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Professor and administrator Phil Haffley retires
April 7, 2005 | ||||||
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KOKOMO, Ind.—The syllabus Phil Haffley hands students in his organic chemistry classes features a drawing of a man scaling a steep cliff. The image represents his ideas on the faculty/student relationship, figured out over 38 years of working with IU Kokomo students. “There's no such thing as 'teaching,' ” Haffley explained. “I can only help students learn by doing. “I tell students, 'I'm your guide. I can't pull you up the mountain. You have to climb it, all on the same rope, helping each other.' ” The approach works, say Organic Chemistry II students Erik Patterson of Kokomo and Allison Durham of Elwood. “Dr. Haffley helps you go after [the information] yourself, rather than spoon-feeding it to you,” said Patterson. “Very thorough and open to questions,” Haffley “will explain things as many times as you need him to,” said Durham. “He's one of the best professors that I've had.” In May, Haffley will hang up his symbolic mountaineering gear when he retires from IU Kokomo, where he has worked ever since earning his doctorate in chemistry from Iowa State University in 1967. Hired as an assistant professor of chemistry, he became the first chairperson of the Science Division in 1971 and served as chair for 10 years. During this period, he was promoted to full professor. In 1981, he was appointed assistant dean for academic affairs. (The title later changed to assistant vice chancellor for academic affairs.) He has continued to teach on a half-time assignment. “Phil Haffley was my mentor when I became the chair of humanities in 1981,” said Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs Stuart Green. As Faculty Senate president in the 1970s, Haffley helped develop campus-specific tenure guidelines, an important step “given the relationship between the quality of the faculty and the success of IU Kokomo's mission to educate citizens of the region,” Green said. “Always fair and balanced, Phil has been a valued partner, advising deans, chairs, and four academic vice chancellors. His steady, capable leadership will be missed.” Haffley has won the Amicus Award, awarded by students for teaching excellence, noted Robert Roales, Ph.D., dean of the Department of Natural, Information and Mathematical Sciences (NIMS). “Phil wrote the campus' first bachelor of arts proposal for the arts and sciences—the B.A. in Liberal Studies, which then morphed into bachelor's degrees in humanities, social and behavioral sciences, and biological and physical sciences.” The Liberal Studies curriculum was “very general,” Haffley said. “It was the best we could do with the 16–20 faculty members we had (in the early 1970s). Students could design their own majors by picking specific classes, and they discovered they could get into medical school, into law school (with the degree). It served them well.” In the 1990s, Haffley became involved in IU Kokomo's first Freshman Seminar classes, designed to help retain first year students by enhancing basic learning skills in reading, writing, and speaking. “I found it very interesting; it was totally out of my previous experience,” Haffley said. He has worked on campus committees defining general education, an area that, he said, “still needs more work done.” Getting students off to a strong start is the very essence of teaching organic chemistry, as Haffley sees it. The chemical reactions and interactions that students learn are intrinsic information for physiology and more advanced chemistry courses required in several majors. “Almost uniformly, students who were successful in my course said it was helpful in later classes,” Haffley said. “Six months after they take my course, students won't remember half the facts. But, the procedures, the process of learning a difficult subject, of organizing and valuing your time—that's not going to go away. They can apply it to anything.” He has stayed at IU Kokomo, he said, for two reasons. “I liked the people I was working with and, when you're busy building a university from a small college that needed to be developed, before you know it, you've been here for years.” In retirement, Haffley wants to travel with his wife, Janet, and create a computer database of his extensive collection of science fiction and fantasy novels. He said he first started reading the genre “for the science elements of the stories.” Today, he prefers books that describe complex characters and fictional societies “that are truly different, without the bounds” of contemporary reality or history. “You can imagine asking, 'What if?' and carrying it out,” he said. A reception honoring Haffley upon his retirement is planned Wednesday, April 27, at 3 p.m. in the Kelley Student Center, Room 130.
'Teaching is something Phil does very, very well'
'Enjoy retirement, Phil! You deserve it'
'Phil Haffley knows nothing about airplanes'
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