M is not alone in its use of evaluation questionaires as a means to gauge teaching excellence. Dr. Charles White, associate vice president of academic affairs at Trinity University, says departments at Trinity occasionally use peer evaluation. But Trinity’s main form of teacher evaluation, he says, is a university questionaire distributed to classes at the end of each semester, requesting both quantitative and qualitative information. Only the instructors see the written comments, White says, but they can include them in their files when being reviewed for promotion. The 21933500numerical evaluations are reviewed by departments when considering faculty for tenure or promotions, he says. Results of the university-wide evaluation are not available to students, White says. However, in some departments students are doing evaluations for their own use. Nancy Woodward, coordinator for the course-instructor survey at the University of Texas in Austin, says 70 percent of UT faculty released their evaluations to the students last semester. Evaluations at UT differ among departments, Woodward says. Most instructors perform the surveys voluntarily, she says, although some departments require them. By the same token, most instructors have the option of keeping the results of the evaluation to themselves, although some teaching assistants and non-tenured professors must submit the results to department chairs for review, she says. - UT has a new common form that can be used by any department for the purpose of student feedback, Woodward says, but not all departments use it. The new form has an automatic release on it, so it’s results cannot be kept confidential, she says. Beverly Combs, a clerk in A&M’s economics department, says evaluations are reviewed a little by the department head, especially those of graduate students. But their use is greatest once they’re returned to the professors and graduate students, she says. “It’s really mostly for the instructors,” she says, “so they can help themselves. ” witYi tto By Craig Calk When was the last time you had a class in which the professor was responsible for exposing a Nazi war criminal after 40 years of hiding, or been in a class where the teacher has been all over the world but prefers ' College Station because he wants to : teach Aggies? If more college students would take die time to know their professors, they wo realize there is such a person. Dr. Arnold Paul Krammer, a history professor at Texas A&M University, teaches History 106 and a course on Nazi Germany. And Krammer says he is doing exactly what he wants to do — teaching Aggies. The Chicago native has a Hungarian heritage. His parent were middle-ctess immigrants from Hungary who were driven out by the Nazis before World War II. His middle-aged parents did not speak any English and were terrified by the experience they had in Europe. They arrived in the United States with a lot of excess psychological baggage; he says. The Krammers went to Chicago because many other Hungarian immigrants were already settled there. Their house was a halfway point for Hungarians traveling from coast to coast. There would be people like Edward Teller, the father of the hydrogen bomb* and many other interesting people passing through for dinner, traveling from either New York of Los Angeles. Growing up with a Hungarian and German speaking family, Krammers interest in teaching history started early because of the influence he received from all the interesting eopie passing through. Krammer, is younger brother and his parents would always talk about history and discuss intriguing European questions. He found out that he had : a real interest for history and it became second nature trying to figure out the historical roots to questions of who was related to who. Being the oldest, Krammer had to teach his parents English and he grew up as the diplomat of the family, always sent out to negotiate matters and find out what people wanted. For instance, if the mailman needed some forms signed, Krammer was sent to find out what to do and what they wanted because his parents would wonder why the uniformed officials, who always frightened them, were knocking on the door. Krammer says that if he had been born by American born parents his life would have turned out differently. had a job with Monseii Chemicals and was in anguish ail summer because he just did not want to do it Then he realized what he really wanted to do. Every time he went to the library he would gravitate toward history books instead of chemistry books. “1 started reading about WW1, WWfl, Nazis and Europe and knew my body was hying to fell me something, ’ ’ Krammer says. Krammer is now doing exactly what he wants to do and at the place he wants to do if. “I feel as though it's one of those blessings in life, ” he says. Dr. Krammer has been at Texas A&M for 14 years and says he can go anywhere and do anything he wants to. Krammer feels fortunate to be He it with people who are in the most vital and interesting time of their lives. He enjoys the opportunity to hear new expressions and see new fashions, and says he feels as though he is with people who are experimenting, “After college one becomes less idealistic, more interested in society, more conservative and falls into that 9-to-5 mode that stops you from doing interesting things, ” Krammer says. Dr. Krammer has always been fascinated by the German-Nazi era but never knew what triggered it. Krammer says if you study ft long enough you begin to see questions and wonder why things happen. rents needed might not have normally done at 12 or 13 years old,’’Krammer says. Though Krammer was always nteresied in history, he graduated from college with a degree in chemical engineering. My parents were the sole reason for getting into chemisty,” he says, “f never really liked it but wanted to satisfy my parents. ” After coliege in 1963, Krammer start writing about it. fn 1975 while driving through Calvert en route to Hearne, Krammer stopped and asked a gas station attendant directions. The old man told Krammer to go to the comer where the old German prison camp used to be and turn left “What German prison camp?” Krammer asked. “The prison camp that held all the Germans in Texas during WWH,” the man replied. “Don’t you youngins know anything?” Krammer, baffled that he never knew of the German prison camps in Texas, later went to the library and looked up references to German prisoners in Texas. As a result, Krammer wrote a book ‘ ‘Nazi Prisoners of War in America.” This in turn lead to other books and articles. In fact, it led to him meeting the last fugitive German-Nazi prisoner and writing his life story, “Hitler’s Last Prisoner in America. ” Dr. Krammer says he feels confident in achieving anything he wants but does not know where it comes from, Krammer says the key of self-confidence is being willing to talk about anything and not be frightened about saying something you did. He loves being a part of teaching college and from time to time is recognized for it ‘Til do it without the recognition because I enjoy going to work everyday and pushing the peanut with my nose and no one is surprised as much as I am when 1 run into a goal of finish line,” he says. Thursday, April 1,1988/At Ease/Page 11