Best UM teacher
February 8th, 2010 at 9:33 PM ^
Spot on with Cole, but I got an A- in one of his classes, so good enough for me.
February 8th, 2010 at 9:42 PM ^
Good luck finding a polisci/history prof at U of M who doesn't let his liberal bias slip into his teaching. And yes, Cole can be very opinionated, but he is at the very top of his field.
February 8th, 2010 at 10:08 PM ^
Yep. Some were better about it than others, but every single one would at least have mild outbursts of liberalism.
There was one guy named Zvi Gitelman who let the class know he was old, Jewish, liberal, and didn't give a fuck what you thought about him. I really did enjoy his class.
February 8th, 2010 at 11:20 PM ^
Haha sounds like Gittelman to me. He was a guest lecturer in my Survey of Eastern Europe class and his lecture was so interesting. I also had the pleasure of talking to him a number of times. He had some insanely interesting stories. He's supposed to be a pretty tough grader, so that was one reason for me not to take one of his classes (I also wasn't a polsci major, for one thing).
Oh, he and Cole hated each other. They sparred in the pages of the Daily a number of times. Not to make a political statement, but I had a lot more respect for profs who were open about their biases, like David Fitzpatrick and Greg Markus (polsci 300), especially the latter. Markus knew that he sounded like an ideologue but admitted it and encouraged us to have our own opinions. I've heard of Cole embarrassing students who disagree with him.
February 8th, 2010 at 11:45 PM ^
Yeah, I think that's why I liked Gitelman. He wasn't the type of person who would chastise students for disagreeing with him. There were a few PoliSci profs who were so biased that it became tough to take their class seriously.
February 9th, 2010 at 1:08 AM ^
I would put Markus under this category. We had kids walk out of his lectures in dissent
February 8th, 2010 at 9:21 PM ^
Juan Cole definitely knows his stuff when it comes to the Middle East but I don't know if I would really think of him as the best professor. For whatever it's worth a friend of mine saw him give a talk at the Law School about the Iraqi Constitution where he apparently got picked apart by the law school professors.
As for best professors, for Undergrad Markus from the Political Science department and for Law Primus and Seinfeld
February 9th, 2010 at 10:33 AM ^
...but you beat me to it.
February 8th, 2010 at 8:17 PM ^
Peter Chen from the EECS department, at least for his ENGIN 100 class.
February 8th, 2010 at 9:06 PM ^
he's the only eecs guy i even really remember. i had him for eecs 425, and he took a picture of every single person in class and wrote a program that quizzed him on first names so that he could call on people by name. great guy. i felt like he really cared about what he was doing. and that's hard to do in eecs.
February 9th, 2010 at 9:56 AM ^
yeah I had him for 100...he was a great prof, knew everyones name, and made me kinda understand computers...which is a tough job, there is definitely a reason why I'm in ME.
I had him for EECS 480, or is it 482? Whatever Operating systems design is, I had him for that.
By far the best teacher I ever had. He took everybody's picture on day 1 and memorized everybody's first name.
February 8th, 2010 at 8:20 PM ^
Peter Bauland was an awesome film instructor. I took his Comic Masters class. We got special passes to go to the Michigan Theatre every week. The class was my introduction to Woody Allen, Mel Brooks, and Hal Ashby.
February 9th, 2010 at 2:14 AM ^
and i got English credit for watching Kubrick at the Michigan. so he wins on that basis.
February 8th, 2010 at 8:32 PM ^
Masato Koreeda, Organic Chem. Writes and prints lecture notes for every class and everyone in the class because he knows he talks/writes fast, and can be hard to understand. However, incredibly nice guy, and would go to any lengths to ensure the students understood the material.
He practically lives in the chem building, is there about 8 am - 10 pm every week day, and when he's not in lab or teaching, his office door is open for students to come in. He also replies to emails within 10 minutes, even at like 2 am on a Sunday. Also he can write with both hands, and will start from both ends of a large structure and meet in the middle.
