Teachers on Teaching With Steven A. Beebe

Steven A. Beebe 

Recipient of NCA’s 2024 Wallace A. Bacon Lifetime Teaching Excellence Award  

(Editor’s Note: NCA asked Prof. Beebe if we could share his remarks from the 2024 NCA convention’s “Teachers on Teaching” session at which he received the Bacon Award. They are below. Future Spectra issues will include others’ talks.)   

My first job after receiving my Ph.D. was selling mobile homes and turkey eggs. I was 25, had finished my teaching assistantship at the University of Missouri-Columbia, and needed a job. It was tough to find a university teaching position in 1976.  After months of applying for a position, I had yet to find one. And I had bills to pay. 

Why mobile homes? I’d worked my way through college building mobile homes (which included installing that itch-producing pink fiberglass insulation into every trailer rolling down the assembly line); and my wife and I lived in a trailer park (we were so proud of our 12 X 50-foot home) when we were first married living in Columbia, Missouri, and I was still in graduate school.  I saw the trailer sales job vacancy in the paper, and I thought it was worth a try.  I got the job that paid a whopping 1% commission on what I sold. 

What about the turkey eggs? The owner of Heart of Missouri Mobile Homes in Columbia, Missouri also owned a turkey, duck, and chicken hatchery. In addition to his hatchery business, he thought he could make additional money if he placed mobile homes on his lot and got someone to sell them.  I was that someone.  And as it turned out, I was successful.  I looked at the job as an exercise in applied communication. 

As the nation was celebrating its bicentennial in the summer of 1976, I continued looking for university positions. I finally received interest from the University of Miami in Coral Gables, Florida. But it was late in the academic year, and they had no money for on-campus interviews (and I certainly had no money as a newly minted Ph.D.), so the job interview took place at my combination mobile-home-turkey-duck-chicken-hatchery sales office (which was also in a trailer).  The interview went well, and they hired me.  (The owner of the hatchery/mobile home business offered to match my university salary if I stayed on as a trailer salesperson instead of taking the tenure-track position at Miami, but I took the Miami Job.) 

My teaching career was launched. I loved teaching at the University of Miami. I taught new courses, eventually became assistant chair, and chaired committees to develop both a graduate program and the School of Communication. Today UM’s graduate programs and School of Communication are internationally renowned. Miami was a great place to learn how to be a communication professor. I had tenure and wonderful colleagues, and could have stayed at UM, but I was looking for additional administrative positions and was hired as department chair at Southwest Texas State University, which today is Texas State University. Although I had administrative release time during most of my time as professor and chair, and was also expected to do research, the best part of my job was teaching.   

Being selected for the Wallace A. Bacon Lifetime Teaching Excellence Award gives me this opportunity to thank those who have shaped my teaching career and reflect on the evolution of my teaching philosophy. I invite you to ponder the same questions I asked myself when preparing these remarks: Who are the teachers who have profoundly influenced you? What is your philosophy of teaching and learning?   

MARVELOUS MENTORS 

For as long as I can remember, I always wanted to be a teacher. Although my first major in college was music (I played the piano, organ, and French horn and thought I’d be a high school choir or band teacher), I eventually settled on communication, known then as speech communication, attracted by the goal of helping people communicate effectively, ethically, and appropriately, whether when speaking publicly, relating interpersonally, or collaborating in groups. I viewed teaching communication as a way to help people enhance their lives—and I still view it that way. 

My first speech teacher, Mary Harper, at Grain Valley High School in Grain Valley, Missouri, is my consummate role model. She made us want to learn. She not only was brilliant in teaching speech, but also established a personal relationship with her students; we didn’t want to disappoint her. She was adored by all the 33 students in my graduating class, including me. Mrs. Harper continues to live in Grain Valley, Missouri, and I enjoy keeping in touch with her, as do many of my classmates.  

I also had brilliant communication educators who inspired me when I was an undergraduate at Central Missouri State College, today known as the University of Central Missouri. I have many reasons to thank Robert Brewer, my debate coach and teacher for courses in argumentation as well as rhetoric and public address. From him I learned how to be clear and make learning exciting. I also am indebted to him for assigning me to then freshman Susan Dye as my debate partner in the fall of 1970. Sue also started her college career as a music major but switched to speech communication. Sue and I recently celebrated fifty-one years of marriage. She remains my best friend, life partner, co-author of five communication books (all that have continued in multiple editions), and an incomparable editor whose expertise far exceeds what any AI or Grammarly program offers. Without her my career would simply not have had the trajectory I have enjoyed. 

Another educator from Central Missouri, Richard Cheatham, made an indelible impression on me. He was a first year, newly graduated Ph.D. from Purdue who taught classical rhetorical theory. I thought he was the most intelligent person I ever met. He could quote long passages of Aristotle, Cicero, and Quintilian from memory. His stories and delivery style made him a captivating lecturer. (And he could, and still can, play the piano sitting backwards on the piano bench with his hands behind him!) I will never forget his influence on me, not only because he was such an impression-leaving undergraduate professor, but also, because he served as my wise dean for 25 of the 28 years I was chair of the department of communication studies at Texas State. I taught at Texas State a total of 33 years and, for a couple of years, served as his department chair. We never know when we cross our own destiny by meeting someone who will have a profound effect on us for the rest of our lives. 

