An Interview With a Graduate of the IHP

Insights into the Integrated Humanities Program at the University of Kansas

This is an email interview I conducted with Stephen Iliff, CPA, MBA, a graduate of the Pearson Integrated Humanities Program at the University of Kansas, which was run by Dennis Quinn and John Senior in the 1970’s. The program changed the lives of many students as its unique approach to the Great Books sparked in students a sense of wonder and a loving contact with elemental realities. For further background on the program, see my write-up on it here.

This interview, which I conducted primarily to assist in my own teaching and which is reproduced here with permission, offers a rare eyewitness account of the workings of the remarkable Integrated Humanities Program. There’s great wisdom for teachers here.

Question: Given that the course was taught in the poetic mode, how were you graded/evaluated?  

Answer: While the lectures did not allow for questions, they did require us to listen intently, and they  discouraged notetaking of any kind. They wanted us to develop our memories which had been  destroyed by the new technology of television, advertising, jingles, etc. They reminded us that Homer’s poetry was all delivered from memory and Plato’s discussion groups were repeated to  others almost verbatim with no notes. Ladies were allowed to draw or knit in class, and many did.  

I believe (this is a theory) they would give some credit by how much interest we showed: our attentiveness, and our ability to follow the conversation that the three professors were leading, but not sure how they could judge. But a teacher in class can tell if a student is looking with interest by their eyes and posture.  

There were discussion groups outside the class that had some Socratic method dialogue run by praeposters (An older student as teacher’s assistant). Those group were excellent depending on  the quality of the praeposter and the other students. I can’t remember how these were graded.  

There were poetry memorization sessions that were graded and star gazing sessions that were  graded based up your being able to identify the stars and constellations and know their  mythological story behind their name. The particular poems that were chosen did become a part  of each student’s life. I now live on 133 acres of gorgeous Kansas prairie and forest land. I can see the cemetery on a hill across the road from my house. It is idyllic. Some say that a cemetery  can reduce the value of a home, but that is only because they have never read Gray’s “Elegy in a  Country Churchyard.” 

Were there writing assignments? If so, what was the nature of these assignments?  

Writing assignments were infrequent but there were some. There was a final which I believe  Dr. Quinn graded based on the comments that were made. I don’t think Senior or Nelick were  up for grading anything ever.  

We also learned calligraphy but that could hardly be called a writing assignment since we would  simply write out great poems on the memory list.  

Was there homework outside of just reading? What was the homework like?  

I don’t remember homework other than the reading. They really wanted you to read with serious  attention and retention. Re reading was recommended. They promoted Mortimer Adler’s How to Read a Book in which he shows you how to make a book your own, via highlighting, making notes, asking questions of the author and attempting to find that author’s answers. They even had Mortimer Adler come to one of our classes. He was an excellent teacher.  

I think the goal was to make these authors your friends. I know some of us began to collect good as well as great books as a result. When my family had moved from one house to another, my boxes of books increased. But I knew these authors and needed them as references. My daughter remembered me referring to them as my friends. I was also purchasing at the library book sales the Landmark book series that was done in the fifties and sixties. I had my children  and starting a school in mind.  

An unwritten homework assignment was to converse about the lecture with other students or  friends back at your fraternity or dorm. Could you repeat the stories, thoughts, arguments that  spontaneously came out of the conversation of the three professors?  

I assume you have read Senior’s definition of conversation as opposed to discussion. They made this distinction quite clear, and it was most helpful.  

Did the students join in discussion with the professors, or were the conversations only  between Quinn, Senior, and Nelick?  

Questions or discussions with students would be extremely rare during the two main classroom  conversations led by the three professors. If it ever happened, it would be at the instigation of  one of the professors. To interrupt, even a silent moment, would be similar to stopping a  composer in the middle of Beethoven’s pastoral and asking him why he chose to have the kettle  drums come in at that moment. None of the conversations were the same, but it was like  listening to a symphony as each professor played off of what the other had said. I wish I could  have recorded them, but the professors had a great disdain for technology. 

I think I was blessed to have spent much time directly under Dr. Senior. So I was able to talk to  him directly but there remain a strange kind of awe in his presence. He helped Bob Carlson  teach the first Latin Class which was daily for an hour.  

There were two teaching assistants of special merit: Gene Peck and Richard Harp. I remember  taking a class with Mr. Harp re topic of story. What is it? What are its components? What is the  problem that finally gets resolved? What is the exact moment of resolution, climax, or crux?  Then tension continues to rise in a story until the protagonist is able to overcome or conquer or  resolve the problem at which point there is a release and satisfaction. He pointed out how all  stories are common to man and they must have these resolutions. Why do we call the climax of  a story “the crux”. Crux mean cross of course and it is a turning point in the story for good or ill.  The greatest story ever told has a “real cross” at its turning point and the protagonist was the greatest hero in history.  

Do you think students today have the attention span for the "roundabout" type of teaching  that these professors engaged in? Were there students in the IHP who struggled to stay  focused on what the teachers were saying? 

