My father taught History at Morningside College. When I was a student there, several of my professors were family friends who knew my father well. They all had good things to say about my him.
About 13 years after I graduated, I was working on a project for the Missouri Training and Employment Council (MTEC). My colleagues and I had to make a short presentation to some of the MTEC officials. In the morning before our presentation-, I was introduced to several people affillitated with MTEC, including a man named John Wittstruck*. John and I got to talking and he asked me if I was originally from Missouri. I told him that I had been living in Missouri for about 8 years, but I originally hailed from Sioux City, Ia. He perked up. He asked me where I went to college and I told him Morningside. He then asked me when I graduated. I told him 1988. He extended his hand and exclaimed "Class of 1964."
It's a small world, indeed!
We talked about Morningside and realizing that he would have been there when my father was an assistant professor, I asked him if he knew Dr. James Miller. He asked me why I asked and I told him Dr. Miller was my dad. He leaned towards me, took my hand again, gave it a big shake and said, "That man taught me how to think." John told me a story of the first test my father gave to students in John's class. It was a very hard test and many students did poorly, but John said that it was that test and the way my dad encouraged students to think about history that taught John how to think.
I hope that somewhere down the line, my classes have a positive effect on some of the thousands of students I have had at Missouri or at Minnesota State, like my father had on Mr. Wittstruck. Assessment is such a big buzzword on campuses these days. Unfortunately, I suspect most of the assessment tools won't pick up opinions like those of Mr. Wittstruck.
*I mistakenly had the former student as being named John Wentworth.