Service to students: Three Southeast professors talk about their decades in education

On May 2, Southeast Missouri State University honored three faculty members -- Richard Francis, Robert Hamblin and Dean Monahan -- for 45 years of service to the school. According to university spokeswoman Ann Hayes, this is the first time that three individuals have reached this milestone. Business Today caught up with each honoree to find out what brought them to Southeast, what's changed since 1965, and their keys to success in such a long career. What's their secret to happiness? A passion for what they do.

Dr. Dean Monahan

Dr. Dean Monahan, associate professor of English at Southeast Missouri State University, says his love of books prompted him to become an English professor in his early 20s.

Dean Monahan, associate professor of English at Southeast Missouri State University. (Fred Lynch)

"I always loved literature and loved good books. I'm indebted to my parents for that, and I'm still beating the drum on that," he says. As a child, Monahan always had one book at home and another at school so he would never be caught without something to read. Today, the shelves of his Grauel Building office are filled with the works of literary greats like William Faulkner, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Nathaniel Hawthorne, John Steinbeck, Edgar Allen Poe and Ernest Hemingway, to name a few. In his 45 years at Southeast, Monahan has detected -- and campaigned against -- a declining interest worldwide in literature and fiction. We live in a "TV generation," says Monahan -- much classic literature has been shoved aside, and many of us "read recipes and stop signs, and not always well."

"Getting people interested and keeping their interest in reading is very important," says Monahan. "It expands intellectual ability, expands the ability to use language, opens your vision to other parts of the world, different jobs and careers. The whole world opens to you through books, fiction and nonfiction. It's just wonderful."

Originally from Dearborn, Mich., Monahan received his doctorate from Pennsylvania State University. He interviewed for positions at several universities, but chose Southeast because he wanted to work at a "small-town college." Cape Girardeau was a historic town on the Mississippi River, had the mild climate of the mid-South but still had four seasons, and seemed overall to be a nice place for Monahan to start his career. He thought he would stay a few years and then go someplace else, like Hawaii or Europe. He was a young man and the world was wide open to him.

"Then I got married, bought a home and started to sink in my roots, as they say," says Monahan. He never regretted it, and he did get to spend a year teaching at the University of Erlangen in Germany.

In addition to teaching American literature and short story courses, Monahan serves as adviser for the College Republicans, chairs the American Legion Education Committee, where he directs the annual Teacher of the Year Awards program; is president of the Missouri Association of Scholars and a faculty associate of the Intercollegiate Studies Institute; and is a Friend of the Cape Girardeau Public Library. He has no plans for retirement, and intends to continue "fighting the good fight" to restore the importance of literature in the world and its schools.

"Robert Frost's goal was to unite his avocation and his vocation. He did, and so did I," says Monahan. "I have a happy life."

Dr. Richard Francis

Retired mathematics professor Dr. Richard Francis is enjoying his first summer off since 1955. After six years teaching math at Kemper Military School, four years of graduate school at the University of Missouri and 45 years teaching at Southeast Missouri State University, Francis says it feels strange to wake up in the morning and not go to school. His days in the classroom may be over, but he'll continue writing for scholarly math journals and pursuing hobbies like gardening and genealogy.

Richard Francis, a recently retired math professor from Southeast Missouri State University, sits in one of the classrooms he frequently taught in at Johnson Hall. Francis taught for 45 years. (Kristin Eberts)

"It doesn't seem like all that long to me," says Francis of his lengthy career. "But when I started teaching at age 22, I was the youngest on staff. When I left Southeast, I was probably the oldest on staff. I guess I've come full circle."

As a student, Francis was so interested in math that he took every math class offered at Poplar Bluff High School. He remembers being intrigued by calendars, especially when he discovered the number theory behind them.

"I've been fascinated by things computational and numerical all my life," he says. "Sometimes math is seen as answer-getting, but it's more than finding a numerical answer."

Francis earned his bachelor's degree in mathematics from Southeast Missouri State University in the spring of 1955 and began teaching math at Kemper that fall. When he returned to his alma mater as a professor in 1965, the entire math building shared one phone, one manual typewriter and one mimeograph machine. Francis' favorite teaching tool was a slide rule. Johnson Hall now has copy machines galore, phones in every office, calculators and computers -- even air conditioning and new textbooks.

