Where Does a Professor Fit in an American Classroom?

A professor in the classroom must realize that who he or she is affects what is taught and how it is taught, because student perceptions of the professor are affected by the religious, ethnic, and national identity of the professor. On October 9, 1996, a gubernatorial debate took place in Seattle between a Republican candidate, Ellen Craswell, and a Democratic candidate, Gary Locke.1 Craswell stated that the Bible was the center of her political life, to which Locke responded that there were diverse religions present in Washington today and that religion should not enter the political arena. The media reacted to this debate the following day; analysts linked Craswell to the religious-right movement in Washington State, mostly to her disadvantage. The issue of the separation of the church and the state is nothing new. What concerned me was the question of religious tolerance: if Craswell were elected to the office, would she acknowledge the presence of nonChristian religions in the state? I'm concerned because a political environment cannot but be felt even in the university classroom. Since 1983 I've been teaching at Western Washington University, a predominantly undergraduate state university, where student evaluations of professors are taken seriously. I occasionally teach courses that deal with Chinese and Japanese civilizations, covering the areas of religion, philosophy, literature, history, society, and art. Because some of these courses are non-Western general university requirements, there are apt to be some students who are not interested in the subject matter at all but are taking the course merely to satisfy their distribution requirements. If students are simply uninterested in the material, it is still better than if a student exhibits his or her hostility toward what is taught in class. Fortunately, this bad experience has happened to me only a few times in the last thirteen years. Each time when this problem occurred, I resorted to the popular wisdom, you cannot please everybody, but each time it saddened me deep down because I felt a sense of failure in not being able to arouse a student's interest in worldviews different from those to which he or she adheres. When it comes down to the topic of religion, students' reactions can be raw, because it does touch upon their inner convictions and sometimes ideology (which they mistakenly believe to be their religious faith), and they feel defensive. My reflection on the success and failure of my teaching Buddhist-Christian Studies 18 (1998). ? by University of Hawai'i Press. All rights reserved. This content downloaded from 157.55.39.46 on Sat, 11 Jun 2016 05:04:34 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms