By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
Lou Katzner was facing a class of unfamiliar student faces.
That’s not unusual for the philosophy professor who has taught at Bowling Green State University since 1969, except this class included a couple students who graduated well before he started teaching here.
The seven students in the class were part of the inaugural BGSU Alumni College. In her greeting to the several dozen students enrolled, President Mary Ellen Mazey said she looked for the program to grow over the years and reach more of the university’s 175,000 alumni.
And she hoped their experience on campus would get them to consider how they can help future generations of Falcons. A major focus of the current fundraising campaign is scholarships, she said. And, in detailing all the building renovations underway, she said donors can have their names attached to a building or space within a building.
Katzner wanted to explore the more intangible aspects of higher education. He led the graduates in a discussion of “What is the Value of a College Education?”
Support Independent News In Bowling GreenThe students ranged from Barbara Palmer, a 1954 graduate, to Sean Taylor, a 1998 graduate.
At the conclusion, Katzner said: “The most important thing you can take away from college is how to learn.”
That proved true for those in the class who’d made career shifts over their lives. Carolyn Christman, who graduated in 1985, has gone from being a school music teacher to a Methodist missionary. Dina Horwedel graduated in journalism in 1986 and then got a law degree. Her career has taken her around the world. Now she works for the American Indian College Fund as director of public education.
She said one of her most enduring memories of her time at BGSU was advice by journalism professor Emil Dansker. He told his students that “everything is relevant,” Horwedel said.
Also, “he told us to question everything.”
Katzner said that approach is suffering in the current educational climate, which focuses so much on accountability. “It’s easy to get data on students’ ability to give answers. You can’t get data on how students ask questions.”
That data-driven focus runs counter to what it means to be an American, Horwedel said. “We do question more. … That’s what’s made us so innovative. We find work-arounds. … It would be a tragedy if we didn’t continue to ask questions.”
In the group that included several educators, Katzner’s lament about data-driven education drew sighs of recognition.
“It all comes from things you can’t measure,” said Craig Bowman, who received a master’s in business education in 1981.
The memories of those in the group weren’t only of the classroom.
Christman said the best thing she did was join the Falcon Marching Band. She found a second family in the band.
Katzner said he advises young people to make those connections in college because they get harder to make later in life.
Palmer remembered traveling to New York with some girlfriends to see the basketball team play in the National Invitational Tournament.
She said she wasn’t sure how they managed it, but they found a ride to New York City, and got themselves courtside seats. When their driver had to leave before the tournament was over, Palmer and her friends were nonplussed, they stayed on in the city not knowing just how they’d get back to Bowling Green.
This was in a time when female students were under far more supervision than now.
When Karen DeMatteo was at BGSU a decade later, female students still had to be in by 10. Those who weren’t faced expulsion, and female students who were expelled for missing curfew had their names printed in the BG News.
Still on a night when DeMatteo’s family was facing a crisis, a fellow female student managed to get them signed out of their residence and drove DeMatteo back home to Mansfield. The family problem, she said, turned out not as bad as she originally thought, and there were no consequences back on campus for their absence.
For the rest of her life that friend knew she could always call on DeMatteo, though she claimed not to remember the incident.
“It was important that someone would go out of their way for me,” DeMatteo said.
Taylor said that reflects the friendly nature of BGSU. He was a tour guide when he was on campus. It was not unusual, he said, for students to stop and talk to tour groups they encountered. Taylor said guides had to convince the visitors that this wasn’t a setup.
Lisa Pavel said she found that willingness to help still thrives on campus. When she checked into Centennial Hall on Monday night, she spent 90 minutes talking with the students staffing the desk. She had a lot of questions, she said. Her daughter is set to attend BGSU in August, 2017.