February 8th, 2010 at 9:13 PM ^
I'm a straight male but I always really wanted to hug Dr. Koreeda.
February 8th, 2010 at 8:43 PM ^
Cameron was very fun. I'm impressed that he's still teaching. In the same department and also deserving to be mentioned: Sara Rappe.
And for School of Music people: James Dapogny.
February 9th, 2010 at 3:14 AM ^
Sara Rappe definitely needed to be mentioned a lot earlier in this thread! She's very energetic, if occasionally a bit loopy. I had her "Christians & Pagans" class & she advised me for my senior thesis - both of which were great experiences.
In the Classics department, Traianos Gagos also needs to come up for mention. I've never seen anyone get so excited about their favorite grammatical construction (genitive absolute!) as he did in Greek class.
February 8th, 2010 at 8:45 PM ^
I graduated a long time ago (1998), and its fun to see some of my most beloved professors still getting props. Hell yes on Rubadeu - you take his class, not only do you learn to write well, you make a dear friend for life. Williams and Gunderson are also no-brainers. And an in memorium for the dearly departed Sidney Fine.
February 8th, 2010 at 8:51 PM ^
Rich Rodriguez
February 8th, 2010 at 8:58 PM ^
He taught automatic controls (I think this was ME 461) and then i took a grad class from him on vibration that was out of this world hard i was working full time at ford and taking a full load at M and begged him to help me in his free time since i was working too much. he really helped me out
He was a bit strange. a true nerd; totally dedicated to his passion. He started a simulation software company whose name i have forgotten but at the time they were really world class
I did an engineering law project on his simulation of a train crash - really cool - well before all this solid modeling stuff now
February 8th, 2010 at 9:01 PM ^
I'm surprised nobody has mentioned him. When I took O-Chem in 03-04, there were 3 sections offered during the fall term. As long as you were enrolled in one of them, you could attend whichever one you wanted to (we all took the tests together). Coppola taught the 9am lecture and it was always packed while the later (i think 11 and 12) lectures were largely empty. I think that sort of speaks for itself. I thought he was a great teacher; people must just hate Orgo.
P.S. Nolta is very nice and funny, but she does not teach orgo like BPC does. People like her b/c she reminds them of their kindergarten teacher.
February 8th, 2010 at 9:44 PM ^
before the third exam*, I drew a picture of stick figure me getting bent over by the stick figure exam on the 3rd blackboard?
it came up about 40 mins into lecture. everyone laughed, coppola recovered quickly saying something about an "sn2 reaction, coming from behind" and everyone laughed some more.
i rule. also: i'm prophetic and got pretty well smoked by that exam. (happy ending, i actually studied for the final and ended up doing fine...)
*this was fall 03, if that's when you were there...
February 8th, 2010 at 10:04 PM ^
dude i was in your SSG group.
February 8th, 2010 at 10:09 PM ^
I used an ATM machine after contracting the HIV virus today.
February 8th, 2010 at 10:40 PM ^
i remember a swedish dude. your name was name was neilsen, or andersen, or bjorgybjorgybjorsen* or something like that. also, costas was good times.
*hopefully none of this is offensive, i only mean it was a 'typical' sounding name.
February 9th, 2010 at 12:03 AM ^
anders is my name. i ran into costas years later and we had a good chat.
and no, it was not offensive.
fwiw, i have told the story of that stick figure drawing a number of times since that fateful day.
February 9th, 2010 at 10:24 AM ^
anders? as in lived in south quad in 03 in a 3rd taylor triple with two kids named matt (both matt b)?
February 9th, 2010 at 2:53 PM ^
the very same one. i haven't spoken with either matt b in a long time.
February 9th, 2010 at 4:06 PM ^
wow small world...this is dave from across the hall
February 9th, 2010 at 9:36 PM ^
in one thread post, i connected with two people from the distant past. good to hear from ya man.
February 9th, 2010 at 10:37 AM ^
EPIC!!!