Three legendary educators from my doctoral work at Mizzou were pivotal to any success I enjoy as a teacher. John Kline is a compassionate educator and prolific scholar with a vast knowledge of small group communication. I was honored to serve as a teaching assistant for his small group communication class. His lessons influenced my own teaching and writing, especially my co-authored book Communicating in Small Groups: Principles and Practices now in the 13th edition. His life continues to model other-oriented virtues that reflect his capacity to love and be loved. Thank you, John. 

Mary Jeanette Smythe had just graduated from Florida State University and was in her first year at the University of Missouri-Columbia. Students whom she taught in the early and mid-1970s remember her dramatically long, flowing, dark hair that cascaded well past her waist (and sometimes made her late for class because her hair got tangled in the mimeograph machine!). She had a deep, resonant voice and a wonderful presence as a classroom teacher. Her exceptionally thorough and detailed feedback helped me be a better writer and researcher. She was a key doctoral dissertation supervisor (I was her first dissertation advisee), whose lessons remain with me today. She also helped me obtain a life-changing position as a visiting scholar at Oxford University, when I had a sabbatical at Texas State, that opened doors for me at that storied university that I continue to walk through. I was sad to learn of her much-too-soon passing last year. 

Another never-to-be-forgotten educator to whom I owe much is Loren Reid, a pioneer in our discipline, who was among the first in the nation to receive a Ph.D. in speech from the University of Iowa. He said that because he was late for a meeting in 1945, he was appointed Executive Secretary of the Speech Association of America.  There was no national office building in the 1940s. When the contents of all the materials of what today is known as NCA were delivered to his Switzler Hall office on the University of Missouri campus, he said everything the association owned fit on the size of a small rug—two typewriters, an address machine, a few boxes, and back issues of journals. There was a few hundred dollars in the association’s treasury; he thought that looked pretty good until the bill came for $3000 to pay the printer for the journals. The association didn’t have $3000. He wondered if there would continue to be a Speech Association of America or if he would be its last Executive Secretary.  He took out a $10,000 second mortgage on his home, co-signed with his wife Gus, to keep the association solvent. It is because of Loren Reid that NCA is officially chartered in the State of Missouri. Professor Reid  was a marvelous scholar, lecturer and storyteller. I had him for the very last doctoral seminar he taught in 1975. I visited with him when he was 108 to tell him how much his instruction meant to me and how much his leadership meant to the thousands of us who are members of NCA. He was president of our national association in 1957. Sensing it would likely be our last meeting, with tears in both our eyes, as I began to leave him, he pronounced an Irish blessing for me (“May the road rise up to meet you . . .”). He lived to be 109. Loren Reid is my link to the founding of our discipline. What is your instructional lineage back to those who laid the foundation of our contemporary communication discipline? 

Any recognition I receive as a teacher is because of these and many other outstanding teachers too numerous to mention who have modeled outstanding teaching principles and practices. I’ve also benefited from many colleagues who modeled exceptional teaching skill, including my friendships with Don Boileau, Mark Redmond, David Roach, Tim Mottet, the late Tom Willett (my Mizzou office mate), John Masterson and Thompson Biggers (from the University of Miami), and Diana Ivy, one of the two outstanding faculty members I hired the first year I was chair. The other first-year hire was gifted educator and scholar Roseann Mandziuk, who became president of NCA. I’d say I hired well. 

MY EVOLVING TEACHING PHILOSOPHY 

My teaching philosophy during the past five decades has been guided by these many educators and colleagues. Here are three principles that shape my approach to teaching. 

It’s Better to Get a Message Out of Someone than to Put One in Them.  

C. S. Lewis said, “The task of the modern educator is not to cut down jungles but to irrigate deserts.” My role in teaching is to support and guide students, helping them harvest new concepts by adding to their existing knowledge. Today’s students have access to vast resources of AI-generated information and ideas. They don’t need me to ply them with data, facts and information. A good textbook or primary reading material can do that. My job is to get messages out of them so they can connect with and synthesize what they know and experience, with new insights and applications.

Over time I’ve become a strong proponent of the flipped classroom. Rather than using class time for lecture (again, that is what textbooks are for), I seek to get messages out of my students. At Texas State I always assigned myself to teach in classrooms with the most chalkboards or whiteboards on the walls. I also always brought ample stacks of Post-it notes to class. I would offer short lectures, stories, or comments, or pose questions. But the goal was to have students respond, usually at the board, or by plastering the walls with sticky notes with their questions, answers, or assigned tasks. I assumed the role of a coach. And I invited students to offer coaching comments to their classmates as well. When teaching large lecture classes, I’d use “think-write-pair-share” activities or other techniques to involve students in the lesson. Even today, when I present seminars to corporate clients, I use methods to get messages out of learners, rather than passively putting messages in them. 

