A dear colleague passed away suddenly last week. We are immeasurably poorer.
Pat was one of the first colleagues outside the department I got to know on my arrival in 1994. Our shared interest in music, particularly medieval and Renaissance music (one of Pat’s specialties), was one of our first strong connections. Oddly and regrettably, it’s a connection we never explored in the depth we’d have liked. One of the great ironies of working in a university is how little time or occasion there is for sharing the life of the mind. That said, there was another connection that did bring us together again and again, a connection I wouldn’t have guessed right away. Pat was devoted to exploring the uses of information technologies in teaching and learning, and that shared passion was the subject of many conversations and a fair amount of collaboration as well.
Here’s at least part of what I want to say about Pat. Using IT in her work didn’t always come naturally to her, but she never lost heart, never ever let fear or uncertainty deter her from continuing to push ahead with no small measure of delight as she thought about how computers could make her a more effective teacher. In this way she was an extremely rare colleague. Her insecurities (I’m sure she must have had them) and the many false starts and cold trails all of us working with these tools endure never made her bitter or brittle or cynical or defensive. She took it all in stride, and continued to innovate. In fact, she was scheduled to be her department’s Teaching, Learning, and Technology Fellow for 2008-2009. It didn’t matter that she was nearing retirement, or that computers were recalcitrant things, or that the investments of time and energy seemed only to increase as the equipment got more sophisticated. Pat wanted to learn, and she loved to teach.
Farewell, Pat. Your example humbles and inspires us all. Thank you.
I’m so sorry to hear this. During my single semester at Mary Washington in 1993, I took French horn lessons from Pat. She was a fabulous teacher, funny and patient. She also had a more student-centered approach than any other music teacher I’ve had. She was especially kind to this first-year student who had no idea what this whole college thing was about and who was 3,000 miles from family and friends.
I had the pleasure of working with Pat on several occasions, and was impressed by how she always wanted to know about the pedagogy behind instructional technology, not just go through an exercise of creating a list of what buttons to press. She was always open to a discussion on how she could use technologies to make her a better teacher – to help her reach her students and help her students learn more. What impressed me most was that it was not an easy process for her – but no matter – she would hang in and ask questions and follow up with email until the skills she needed were attained. It was important to her because, above all, she was a teacher.
Thanks for writing this Gardner – I’ll miss her too.