SLU Public Information
President's Awards for Excellence
Hyping History
by Michelle Chauvin
History encompasses thousands of years, endless dates and definitions, a
15-pound textbook and a myriad of characters. Yet a semester is merely 15 weeks long.
Impossible for both teachers and students to cram centuries into weeks, right?
Not according to Dr. William Robison, winner of the 1996 President's Award for
Excellence in Teaching. He claims that by making history relate to present-day life it is really
quite simple.
"Students are often intimidated by history. I tell them it's like a movie. If you can remember the
plot, the characters, the soundtrack, the details, you can remember history. Or sports statistics...
if you can remember the starting lineup of a football team, you can certainly remember
history."
A Southeastern professor for 13 years, Bill Robison has already received the Dean's
Award for Excellence in Teaching in the College of Arts & Sciences and was recently named the
second recipient of a Distinguished Teaching Professorship in the Humanities.
"This feels pretty good," smiles Robison. "Because in spite of the emphasis that
universities put on research and publishing, teaching is still the first and most important function
here. I guess getting this award means I'm doing an okay job."
Colleagues and students alike certainly agree. English professor Mary Sue Ply writes that
the key to a history teacher's success is the ability to make the period under discussion both come
alive and make sense. "Dr. Robison," she said, "communicates the information, not just as
random facts, but as events working together to influence who and what we are today."
One student writes about Robison that he "parallels past history events to ones that occur
today to help our understanding." Another adds that "he actually makes history interesting." Yet
another says that the strength of Robison's course is his "ability to encourage critical thinking
among students by asking thought provoking questions."
Robison, a native of Alexandria and a product of Louisiana's education systemÑhe earned
his bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees at Louisiana State UniversityÑsays simply that he
enjoys teaching. Louisiana education is a controversial topic today with underfunding, poor
teacher education and lagging test scores. Robison believes his being here can help that. "I'm
from Louisiana. I went to school in Louisiana. I believe I know and understand where these
students are coming from in terms of history education," he said.
"Don't leave the state," he urges his students. "Don't go elsewhere to study or to live and
work. Stay. Stay here and do something about it. That is a bigger challenge."
Robison's teaching philosophy says that many students today have "been conditioned to
dislike history by a high school system in which history is seldom taught by individuals with
degrees in the subject and often amounts to a tedious and unconnected catalog of dates and
definitions."
It is the university professor's job, he says, to "make history come alive, to help students
see the excitement and the relevance to their own lives in it, to teach them the skills required to
cope with learning history, to help them develop the initiative to continue learning on their own,
and to enable them to become the students they ought to be."
"History is understated in terms of importance to students," says Robison. "It's important
for us all to realize where we've been, where we are now and hopefully to avoid mistakes of the
past. We need to know history and realize the difference between the facts and the spin someone
can put on the facts. That's important to maintaining democracy."
Robison's speciality is the history of Tudor England, a period that grabbed his interest as an
undergraduate and has held it ever since. "It was such an interesting time politically, in religious
terms," he said. "It's also the earliest part of our American history with the discovery of the New
World and forming the colonies. It really ties all of my interests together"
"And besides," laughs Robison, "it means I get to go to England a lot!"
Famous for his witty sense of humor, Robison says he enjoys being at Southeastern. "It's
a nice place to work. This department gets along tremendously, which is a virtual rarity in
academia. I like the students, the region. It just can't get better than this!"
He points out a tendency, especially in the media today, to downgrade western
civilization, to fault American society for its mistakes and decayed society. But Bill Robison
says this isn't fair.
"The media isn't giving the public a basis for comparison. They point out all the mistakes
in western civilization, but not the good things. And America certainly has many positive things
going for it. That's what I want to do as a teacher--help the students see what is good in today's
society and how we can learn from the mistakes in the past, in history, to make the future
better."
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