Emotion Makes Learning More Like Velcro and Less Like Teflon.  

I’m a strong proponent of Emotional Response Theory. Developed by Albert Mehrabian about the time I was in graduate school, the theory suggests that we each have an ever-present emotional response to what we see and hear. Mehrabian and his colleagues, who emphasized the role of implicit, nonverbal messages, suggests that our emotional responses can be measured along three dimensions: pleasure, arousal, and dominance.   

• Pleasure: At any given moment, including while you are reading these words, you are feeling some degree of pleasure or displeasure—or you could be inertly feeling “meh” or somewhere between pleasure or displeasure.   
• Arousal: You are also somewhere between feeling asleep and wide awake—you are likely engaged, feeling stupefyingly out of it, or again, somewhere between feeling drowsy and overly caffeinated awake.   
• Dominance: Finally, we have an emotional response along a continuum of feeling powerfully dominant in the sense that we feel like we can conquer the world, or are feeling submissive. Feelings of dominance when learning give you a “permission to approach.” Submissive feelings (such as how I felt in my fifth-grade math class) result in not wanting to approach that which you are invited to learn. 

As a teacher, my job is to engender feelings of pleasure (to feel positive emotions while they are learning), arousal (to keep them awake and engaged), and dominance (feeling they can do it; they are in control of what they are learning).   

More than forty years of instructional communication research has taught us to use immediacy behaviors, pro-social power cues, and humor, as well as credible and clear messages to enhance learning. I suggest that these teacher communication behaviors work because of how they make students feel. Immediacy cues (eye contact, forward lean, moving from behind the lectern or desk) engender a positive emotional response from learners. My job as an educator is to be aware of the emotional response of the learner. Are they on their phones or looking at me? Are they enjoying the lesson? Do they look interested? If not engaged, then I need to change what I’m doing. Emotional response theory asks me to be student-centered and focus on how students feel as they learn. The good teachers in our life, who made us feel happy, awake, and empowered, make us smile just to think about them. 

Teach for the Student’s “In-Basket”  

Although having a literal in-basket on your desk may be antiquated and unnecessary in our electronic, limited-paper era, most of us have a metaphorical “in-basket”—a mental “to do” list. When teaching, I try my best to consider what is in the student’s “in-basket.” What are they thinking? What are their needs, hopes, fears, interests, and goals, and how can I relate my lesson to them? Teaching for students’ “in-baskets” applies a classic lesson from Aristotle: Be audience centered. 

Several years ago, I started giving my students an “assessment exam” the first day of class. No, not anything that has to do with their grade, but questions to help me figure out what they need or want. What are their goals? Where they are headed? What are their hopes and dreams? Even if they are foggy about what they want to do or be, I try to assess that, too. The more I can relate the class sessions to their interests, even tangentially, the better job I can do of emotionally engaging them.   

Coupled with focusing on their “in-basket,” I want to keep learning fresh by having them wonder, “What’s he going to do next?” I sometimes used props, including a cello or an electronic piano keyboard that I had hidden in the classroom closet, to play a musical selection to illustrate a point. For many years, I taught a seminar, at Texas State and Oxford University, that eventually became the content of my book C. S. Lewis and the Craft of Communication. I collect Lewis first editions and ephemera which, because of their value, are kept in a safety deposit box. Each day of class I’d reveal something from my collection, but the students wouldn’t know what or when. They called it “The Beebe Reveal.” Some days I might reveal something I had hidden in the classroom before class began, such as a book that Lewis owned that contained his handwritten margin notes, an original drawing by artist Pauline Baynes from one of his Narnia Chronicles, or a signed first edition of his impossible-to-find first book, Spirits in Bondage. It wasn’t just the Lewis class where I would use books as props. I enjoyed finding and revealing first-edition copies such as John Dewey’s How We Think, or other classic books that provide seminal information about our discipline. It helped make ideas tangible. 

I am thankful to NCA for this award, and especially grateful to my nominators, Luke Dye, Diana Ivy, Angela Hosek, and Seth Frei, who are former students, dear colleagues, and brilliant teachers who continue to teach me lessons about love and friendship. I’m grateful to each of the educators and colleagues who have shaped my teaching and teaching philosophy for the past fifty years. And, of course, I am thankful for my students; without students there would be no teacher. 

I invite you to reflect on your gifted educators and how they influence your teaching—your approach to “irrigating deserts.” You might find, as I have, that they helped get messages out of you, unlocked the joy of learning, and connected personally with you in surprising ways. Whether I was earning a living selling mobile homes, taking orders for turkey eggs, or teaching at the Universities of Miami, Texas State, or Oxford, I was, and remain, supremely thankful for those educators who inspired me to do what I’ve always wanted to do—teach.