Three faculty retire from university
By Scott Rees and Deborah Lilly
Anderson University bid farewell to three retiring professors during the 2008-2009 school year. Dr. Curtis Leech, Dean Pat Griffin, and Professor Nancy Moller are all enjoying their first months of retirement but not before they shared their thoughts on their careers at AU.
Dr. Curtis Leech says he hopes his legacy will extend far beyond what he taught.
“When people ask me about my own education, I never talk about information exchange. I always talk about the influence a faculty member had on my thinking, and my self image, and my hopes and dreams,” says Leech, who retired after 32 years teaching in the university’s psychology department, where he also served as chair.
“It was always the encouragement I got out of it and things like that. That’s what I am after in the classroom. I would like to do that for every student in the classroom, I would hope,” he says.
That is part of the reason why he isn’t fond of online classes. A key element of education is missing, he believes.
“I think there are lots of dynamic interpersonal interactions between students and faculty even in the large classes like general psychology,” says Leech.
For Leech, it was the relationships that drove him.
“Watching (students) grow and move on to new lives, whether they go into psychology or not. It’s encouraging, getting in touch with students again. I’ve really enjoyed the faculty and the Christian environment. It’s been a very rewarding place to work,” he says.
Leech says he had struggled with the idea of retiring for a couple years before finally making the decision. He says it just felt like the right time.
“There’s just a certain tiredness that you get and the things about the job that you don’t like the most seem to loom larger as you get older. I’ve never enjoyed the assessment side of things and I must admit I am not crazy about how important computers have become in the classroom,” he says.
“Nobody is twisting my arm to use it more, but as far as the students are concerned, the media is the message. And as far as I am concerned the media is not the message.”
Leech says he would like to concentrate on finishing some magazine articles he has started writing during his time at the university and is toying with the idea of authoring a book.
He says he would also like to travel and spend some time at his cabin on the western side of the state.
“And believe it or not, learn to play piano and learn to cook,” he says.
After 26 years at AU, Pat Griffin is retiring. Griffin, a 36-year veteran in the nursing profession, spent her last year in the department as interim dean of the School of Nursing, making sure everything ran smoothly during the transition.
Griffin graduated from Indiana University’s nursing school in 1972. She worked at Riley Children’s Hospital and Community East, both in Indianapolis, and St. John’s in Anderson before coming to AU. She began her AU career in 1983 doing clinical work and then joined the faculty. She taught up until she was given the task of doing the university assessment more than two years ago.
Remembering her transition from the hospital to the classroom, Griffin says, “I got into teaching because I needed a change in my career, and I was ready to do something challenging.” In the early 1980s, if someone wanted to advance in nursing, you either went into administration or teaching. “I thought I had natural abilities in teaching and that I would enjoy teaching.”
Griffin soon realized what an awesome responsibility teaching was. “You start with unmolded clay, and you shape it all the time you have a student with you,” she explains. “Teachers have a lot of power because you affect students in ways you probably don’t realize. It’s about more than just what happens in the classroom.” As a teacher, Griffin was not just influencing one life. What she taught and modeled determined how her students would react to patients in the future.
Now that Grifiin is retired, she and her husband, Gerry, have a mobile home in Florida to enjoy and two grandchildren to spoil. “I think it’s time to write another chapter,” she says.
“I’ve grown to love this place,” admits Griffin. She feels blessed that she was able to spend the better part of her career at Anderson University. “It has shaped me, and I hope I have left some sort of imprint as well.”
Though she officially retired from the School of Education in December 2008, Nancy Moller will never stop teaching. She will now be giving life lessons and her pupil count has been reduced to 18 — all grandchildren.
“I have been promoted from professor to grandmother. That’s how I look at it,” she says, laughing.
Moller, 66, spent more than 12 years at the university, where she helped to effectively prepare future educators to mold young minds.
“[The most rewarding part] was probably hearing from successful teachers out in the U.S. and actually in the world. Several of my former teachers are out in overseas schools and mission schools,” she says.
She says she hopes students took away more than just factual information and procedures.
“I hope they learned some life lessons that would enable them to serve many different populations and with a human approach — a very caring and servant attitude,” says Moller. “Because schools are very different now than they used to be. Students are more challenging with more problems.”
In addition, teachers are in a unique position of providing a solid witness of Christ day in and day out to children.
“Not directly, because they are a teacher, but in the community as a resource. They aren’t using their position as a soapbox to be a minister, but they are indirectly a person that students will look up to, and I think they would be a great spiritual resource in public schools,” she says. “Students can read you pretty well, and there are opportunities that aren’t obvious but they are there.”
Moller was especially integral in multicultural education, which she enjoyed because it included lots of traveling. She also enjoyed helping student teachers in the local junior high and high schools in the area.
She will spend her retired life as a “snowbird” with her husband in Phoenix and the latter part of the summer and early fall at a cabin in Marion, Ind.
“There are so many beautiful things to see and do that I am hoping to keep very busy. I don’t expect to be rappelling up any cliffs, but it is beautiful to hike and see,” she says.
