The “Art” of Teaching and Scholarship: Arthur Cohen’s Influence on My Development as an Educational Professional

Abstract

By the time I started graduate school at UCLA, Arthur Cohen was a seasoned and seemingly gruff professor, which, in the eyes of many students, including mine, made him a formidable figure. After a couple of courses and working with him at the ERIC Clearinghouse for Community Colleges, I learned that was a very learned man and that there was a teddy bear lurking underneath that gruff facade, a teddy bear just waiting for the moment when a graduate student would fall in love with the community college just as he had many years ago. I was fortunate to be one of those students and to experience firsthand the Art of teaching and scholarship. I did not begin in graduate school with an interest in community colleges; my interest and love for community colleges grew under Art's tutelage. Even though I no longer work directly with community colleges, what I learned from goes beyond the ins and outs of the institution. From I learned four key skills: (a) how to understand the community college in the context of education in general, (b) the value of applied research, (c) the importance of being able to see the forest from the trees, and (d) how to be a critical thinker who not only thinks but also provides solutions. These skills have profoundly influenced who I am and who I want to be as a professional and as a person. At this point you may be wondering, How on earth did accomplish such a feat? Here's how. First, loved history and brought that love to the classroom and his research by teaching and writing about the community college from a historical perspective. As such, one could not miss the important influence of both the K-12 and higher education systems on the community college's development. As an evaluator of educational and social service programs, I see now that such a historical perspective on education is a real asset to me. I often observe K-12 classrooms and must understand the teaching and learning taking place as well as understand its implications for higher education and education in general. Second, conducted applied research and trained graduate students in the same vein. I learned quickly that his approach to research provided the community college with meaningful information that could be used to strengthen and improve the content and delivery of its programs, as well as support its overall role in higher education. There are no better examples of this than in Art's work on community college transfer and full- and part-time faculty. Today, my approach to research has been shaped by Art's teaching. As a result, I am able to design and conduct evaluation studies that are academically rigorous but which also provide useful data that inform educators and social service professionals about the successes and challenges of their programs. This skill has proved to be an invaluable asset in my work. …