The following speech was delivered by faculty member William Wresch — a longtime professor in the College of Business.
“First, I am honored to be able to speak with you this afternoon, just as I have been honored to be on your faculty all these years. As the Chancellor mentioned, I am leaving the University. As people do when they end one portion of their lives, they do a lot of thinking about their experience.
“As a professor, I have been thinking mostly about my students.
“I began teaching at UW-Milwaukee. I don’t think there is a commemorative plaque any place on campus. In fact, I am sure I was pretty terrible. Looking back, I don’t remember any of my brilliant lectures. What I remember is talking to students, not about class, but about their lives. One was a Navy vet who had earned a medal for carrying a fellow sailor out of a burning cargo hold. I found most students had far more going on in their lives than my class.
“My next stop was UW-Marinette, where I spent nine years. Marinette is a mill town, and lots of people are struggling there. I met lots of students with pretty rough edges. But I also met the Ericksons. Their parents had had a child every year, so I got a new Erickson in class every year. What I remember about all of them is their smile. They were bright, hardworking and happy. I never met their parents, but they had to be paragons of parenting. My only regret is they only had four kids – Mark, Mike, Dave and Diane. I think they had been hoping for a girl and quit when Diane came along I think the world would be a better place if they had had more kids.
“Another student I had there had cancer. She had it for years. She made it through treatment after treatment, and almost never missed a class. She studied death and dying and ended up giving talks all over the country on coping with cancer. I was really pleased to see her years later at the wedding of her daughter.
“I moved to UW-Stevens Point when our second child was born. My family was getting bigger, but my salary wasn’t, so we took the job at Point. Much of my teaching there was for teachers. They wanted to know how to use computers in their classrooms, so I gave courses in their school in the evening. If you have ever seen what teachers look like at the end of the school day, you have to wonder why anyone chooses that career. But there they were, anxious to learn how they could use computers to improve their teaching. I ended up writing some software for them that was popular around the country for about ten years.
“After thirteen years at Point, Oshkosh invited me here. Mostly, I have taught computer classes in the College of Business. Some of my more interesting semesters I taught MBA classes in the evening, and then freshmen classes the next morning.
“The MBA classes always impressed me. These folks work hard, yet I have never had a student complain about assignments or turn in second-rate work. Although I did have one student fall asleep in class every night. He didn’t fall asleep while I was lecturing, but the minute I gave the class a break, he would lay his head down on his arms and drop off to sleep. One night, as break was ending and he was waking up again, I asked what was going on. It turned out he worked for Schneider trucking and had to be in the office every morning at 5 to order fuel for the entire fleet. He was getting five or six hours of sleep a night while he worked on his MBA. I’d love to tell you I extended breaks so he could get more sleep, but I held to the normal schedule. And, he did just fine.
“The next morning I would get up and teach 18 year olds, and I would wonder which of them I would see again in ten years, done with their bachelor’s degree, working as a manager, and starting on an MBA as they advanced their career. And the truth is most of them looked like they could do it. I had students write a business plan already as freshmen, and some of them were so good, if the students had actually wanted to start the business, I think I would have invested. One student had a great plan for a cheesecake store. She is now a partner in an accounting firm, but I hope someday she runs her own business. If it turns out to be cheesecake, I know where I will be eating.
“So, now, it has been 41 years since that first class in Milwaukee. What have I learned? I’ve read lots of books on teaching, and I even took two semesters of developmental psychology, so you would think I could come up with really great principles of teaching and learning. Instead, I have learned that students are people. How’s that for brilliant?
“Students have lives outside the classroom. Sometimes those lives interfere with their classes, sometimes they help, but in every case students – you – are more than we get to see during 60 minutes periods. You have interests, and dreams, and talents and personalities. You are interesting to be around. You ask questions that would never occur to me. You do things that baffle me. Speaking of which, you have never seemed more strange than the first time I saw a class at break where every single student took out a cell phone and texted someone distant rather than talk to the person they were sitting next to. What’s that about? But I digress.
“How would I sum this all up for a new professor? I’d say you are in the right place, you will spend your career surrounded by good people, and when you finally wrap it all up, your final thoughts will be gratitude for the opportunity. So let me finish that way – Thank you.”
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