Let's Thank Our Professors

Our Converse professors really go the extra mile for us students. They really care about us and strive to give us their best effort to help us grow, no matter how little recognition they receive or how much we complain (unjustly) about, for example, the helpful but occasionally frustrating MacGAMUT ear-training software. I feel this particularly keenly in our closely-knit Petrie School of Music, where our professors are always ready to answer questions, offer advice, and spur us to attain harder skills than we thought we could. Where else do professors drive students to Asheville to see the Southern Highlands Crafts Fair or to Atlanta to hear David Daniels in Orfeo ed Euridice? When Converse Chorale sang last Wednesday at the funeral of President Fleming’s father, Harold Fleming, I had to leave First Presbyterian Church early to be back in Blackman for my organ lesson. I was going to walk back in the rain, but Dr. Jones made sure I had a ride back. I could give many other examples of how wonderful our professors are, but some of my examples might embarrass one of my readers, so I will desist.

One tradition by which we students might honor our professors could be some sort of “give your professors breakfast” week. The idea would be for a professor’s students to treat him or her to breakfast and eat breakfast together before the first classes of the day. This tradition might not be feasible for the whole college, but it might work just within the Petrie School of Music since music majors have classes with each other quite a bit. The breakfasts would have to be spread out over a few days such that students would not have to choose whether to participate in their performance professor’s breakfast or their musicology professors’ breakfast. We might also have to do the breakfasts for a few professors at a time. But it would be nice to show our professors that we appreciate all that they do for us.