February 8th, 2010 at 9:46 PM ^
Coppola is awesome. He is the Chemistry department head and chairman of the higher education certificate program. I GSI for the chemistry department and he is a great resource for educational strategies and techniques. I want to be a department head/dean someday. Brian is one of the educators I look up to at the university.
February 9th, 2010 at 4:10 PM ^
I never had him for a course, but as a grad student (in a completely unrelated department) I needed to talk with some faculty about my dissertation research. He met with me and was really helpful and engaged. He didn't know me, didn't have any connection to my program, but was willing to give up some of his time to help a grad student out. I'm always thrilled when I hear good things about him.
February 8th, 2010 at 9:48 PM ^
I would have killed for Coppola. I had (shudder) Malinda Gugelchuck for both I and II. Awful.
The other: Scott Fogler (Chemical Reaction Engineering).
I had Coppola for two semesters of organic chemistry. Great teacher.
February 8th, 2010 at 9:06 PM ^
Intro to dance. O Let's do it!
February 8th, 2010 at 9:18 PM ^
He made us tea and pastries. If you went talked with him he had a way of making it seem like the only problem that existed in the universe was whatever it was that you brought to his attention.
February 8th, 2010 at 9:21 PM ^
I took bio 162 with Marc Ammerlaan and he was great. He's really funny and a nice guy too.
Sherman Jackson for Religion 201 was awesome (Ralph Williams goes without saying). A lot of the history profs were also great--Fitzpatrick (American History guy from West Point), Porter, Lieberman were all terrific, plus this visiting prof Todd Endelman was amazing--we practically begged him to stay in A2.
February 8th, 2010 at 9:44 PM ^
Haha - Marc Ammerlaan was a prick to the students who took upper level stuff from him. I had him as a "guest lecturer" for numerous classes. He was a pompous asshole. He definitely knew his stuff, but he grew impatient with the whole "teaching" aspect of teaching.
February 9th, 2010 at 10:49 PM ^
"...but he grew impatient with the whole "teaching" aspect of teaching."
That's a funny line. I'll have to borrow that sometime.
February 8th, 2010 at 9:24 PM ^
Best business prof for a long time. Taught a class on Entrepreneurship. He taught how to think and approach a problem, not the answer.
February 8th, 2010 at 9:27 PM ^
While Bacon was my favorite professor, Marwil was a close second. I took his history of American Wars and another history class on perspective. Both were amazing classes and he taught with kind of an old school attitude. His lectures were always interesting and informative.
February 8th, 2010 at 9:27 PM ^
1972 - Donald Hall (Poet Laureate of the US in 2006-07) taught at UM for a few years in the early '70s and I was lucky to have taken him for Great Books.
1980-82 - Bill Lewis, UM School of Art... fantastic painter esp. watercolor, great teacher, and great guy.
1980 - Joel Isaacson, History of Art... great lecturer with a sardonic sense of humor about a subject that can be deadly dull if treated too reverently.
February 8th, 2010 at 9:36 PM ^
Oh man, I can't remember whom I had for History of Art (the survey course from the Renaissance to the present day, about a decade ago) but he was awesome. Maybe it was Isaacson? He definitely had a dry sense of humor and really made the subject matter interesting. He was gone one week and a GSI took over to lecture on Dutch still life. We really missed him.
February 8th, 2010 at 9:29 PM ^
...but I think off the top of my head I'd have to say Matt Lassiter. Not sure if he's still in the History department, but having him for Politics and Culture of the 1960s was great.
The subtext of the class is the intimate role that U of M and Ann Arbor played in the student and civil rights movements. He even brought in Alan Haber (one of the founders of SDS) for a guest lecture.
February 8th, 2010 at 10:36 PM ^
Matt's a good friend of mine and he's an even better disc golfer than a prof.
I didn't take the sixties class, but his History of American Suburbia is definitely the best class I've ever had.
February 8th, 2010 at 10:00 PM ^
...my hot female RA. She taught me a lot of things!
February 8th, 2010 at 10:14 PM ^
Is why you've been negged. But not by me, man. Learned a few things like that, myself. Good times