Professor Burger

He Taught Us All

Doug’s teaching career in English at CU-Boulder was legendary...

What He Taught.

     Doug was a gifted teacher, without doubt. He has many attributes that made him a good teacher, but the outstanding one, the one that made his students remember him years and even decades later, was that he treated all students with dignity and respect. Of course, he treated everyone that way. He merely brought his outlook on life into the classroom.  That could be a rarity in a college classroom.

    The main thing that was important to him as he related to his students was that he learned all their names. While this attribute may not seem unusual to you, you need to be aware that in the college classrooms where he was teaching, it was a rarity that professors learned the names of all their students, especially if they had large classes of 50 or 100 or even higher. It made no difference for Doug: an honors class of 8 or a Shakespeare class of 150, he knew the names of all his students usually by the second class meeting.

            

        In the course of his 44-yearcareer, he taught:

• Advanced Grammar
• Chaucer
• Milton
• Shakespeare
• Shakespeare for Non-Majors
• Old English
• Early English Literature
• Images of Men in Literature
• Composition
• Humanities
• Honors English

I think that about covers it. Of course, this isn't counting the numerous times, he taught informally. He offered lectures and sessions during Parents Weekends;  he was much sought after to give talks to various organization; and, upon retirement, he offered this lecture:

 

 How He Taught.

        If you were Doug's student, or if you attended one of his lectures, you would get the impression that he breezed into the room and began, off the top of his head, to speak about Othello or Romeo or Hamlet or The Wife of Bath. It would seem that he carried all this information around with him, packed in his brain, so to speak.  It seemed as if he would walk up the lectern, look out at the students, as if to say, "What is the topic for today? Oh, yes, Hamlet, Act One, Scene One." Then he would launch into the important elements of that scene, calling on students to add what they thought, moving forward gracefully, so that at the end of the hour, he would have covered what he intended. He always, always carried with him a yellow legal pad with his notes on it, but he would seldom, if ever, look at it. After class, he would hang around and talk with students.  He would then go for coffee or meet office hours, or go home.

    As I said, it would seem that way--Doug just breezing in, talking for 50 minutes, answering questions, elaborating on a comment, giving the background for the reading, adding his own thoughts, smiling all the while and making good eye contact with all who were present.

    But I lived with him.  Let me fill you in.

    Doug spent hours upon hours preparing for class. It would not matter how many times he had taught a certain work, he would always carefully reread it. Then, he would go to the library or got to his computer to look up the latest scholarship. He would come back and begin taking notes. I could never read what he wrote. His handwriting was small, cursive, of course. He divided the paper into two columns.  He knew exactly how many notes would amount to a class time, accounting for students questions and comments.  He would take those notes with him to class, lay them on the desk, and never look at them

    At the end of the semester, he would file the current notes with all the past notes on the same topic. For each folder, he had years and years and even decades of notes. When he retired, I thought it would be a good idea to recycle those notes. We had a small house, and we could use the space. But no. "I might need them some day," he declared. 

    When he died, I took six large green garbage bags full of notes to recycling--and I apologized to him for doing so. 

Doug Prepares for Class

The picture is dark, but take a look. He has a book in this hands, not doubt a text that he will be teaching the next day. Look at the stack of notes and books on the floor beside his chair. He has dragged all these items out and will spend the entire evening going back and forth from his text, looking at his old notes, looking at other books, taking notes.  You will also see a coffee cup on the table beside the chair. Always full.

His Awards.

    This is just a sampling. They speak for themselves.

 

     The Stearns Award: The Robert L. Stearns Award at the University of Colorado Boulder recognizes faculty and staff for exceptional achievement or service: Teaching, Service to the university, Working with students, Research, and Off-campus service. 

• 2009: Douglas A. Burger
• 2009: Patricia N. Limerick
• 2009: Owen “Brian” Toon

    The President's Teaching Scholars Program:   President's Teaching Scholars are recognized by the University for excellence in and active commitment to teaching and learning. A President's Teaching Scholar is expected to actively commit to excellence in teaching, and serve as a model and mentor on their home campus. There have been 103 President's Teaching Scholars since the inception of the program in 1989:

1989

Douglas Burger (Emeritus)

Boulder

English