Jerry Apps family collection
Apps, right, at a 4-H leader meeting while he worked at UW-Extension.
In his new book, Once a Professor: A Memoir of Teaching in Turbulent Times, just out from the Wisconsin Historical Society Press, Jerry Apps tells of a student who came to his office at the UW-Madison in the early 1980s. The student, who was from Iraq, wanted to explain why he didn’t talk often in class. He said another student, from the U.S., had chastised him: “Your English is so bad that none of us can understand you.” Relating this encounter, the Iraqi student began to cry. He was distraught about having to speak at an upcoming class presentation.
Apps recounts his reaction: “I was so angry I could hardly contain myself. I wanted to sit down the student who commented on [his] English and say, ‘Listen, damn you, we’re trying to build a learning community here, and a community is often made up of diversity. You might learn something from someone who speaks English a little differently than you do.’” He worked with the Iraqi student on his pronunciation of certain words, noting proudly that “he did extremely well” on the presentation.
Apps’ book, his gazillionth, is about being a conscientious person in the academy, which he fell into by happenstance. Indeed, The Accidental Professor may have been a better title.
He made it into college in part due to the $63.50 scholarship he got for being his high school class valedictorian. He began his career with UW-Extension and moved effortlessly up the ranks to become a tenured professor and administrator. He credits his mom and pop, neither of whom made it past seventh grade, with teaching him how to teach, through the practical skills they imparted. During his career, he edited publications, helped produce documentaries and wrote several academic books, including well-regarded tomes on adult education.
Today, of course, Apps is one of the state’s most prolific writers, cranking out books on rural life and his own childhood as well as novels about contemporary issues. His books on nature and family are his best. But Once a Professor is a substantial addition to Apps’ oeuvre.
Apps tells what it was like to be a professor at the UW during the Vietnam War, when, he relates, “twice in one day I was tear-gassed in my own office.” His recollections are augmented with contemporaneous journal entries and newspaper accounts, including this gem from a wire service story that appeared in the Wisconsin State Journal in 1968, after Martin Luther King was killed: “Thousands of National Guard troops were sent into action across the nation Friday to control Negro marauders ....”
Like much of what Apps writes, this is a book about lessons learned. As he puts it, “For me, one of the joys of teaching is how much I learn from doing it: new ideas, new ways of thinking about old ideas, the excitement of seeing a light come on in a student when something complicated becomes clear.”
What a good teacher he was, and is.
Jerry Apps, introduced by Bill Lueders, will be discussing his new novel, Cold As Thunder, at the Middleton Library on May 31, 7 p.m.
Editor's note: Jerry Apps was originally misidentified in the caption of the photo accompanying this story. He is on the right.
