Teaching While President

The writer is a current president.

In spring, after more than a dozen years in administration, I decided to step back into the classroom.

It seemed like a great idea while touring a college campus with my youngest child. I mentioned how I could see myself retiring into teaching. My kid, with the pragmatic disdain only a teenager can muster, responded, “Maybe you should do it sooner rather than later—just in case you get fired before you can retire. You know, always best to be prepared.”

Little did I know that this passing thought would lead me into the thick of Gen Z students, whose TikTok attention spans I’d been warned about and whose worldviews have been shaped by COVID, social unrest, and technological upheaval.

I went into this confident in my teaching abilities, built over 15 years of classroom experience and a hallway full of teaching awards—jokingly referred to as “the Hall of Fame”—at my mom’s house.

But I also felt insecure about connecting with this new generation, whose experiences as recent high school graduates are wildly different from those of the upperclassmen and grad students I taught before.

To tackle this challenge, I leaned into my insecurity and tapped into the collective wisdom around me—first-year seminar colleagues, engineering faculty, instructional designers, librarians, and even ChatGPT.

I enlisted the help of AI to make my syllabus more Gen Z–friendly but had the good sense to ask my kids to react to the AI’s work. My daughter’s response—“RIP” followed by a laughing emoji—told me I had some work to do. So, I went back to the drawing board, tweaking it until I found a balance that felt right.

Prepping the course also meant mastering the learning management system. I even earned a certification on online best practices and bought a document camera to create polished video tutorials. All of this was far more time-consuming than I’d expected, but I knew I needed to set a high standard, especially as the university president. I knew this was a high-stakes project—I could only think of what ratemyprofessors.com could do to my presidential career.

The first day of class was a mix of nostalgia and nerves. I felt both old and young as I walked into the room, but the students’ reactions—or lack thereof—quickly brought me back to reality. They weren’t taking notes on paper, and their expressions were as flat as my first attempt at making sourdough. It hit me that these students were in kindergarten the last time I taught. I would later find out they were using an AI to take notes, which explained why they weren’t furiously scribbling down everything I said. Initially, I treated them like adults, with flexible deadlines and a few major assessments. But after an anonymous survey revealed they were spending more time on other courses yet felt well-prepared for the exam, I knew something was off. Given that this course is foundational in engineering and includes a lab, their confidence didn’t quite match the reality I expected.

I added more active learning activities, linked the material to real-world examples—like gaming and home appliances—and became their coach, pushing them just hard enough without breaking them. And yes, as my youngest son reminded me when I asked for advice, I might have been a bit outdated. His incredulous “Wait, what?! You are writing on the board?!?” was a stark reminder of just how much things had changed.

During those early days, faculty and staff across campus would often ask me how things were going. My barometer? A particular student who approached me after the first class, saying, “I know I will need a lot of help, and please know I will be visiting you often.” And visit he did—often! Depending on how J was doing, that’s how I gauged my success. I would tell folks that my test would be whether or not J passed the class with an A or a B. And he did!

Despite the bumps, the outcome was worth every sleepless night. Grades improved, students started showing up to office hours (and not just to ask when the class was over), and they even began emailing me about how the material connected to their own interests. The student reviews? Glowing. I was so proud, I sent them straight to the provost, fishing for a well-deserved pat on the back.

The experience was so fulfilling that I decided to teach the course again in the fall. I spent the summer beefing up the production values, hiring a teaching assistant to help revisit the lab experiments and create video demonstrations. I restructured the LMS, added assessments for each class, and included flashcards and interactive games. The result? Over 90 students enrolled, and they’re actually engaged! Attendance is stellar, they’re crowdsourcing homework solutions, and the first exam is around the corner—and for once, I’m feeling confident!

There’s no greater reward than engaging with curious minds. Even if it means navigating emojis, memes, and TikTok references, the experience has reminded me that teaching is still the best part of the job.