I saw this question on Twitter and I thought it would be a nice, non-sports related topic to bring to the board. Upon reading the response, I found out that one of my favorite professors passed just last year.
Full transparency, I was a History Major:

Dr. Dillard - The most fun May Session class I’ve ever taken. We crammed 3 credits into 3 weeks, and spent every 3-4 days exploring a different Civil War Battle Field. I’m fairly certain every guy ended up being Eskimo bro’s by the time those three weeks ended ?

Dr. Hanifi - Afghan refugee turned PHD. My greatest mentor and Letter of Recommendation advocate for my graduate school applications. One of the smartest and kind human beings I have ever met.

Dr. Guerrier- Head of the History Department. My father went to Princeton, and he was not keen on me attending JMU. Until we met Dr. Guerrier in his office, privately, for over an hour while I was a high school Senior. He smoked a cigar in his office on the top floor of Jackson during our meeting, and my father, who went to Med School in Tel-Aviv, went toe to toe with him about Israeli history. When we went to Texas Roadhouse for dinner later that night, my parents asked me if I thought this was the right place for me. I said it was (already had my mind made up from my initial visit with the girls soccer team lol), and they said they agreed 100%. Dr. Guerrier out-witted my Ivy League, Dr. dad to the point where my dad bent the knee to him.

I’ve had some Pinot, and hope I didn’t ramble too long, but I hope this thread takes off and sheds light on those who have impacted us beyond our graduating years. Go Dukes

JMU School of Business Mid-1980's Dr Zimmerman who taught Org Behavior among other classes owned a few race horses that ran at Charles Town. Unfortunately saw one of his horses break down one night and be put down.

I don't believe that was the night we went to "C Town" to watch the Marvin Hagler-Sugar Ray Leonard fight which was April 6th, 1987.

CS 351 -- Arch Harris.
"here are the requirements for a software project you'll see in your career."
THey were vague, contradictory, and didn't solve anyone's problems. We wound up in many ditches.

Best training for my career I ever had.

Dr Benke

Clive Hallman my history professor who taught us Virginia history according to the way "he saw it" or lived it.

Ken Varghese my "Money and Banking (Boredom)" professor. He reminded me of my occasionally frequent absence to Tuesday classes in front of 70 other students.

Both of these guys were "connected" to their students in a professional/personal/fun way.

I can’t remember many but a few were noteworthy

Clive Hallman - great story teller in the Southern style. He could spin a yarn and always checked his audience with “ok? , ok “ and many mornings were spent by me counting how many times he said “ok” in a one hour class. I didn’t learn much, but I laughed a lot and think his record was almost triple digit usage of “ok” in a single class. One of his catch phrases was, Ok ladies and gentlemen today we are going to take this tiger by the tail and spin it around a few times to see what happens. Ok?, ok.

Dave Gallatin - had a ton of fun working in sports broadcast media and he made it even more enjoyable. Working on the coaches shows for football and basketball provided great memories for road trips and all the behind the scenes stuff pre and post game. It was true leaning by doing.

Why don’t we have coaches shows anymore? Aren’t we big time now? I listened to Izzo’s show this week and also Jim Mora’s show.
Perhaps that is another way to fund Cig’s pay raise… conduct X number of coaches shows annually on Tuesday nights for X amount of income sponsored by Perdue and the Montpelier Collective.

No wonder I turned out to be a History teacher:
Dr. Dillard, man knew everything about military history I could think to ask.
Dr. Hyser, my 201 professor, taught me how not to write papers full of filler.
Dr. Hallman, for constantly reminding us that "we had that barrel waitin' for us" after class.

Don't forget Clive's discussions of Mint Juleps in the Old South class.

(11-09-2023 04:11 AM)Dukester Wrote:  Dr Benke

with you on that. Also Dr. Gabin. are you with me good people!

J Peter Pham and its not even close.

Aside from him, I have always held a special place in my heart for gsci professor that was diagnosed with cancer and died in the same semester, I believe in 2004/2005. He was a very kind man and although I dont think i learned a ton about gsci that semester, I watched someone battle cancer in the most humbling way possible. Right up until the end. His name is escaping me now, but he definitely had an influence on me!

(11-09-2023 01:59 AM)94computerguy Wrote:  CS 351 -- Arch Harris.
"here are the requirements for a software project you'll see in your career."
THey were vague, contradictory, and didn't solve anyone's problems. We wound up in many ditches.

Best training for my career I ever had.

He was there in 2002 when I thought I wanted to do computer science. I ended up doing Finance and Management instead.

Dr Alex Gabbin was the best at teaching X's and O's, and was a hoot to hang out with in Fargo. Dr Brooks Marshall taught me how to actually think.

With how computer science was setup from 2003 - 2007 I had a rotation of the same 3 or 4 professors for 4 years for all my classes it felt like. I enjoyed each in their own way and found each very helpful. I genuinely don't recall feeling like any of my teachers in those classes ever shorted me.

So shout out to the entire CS department from back then.

Dr. Stone in the PR dept of SCOM.

Also Ge Baas, my philosophy professor. Dutch dude who would have a hand rolled Dutch tobacco cigarette behind his ear and stand out front of the Hall before class. If you came up to him to ask a question, he'd offer you a cigarette, and regardless of what you said he'd roll another and have two behind his ears.

I'm not a cigarette guy but damn did those dutch hand rolled taste good.

(11-09-2023 08:05 AM)PolishFalconDuke Wrote:  No wonder I turned out to be a History teacher:
Dr. Dillard, man knew everything about military history I could think to ask.
Dr. Hyser, my 201 professor, taught me how not to write papers full of filler.
Dr. Hallman, for constantly reminding us that "we had that barrel waitin' for us" after class.

Never had Hyser, but agree with you on the other two.

Congrats on following through on becoming a History teacher. I decided in year 4 that wasn't the path for me...still enjoyed those days with Dillard and Hallman.

Also had a 1 off history professor, Collin McCoy, that made class interesting.

I had both Dr. Hyser and Arch Harris. Agree that they were excellent and among the best at school.

(11-09-2023 01:01 AM)JMU1987UVA1998 Wrote:  JMU School of Business Mid-1980's Dr Zimmerman who taught Org Behavior among other classes owned a few race horses that ran at Charles Town. Unfortunately saw one of his horses break down one night and be put down.

I don't believe that was the night we went to "C Town" to watch the Marvin Hagler-Sugar Ray Leonard fight which was April 6th, 1987.

Was Zimmerman the professor who gave you one grade higher than you earn if you simply show up for every class?

Stephen Wright in the Geography dept. He had a great understanding of the concept of Geography and not just the machinations. He also pushed me to go to grad school which was probably a mistake, but I don't regret the experience.

(11-09-2023 11:54 AM)Nerfherder95 Wrote:  Stephen Wright in the Geography dept. He had a great understanding of the concept of Geography and not just the machinations. He also pushed me to go to grad school which was probably a mistake, but I don't regret the experience.

Does he still teach?

For me it was Dr. Zimmerman. He was great teacher but he made me feel like he believed in me. That belief helped me tremendously. I also had Stan Ulanski for Oceanography my freshman year. He was incredible. It was before he became a Local weatherman and kind of “blew up”. He had a way of really connecting with the students.

Paul Warne was my Calc 1 professor and it turned into my favorite class at JMU. Always looked forward to his lectures. As a professor now, I often find myself trying to channel my inner Dr. Warne.