"I don't know where I would be today without Xerox. I don't know how we would carry on without computers and telephones," says Francis, adding, "Something that impresses me is the area of textbooks. Back then, they said, 'Math never changes. Why change the textbooks?' Math does change in terms of its emphasis. We now change texts quite frequently."

When Francis was a student at Southeast, there were three faculty members in the math department; he estimates the university now has about 25 math professors. The world in general has placed more emphasis on math and science, he says, and the career world has a higher demand for workers trained in these areas.

"There were not large numbers of people taking mathematics in my day in high school," says Francis. "Very few were enrolled in trigonometry and geometry, but that's changed favorably over the years and I'm optimistic for the future." In fact, Francis fully expects mathematics to branch off into areas we've not yet imagined. "It's unending," he says. "It boggles my mind to think what we're capable of today that was unheard of not too many years ago."

Francis says the secret to his long career is simply his enjoyment in mathematics.

"I never gave it very careful thought -- it seemed like the thing to do and it all fell into place," he says. "One day you wake up and realize it's the '80s and you thought it was still the '70s. They say when you enjoy yourself time passes quickly, so that must be what I've done."

Dr. Robert Hamblin

Mississippi native Dr. Robert Hamblin, professor of English and director of the Center for Faulkner Studies at Southeast Missouri State University, was the first in his family to attend college, let alone earn a doctorate degree. After graduating from Delta State University in Cleveland, Miss., and teaching high school for two years in Baltimore, Hamblin received a fellowship to get his Ph.D. with all expenses paid if he would teach for five years after graduating. With 45 years under his belt at Southeast, it's safe to say that he's met that five-year stipulation.

Robert W. Hamblin poses in front of a mural of William Faulkner Wednesday, June 30, 2010. Hamblin is the Director of the Center for Faulkner Studies at Southeast Missouri State University's Kent Library. (Laura Simon)

"This is the one I settled on, or they settled on me," says Hamblin of Southeast. "Those were the days when jobs were aplenty -- schools were growing, enrollment was growing, and they needed faculty with Ph.Ds. It was a good time to enter higher ed."

Hamblin began working at Southeast Missouri State College in 1965. Since then, the school has become a university and entered Division I athletics, student enrollment has doubled, the literary canon has broadened and anthologies have been rewritten.

"Texts have been reshaped and continue to modernize," says Hamblin. "Students are far more tolerant than my generation. ... It's a bigger, broader world. It's not just 'dead white males' anymore."

Dean Monahan, associate professor of English at Southeast Missouri State University. (Fred Lynch)

Hamblin first read William Faulkner at Delta State and studied him more while working toward his Ph.D. at the University of Mississippi, in Faulkner's hometown of Oxford, Miss. Growing up in the South during the civil rights movement, Hamblin says he was far more liberal than most Southerners. He grew up with African-American friends who were not allowed to attend college, and he was one of the National Guard soldiers protecting African-American students when Ole Miss was desegregated.

"It was a frightening time, but it was change that had to come. Faulkner helped me negotiate my own personal walk through these troubled times," says Hamblin, who has since written and co-authored several books about Faulkner. "Reading has helped me personally engage and deal with some of those issues that sometimes my family and neighbors would not help me with. If it were not for books, I would have grown up thinking the whole world was like Mississippi."

But while there has been growth in many ways in 45 years, there have been fallbacks in others. Southeast's staff of 30 full-time tenure-track English professors has shrunk to 20, says Hamblin, and the school now relies heavily on part-time and adjunct faculty.

"There are a lot less opportunities for young people and professors," says Hamblin. "A lot of talented people go elsewhere because they do not have the opportunities I did in higher education." The job market is tougher for Hamblin's students, too -- many of them will find jobs, he says, but it probably won't be their first choice. Through his teaching, Hamblin hopes to encourage students to pursue careers they truly enjoy.

"I hope my students don't spend 40 years look at the clock," says Hamblin. "I don't believe in TGIF -- if you're looking at the clock, you're in the wrong profession. It's better to take less money and do what you really want to do."

As for Hamblin, he has no plans for retirement.

"I'm still having fun," he says. "The day I decide I'm not having fun, I will retire tomorrow."