Faculty Profile: Prof. Robert Reid

from the Baylor Line, May 1989

Before he begins a class on Augustus Caesar, Robert Reid recites a contemporary account of the emperor’s fragile health. He comments on Caesar’s bug eyes and hints darkly that he may have been a hypochondriac. Reid laughs a great, hoarse, happy laugh at the thought and in a dramatic voice proceeds to mesmerize a packed class of students little different from the 20,000 students who have gone before them.

Before class is over, without ever glancing at any notes, Reid will paint a vivid word picture of Augustus Caesar and life in the early days of the Roman monarchy. His voice will swoop and cackle and drop to a conspiratory whisper. He wears a bemused grin, a perpetual twinkle — ancient Roman history is still exciting after forty years behind the podium — and another generation of students is hopelessly caught in his spell.

Reid is the chairman of the history department at Baylor —one of the few chairmen at a major college in America who has no doctorate. North this is ha mattered: Reid’s résumé is dotted with every teaching award Baylor has to offer.

“In 1977, Judge McCall reached down to the very bottom of the barrel and asked me to serve as chairman,” Reid says. “I replied, ‘Well, I appreciate the offer, but I’d rather teach.’ The Judge looked up and said, ‘You WILL be the new chairman.’ And so, knowing what side my bread is buttered on, I agreed.”

Baylor had been the university of choice in Reid’s family for several generations. But when his father died at an early age, it looked like Reid would have no opportunity to follow the family tradition. He turned to a state school instead, earning his bachelor of arts from the University of Texas at El Paso. He returned after a tour in World War II and used the GI Bill to get his master’s in history at Baylor.

“I began work on my doctorate at Brown University in Rhode Island, but Dr. Guittard, then the chairman of the history department at Baylor, asked me to come back and teach for a while in the fall of ’48,” Reid recalls. Save for a year at the American University of Beirut (“Oh, back then Beirut was a marvelous city — a true paradise. I don’t suppose there’s much left now.”), he’s been at Baylor ever since.

In that time, Reid has developed a well-deserved reputation as a master teacher. This particular 9 a.m. MWF class sits entranced as he recreates dialogue among the Roman senators, draws on his extensive travels for a vivid description of the city, speaks Latin with ease, and proclaims that, “Despite the rule of half a dozen idiots, Augustus’s system will endure another two hundred years.

“The best professor I had at UTEP was not a history professor, but an English professor — Dr. Zimmerman,” he said. “At Baylor, I always thought Dr. Bragg was special. They were not similar in any way. Dr. Zimmerman was flamboyant, a marvelous lecturer. She gave me the concept — and that feeling has always persisted — that to really know a people, you must be thoroughly grounded in their literature. And not just in the exploits and birthdates of the kings, either.

“Dr. Bragg was the last of the Southern gentlemen. He taught me American history. He was a very quite, very methodical person — absolutely marvelous. There was something about his character that was truly beautiful. Both impressed me more than any other teachers I had. At Brown, my professors were too busy doing research and writing articles to learn my name. That taught me one thing: If it weren’t for the students, we wouldn’t be here. We owe them everything.”

Reid’s specialties are the ancient Roman and Greek civilizations and medieval history. He’s returned to Greece numerous times — it is obviously his passion. But like all the other history professors, he teaches one of the Survey of Western Civilization classes. It is a longstanding department tradition. No graduate assistants teach the introductory survey classes, and every professor teaches at least one each semester. Some may secretly find it a burden. Not Reid.

“The Western Civ classes are composed mostly on nonhistory majors,” he says. “This is one of generally only two times these students are exposed to college history. In a way, it requires a whole different approach. I enjoy the surveys on another level. You really have to sell yourself there. In the advanced classes most of the students already are history majors. I think the surveys can be more fun in a sense. One thing though, you have to know what to leave out. You can drown students with facts and dates and kings and blah, blah, blah. The thing about this racket called teaching is that you have to know more than you give to know what to give.”

Reid is quick to add that he’s not proselytizing for his department (“It would be a sad world if professors did that.”), although his lectures have had that effect on untold numbers of freshmen over the past forty years.

“Instead, I want to make them conscious of the past, aware of times when people just like themselves experienced tragedy and joy,” he says. “Another thing I strive to do is to make them aware that even after they retire, they can enrich their minds with contemplation and study of the past. How successful have I been? No one knows.

“I do know this: You don’t stop learning. Every semester you can learn from your students. Last week we were discussing Charlemagne when a student came afterwards and suggested a viewpoint I’d never considered before.”

Reid puts a brief outline on the blackboard before each class and gives the students plenty of time to copy it. At one point he stands by the board and gives a detailed description of the rules, laws and ramifications of the Roman legal system—all from memory. (“The Senate appointed the governors of the Senatorial provinces—but this is something you must take on faith until Friday when we will get back to it.”)

In the advanced history classes, he is able to delve more deeply into what makes history: interpretation, philosophy, and literature. But regardless of the topic, he no longer needs to use notes.

