Starting a new year with a new a professor can be tough, but try having a professor you don’t know, who also happens to be the university president. This fall, Dr. Stuart Dorsey, TLU president, returned to the classroom to teach bulldogs a thing or two about intermediate economics.
Students really seem to be receiving him very well. Senior political science pre-law major Jasmine Hernandez thinks the class is going very well so far. “At first I was a little nervous,” she says, “knowing Dr. Dorsey’s amazing economics background and experience, I thought, ‘Man, this guy is going to eat us alive!’… It was great though.”
Dr. Dorsey, who is a well-established economist, earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of South Dakota and pursued graduate work at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri where he earned both his Masters and Ph.D. Dr. Dorsey’s work in economics is widely published and he has held numerous positions in various economic committees.
“The first day he could tell we were all nervous,” Hernandez stated, “normally on the first day of school everyone is catching up and it takes a few minutes to get the class settled down but the whole class was there 10 minutes early all sitting in their seats. When Dr. Dorsey walked in it was completely silent and he started talking about the upcoming game and cracked a few jokes to put us at ease.”
The nerves of the first day seemed to have not been the only thing in the air. When asked about their first exam, Hernandez said, “The first test with a new instructor is always the hardest as one isn’t familiar with the testing method or grading, so the entire class was quite nervous for the first exam. I have to say I was wonderfully surprised when Dr. Dorsey worked with everyone’s schedule to organize a study session for the entire class with him the evening before the exam. We got the tests back on Tuesday and overall I heard that the classed faired alright.” It is fair to say that even though he is in charge of the entire campus, Dr. Dorsey never forgets about the importance of teacher-student academic support.
With this being Dorsey’s first teaching appointment in a long time, he seems to be a testament to the old saying, “once you have it, you never lose it.” “He seems right at home,” Hernandez continued, “… [Dr. Dorsey] did seem a bit nervous but I think it’s mostly because we were scared to ask questions and he wasn’t sure if we understood the material due to our reluctance to interact. We quickly learned how at ease the learning environment is and how he welcomed questions; he makes it simple to interact.” We wish nothing but the best for Dr. Dorsey and his Intermediate Economics class, and hope the final goes as well as the first exam.
Fernando Rover, Reporter
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