Finals are just around the corner...

While processing Joel Climenhaga's papers I came across an article he wrote regarding final examinations.  This reminded me that Finals are just around the corner and I thought others might enjoy this article that Climenhaga wrote on December 8, 1990 at Tarkio College in Missouri.

'The damndest student I ever met'  by Joel R. Climenhaga

"So...Final examinations are next week.  Right...

"Ready for them...?  You aren't...?  Don't feel too badly about that.  There have been thousands of students before you who weren't ready for their finals.

"Just as I wasn't ready for that Geology final back there in the Spring of 1951, when I was a student at UCLA.  I described all that in my last column.  How when I realized I didn't know any answers, I filled the exam booklet with an essay I wrote on the spot called 'My Artistic Appreciation of the Field of Geology.'

"I walked out of that examination fully expecting to flunk the course...

"A week or so later grades came out.  I went to the Registrar's Office to get mine.

"An A in Theories of Dramatic Direction.  An A in Advanced Acting.  And--leaping out at me as if in giant type--a D in Physical Geology.  (I forgot any other grades except those three.)

"What! (I thought) I didn't deserve any D in that course.  I had flunked that course cold...! But--who was I to look a gift horse in the mouth?  That was one more science requirement I didn't have to take.  And I went on my way rejoicing...

"Now, after that, what proved to be a very interesting thing began to happen.  Almost every morning, as I was walking across campus between classes, I would pass Dr. Putnam, who had been the teacher in Geology and who also was the Department Head.

"My memory of Dr. Putnam is that he was a man in his late fifties--very conservative in appearance.  Always wearing a sober suit, shirt and tie, polished dress shoes--and an old-fashioned bowler hat.

"Each time he would pass me, he'd tip his hat, say, "Good morning, Mr. Climenhaga." (Or, if it would be afternoon, then of course he'd say, "Good afternoon.")  And I would reply, "Good morning, Dr. Putnam."

"And that would be it.  We would never say anything further to each other.  But there always would be that greeting.

"This went on for as long as I remained a student at UCLA.

"Three years after I took that class, one day I was visiting with Wally Boyle, a professor in the Department of Theater Arts.

"By this time, I was a graduate student, working on my Master's degree in Theater.  (Somehow I had managed to plod my way through all my science requirements.)  I was going great guns in graduate school--doing very well for myself, both as a student and in directing and writing.  I'd been guaranteed a teaching assistantship for the following year.  Also, a production of my full-length play Marriage Wheel had been scheduled.  All the terrors of unpleasant academic requirements were behind me.

"While talking with Dr. Boyle on this particular day--(three years after I had taken the course in Geology)--suddenly he asked me, 'Joel, do you know a man on this campus by the name of Dr. Putnam?'

"'Sure,' I said.  'He's the Head of the Department of Geology.  I took a class from him several years ago.  Why do you ask?'

"And, then, Wally Boyle told me the following story...

"He told me that Dr. and Mrs. Putnam were good friends to him and his wife.  That the previous Saturday evening the Putnams had been their dinner guests.

"That after they had finished eating, while going through the normal after-dinner conversation, suddenly Dr. Putnam had asked, 'Wally, do you know a student in the Department of Theater Arts by the name of Joel Climenhaga?'

"'Yes,' Dr. Boyle replied.

"'Well, what kind of student is he?'

"And Wally Boyle told him (he told me) that I was one of the best students in the Department of Theater Arts, that all my teachers had high expectations for my career, that they were certain I was going to be a teacher and active in theatre, etc., etc.

"After all this, then Dr. Putnam said (according to Wally Boyle), 'Well, I had him as a student several years ago in Physical Geology.  Damndest student I ever met!  Absolutely refused to cheat!'

"I'm sure you can see what has lived with me through the years about all this...

"Many other people in that class (perhaps most of them) would have cheated if they had been able to.  Some undoubtedly did cheat.  But I hadn't chosen to do so.  And that's what had remained with Dr. Putnam about me.  And that, most likely, was the reason he had passed me in that course.

" And, most importantly, as far as I'm concerned, why he never forgot me.  Why he always knew me.  I was a person in his eyes, not just another statistic...

"It wasn't a matter of morality.  It was a matter of identity.

"I didn't cut off my right arm and try to substitute somebody else's arm there in order to throw a ball.  I didn't try to use somebody else's brain.  I used my own brain.

"Now, next week, as you students start taking your final examinations.  I hope you'll remember this series of columns about academic honesty.

"Look, personally, I don't give a tiddley-squat whether you cheat on your exams or not--at least, not in any moral sense.  But, if you do, just remember that you're no more than part of another statistic...

"And you'll be forgotten...!

"Not remembered...As Dr. Putnam remembered me."

***Joel R. Climenhaga was a professor in the Department of Speech Communication, Theatre, and Dance here at K-State from 1968 to 1987.***

Comments

[Jason]

What a fabulous story! Thank you so much for posting it, Cindy!