“Well, remember I’ve had forty years of this,” he says almost apologetically. “Notes can be pretty deadly, especially when a professor just reads them to students. That’s not good. If a teacher, through experience and time, is able to free himself from the burden of having to stick to his notes, that makes him much freer, much more relaxed in class. I certainly didn’t do it when I first started—it takes time, and you must have confidence to do it.

“Besides, the longer I teach, the more I realize how little I know—but don’t tell them that!”

How do today’s students compare with those he taught in 1948?

“Today’s students are no different from students back then,” he says. “Rich, poor, good, bad—we have them all. I have the grades of every student I ever taught—more than 20,000 so far—and the class averages have not changed to any great extent. I’ve never grown discouraged with students. Never.

“Of course now I’m seeing the children of students I once had. I always tell them, ‘If I had your grandfather or grandmother in class, then I know it is time to quit.’”

Near the end of class, which is equal parts performance and lecture, Reid tells the students to turn to their textbook (Michael Grant’s The History of Rome) and begins his own commentary.

“I might quarrel with Michael on this point,” he says gravely. “I think it is misleading. Instead, write this in the margin; it’ll help the resale value of your book.” Reid then promptly goes through several pages of the textbook, annotating the author’s statements, ordering students to cross out certain lines, adding other lines, and generally reshaping the text.

“Now this business I just talked about, the Roman social order, is a little bit intricate. What you’ll want to do is get away, mull it over, digest it, and consider that it just might be one of the 185 questions on the final exam!”

Reid’s voice is a wonder. He would have made a great television evangelist.

“I think I’ve learned to use my voice somewhat,” he says modestly. “We’ve all had teachers with monotones so bad we’ve fallen out of our chairs. You have to vary your voice, but you also have to remember not to concentrate on the center of the class—to look at the students on the sides of the room as well. Finally, you don’t want to hold yourself rigid like a general with all of his enemies in front of him. You want to relate to everybody in the class.”

And relate he does. They crowd around his desk before and after class and in the halls — some to talk, some to question, some just to say a shy “hi.” Reid gives each his undivided attention.

“After 20,000 students I don’t do as well as I used to about learning names the first day of each semester,” he says with a sigh. “I have them sign roll sheets, then I make a chart, and bring that chart with me to learn their names. It’s funny, but the students I remember the most completely were in the first classes I taught, starting out. I can still name almost all of those students. Gradually it becomes more of a challenge. That’s why I often say, ‘Years from now when you come back, don’t say, “I bet you don’t remember my name, do you?” That makes it awkward on professors, make it easier, stick out your hand and say, “Hi, I’m so-and-so, and I took your class back in 1976.’”

“But despite the numbers, there are always some of those you keep in touch with, students you always remember for personal reason, for academic reason, or perhaps because of a tragedy. I can remember Mark White and Olin Robinson and Jerry Campbell, now at the University of Chicago — all for various reasons. Quite a number have gone into teaching professions; others have gone into other fields, like medicine. I consider myself successful when one of them comes up and says ‘I’m a surgeon, but I still love reading history.’ That’s a passion with me, to give them something they can take with them long after their jobs are over. I can only hope I’ve had a little influence on making their senior years perhaps a little more worthwhile.”

Because of his load as chairman, Reid has been restricted to two classes each semester. He’s also served for the past sixteen years as the sponsor of the Baylor Chamber of Commerce.

“One budges the time because this is part of Baylor’s life, too — some of the things they’ll remember best with great fondness years from now are the things that occurred out of the classroom,” he says. “This is just part of the job, I don’t think I could sponsor a purely social club — although those have their place; but since this is a service club, I enjoy it.

“As for being chairman, I guess the main thing I’ve learned is to let the teacher go their own way and to have a few meetings as possible. I do constantly encourage the student/teacher relationship.”

As the class winds down, Reid continues to leave space for questions and comments. Even during his wittiest dialogues, he leaves the feeling that he’s just discussing a favorite topic among friends. This approach, he says, is part of his philosophy of teaching.

“I believe it is important to question everything and question intelligently and not to jump to ignorant conclusions,” he says. “You have to ask questions regardless of religion. And when you ask, go to people you have confidence in. they’ll direct you towards further resolutions of that problem. I love for students to come in and ask me about past or present historical figures. It is the old Socratic business—if you ask questions long enough, the answers you get might help you discover truth, Asking questions does not lesion one’s faith—it deepens it unless it is the foamy, effervescent, fundamentalist kind of faith that’s so dangerous.”

Another legendary Reid obsession is his desire to return tests the very next class period — even if he has to stay up all night grading them. He can’t abide professors who wait two or three weeks to return papers—long after they’ve left that material behind. He says students deserve better.

“In the end, all this boils down to one teacher with one student. If Baylor is going to be what Baylor should be, and I think has wanted to be since 1845, then it is built around one teacher talking to one student.”

The Tidwell Bible Building bell rings promptly at 9:50 a.m., and teacher and students alike look startled. Where did he time go? They mill around his desk even as another class waits to enter the classroom. Finally, Reid stands up grandly and says, “Pax Vobiscum Benedicate” — which he translates with a rolling laugh as “Shoo! Get out of my class!”

But no one believes him.