Yes, I do think it is still possible, though the technological distractions are greater in some ways  today requiring 5 minute limits on what is said. But if it is interesting enough to capture the  imagination then you will see the students transported. Ted talks are 18-20 minutes, and you can  often hear a pin drop. Can you get a student to listen to a symphony? It depends on his  preparation. You can get students to watch a Star Wars Movie of 90 minutes. It all depends on  how good a storyteller the teacher is. With podcasts picking steam, some people are able to  follow a conversation. Also, audiobooks seem to also be doing very well. Motivating students is  a key difficulty. I have been very fortunate to have taught in either a Christian school or to home  school students who seem to be more motivated.  

The students will listen  if you can get their attention.  

If you can limit it to just one thing, what stands out most to you about your experience in  the IHP?  

I wanted to pass on to others in what ever way I could the same experience that I had. I believe  that they were teaching us a way of life. A way of seeing that causes a person to reflect on the  good, the true, and the beautiful. It brings a happiness (nay blessedness) to even difficult  situations. The love of poetry, story, star gazing, waltzing, the outdoors, all have stuck with me.  

I had a forester who came out to my house to review my forests for harvestable trees. I gave her a poem by William Cullen Bryant called “Forest Hymn.” I told her about a class at KU I was in called Agricultural Tradition. I remembered going out to a farm where the farmer to disced his property for a four horse hitch of Belgian horses. He treated each horse like a child whom he  knew and loved. As he took off over his farm lot there was a good Kansas storm coming in. The only noise you could hear as he pulled the discs was the bells on the horses’ harnesses. It was magic. Then at the end of the row he maneuvered the horses in such a way as the one on the  inside stepped gently in place while the one on the outside had to hustle and the two in between  did something in between. In any case he came back directly next to the row he had just disced.  It was unforgettable. I was transported.  

They wanted us to learn to listen and observe in a way that would cause you to remember.  The trip to Greece had many similar type experiences. Too many to tell here.  

I can’t limit it to one thing. The history and meaning of words were a critical part of many  conversations. Each word that we use has a history. Meanings and roots can pass from Greek to  the Latin to English via Shakespeare, King James Bible and Webster’s 1828 Dictionary. We often use words but do not realize their full meaning. Consider the word “word”. In Latin it is  “Verbum” In Greek “Logos”. Homer uses Logos to simply mean “to speak”. By the time  Herodotus is writing it has picked up meanings and can mean in addition to speech “an account”  or “history” of a certain cultures like Egyptian or Persian or Greek. Then when Plato uses it has  become a theological term used for reason. In English the word Logos is everywhere from logic  to theology. But by the time of the New Testament and the Koine Greek arrive, God has  prepared this particular word just for his divine revelation of himself in the book of John. The professors were very good at stopping in a thought that an important word was foundational and  going into the history of that word and its various uses to help the student understand the depth  of that word and its meaning.  

From the Latin word Verbum “In principio erat Verbum” we get the word Verb. What is a verb?  It can be either action or state of being. What is God if not both action and being for all eternity.  When God speaks something happens. “Fiat Lux et facta est lux” “Before Abraham was I am”  He is both perfect “is” and “act” at the same time.  

The poems they selected to be memorized became a part of our lives. As a result of meeting  various poets and their thoughts you naturally began to open your mind and seek other poems by  those great thinkers.  

What advice would you give for teachers and educators who wish to educate in the spirit  of Senior's vision?  

I wish I could teach like Senior, but we all have our different personalities and gifts. I try to tell  stories that would motivate the students. I read from primary sources (speeches,  autobiographies, memoirs) in a way as if I were Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln or Ulysses S Grant. Remember the We Were There series?  

Above all be passionate about your subject.  

I have the students stand up in front of class and recite the Psalm of Life to music as I said last  time. When we get to World War 1 we recite On Flanders Fields to music. I have an all day World War II history class and bring pizza for lunch. I ask the students to find a picture  of a relative who served in World War II. Then I create a power point with those pictures and  play it the music from Saving Private Ryan “Hymn to the Fallen.” One year I put on a USO show at the gym at Cair Paravel. The students and parents rented costumes from Topeka  Civic Theater, and we did swing dancing to Benny Goodman, Glenn Miller, Dorsey Brothers etc.  I did this by playing YouTube videos of those bands on a projector, so it simulated having a live  orchestra. The kids got very excited about that.  

Ken Klassen was in the pilot class, and he was a praeposter. I will attach a link to his lecture called Removing the Veil about an entomologist genius named Henri Fabre. It is masterful and  very Senioresque. Senior spoke about Henri Fabre who corresponded with both Darwin and  Louis Pasteur. I remember a story Senior told about Pasteur visiting Fabre’ Harma that had been  raised on a table filled with dirt so he could observe the insects. Pasteur looked down on the  wooden floor and notice a groove worn into the floor from Fabre walking around and around observing. Ken had a goal to be lay at a 10 foot by 10 foot square in a field and have a child  identify everything he/she could see or observe.