First-year experiences
President, freshmen start journey together

BY LINDA EVANS
Editor, RichmondNow

The job of a university president is to represent the institution, tell its story, raise funds and provide leadership in all areas of campus life.

Edward Ayers plans to do all that and more.

"More" in his case includes teaching—an activity not usually associated with college and university presidents. In an era of mega campaigns, big athletics and intense competitiveness in faculty hiring and recruiting top students, most presidents have little time to engage students in the classroom.

"It never crossed my mind not to teach," says Ayers, who assumed the presidency of University of Richmond July 1. He taught for 12 semesters as dean of the University of Virginia's arts and sciences school in classes that ranged from 160 undergraduates to 15 graduate students. He also directed 10 dissertations while serving as dean.

At Richmond, he will lead a course on Southern history for 12 freshmen, who will meet for two and a half hours Monday evenings in a basement room at the President's House. Mondays "fit into the schedule" of a president, says Ayers, who already has a full calendar of meetings, campus events and travel to visit alumni, donors and other University supporters. He will be the first Richmond president in recent memory to teach a course while serving as president.

President Ayers is teaching a course on Southern history. "It never crossed my mind not to teach," he says.

Ayers says he enjoys teaching freshmen because, in addition to presenting the subject, he can "introduce them to all that college is," including how to write and how to contribute to a discussion. Teaching such strategies helps students "build a foundation for future college work," he says.

With bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees in American studies and nine books published on Southern history, Ayers wants his students to look at the South "through the prism of Richmond, the Commonwealth and the James River," he says. Since 85 percent of Richmond students come from outside Virginia, "this is a good opportunity for them to learn more about the place they'll be spending their next four years."

Reading a book a week, Ayers' students will delve into Southern history from the era of "pre-history" through the "deep 20th century." He plans to incorporate music, film and television into the course, and students will be required to visit one historic place and demonstrate how it represents Southern history.

According to one of his former students, Juliette Landphair, dean of Westhampton College, Ayers' view of history is "not about dates or memorization but about a good story."

"Ed's storytelling, I think, makes him an extraordinary teacher," she says. "He recognizes the power of the narrative to draw students in, and he does so masterfully. Mix that with his humor and intelligence, and he can transfix a group of 400 or 15."

Ayers' teaching abilities also have been recognized on the national level. In 2003 he was named U.S. Professor of the Year for Doctoral and Research Universities by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the Council for Advancement and Support of Education.

Originally intending to go into journalism, Ayers quickly changed his career goal during his first semester at the University of Tennessee. He was influenced by "a brilliant scholar" and history professor, Richard Marius. "I wanted to be him," Ayers recalls.

Ayers realized he wanted to write, teach and be an active member of a community. "College life offered all of those things together," he says.

Hugh West, chair of Richmond's history department, says he and others in the department are pleased to be getting "a distinguished, genial and dedicated colleague."

"Not only do we hold a prejudice that historians tend to be good administrators because they know how the world works, we believe Ed is in exactly the right field for his job. He has done a lot of deep thinking about the very world the University of Richmond grew up in. To know where to go, you need to know where you came from," says West.

Other than teaching, Ayers says his first priority will be "to figure out what the priorities are for the next five years—to see how all the pieces fit together."

And when he has a few minutes of free time, he plans to make use of the hoop at the President's House to indulge in another favorite pastime—playing basketball.