Veteran professors retire
PIVOTAL PLAYER: Prof. Leonard Tipton can teach almost any course in journalism. (Photo by David Zentz)
The College’s journalism team is about to lose one of its most versatile players. Prof. Leonard Tipton, who can teach almost any undergraduate or graduate course, will retire at the end of the semester after two decades at UF.
“Whereas most professors need six months’ notice before teaching a class, with Leonard, you could tell him the day before, ‘I need you to teach this class,’ and he’d say ‘OK,’ “ said Department of Journalism Chair William McKeen.
Tipton takes a valuable player with him. His wife, adjunct Prof. Judy Tipton, has been teaching Writing for Mass Communication labs for 12 years.
“They’ve done so much for the College,” McKeen said, dubbing them a “dynamic duo.”
Leonard Tipton started teaching at UF in 1985, the same year the College created its doctoral program. He mostly helped graduate students such as Frank Durham, MAMC 1987, and Gigi Durham, PhD 1990, with their theses and dissertations.
“Leonard was always inviting the seminar classes home for some discussion and a barbeque,” Frank recalled. “Of all the things we learned from him, it was how to take life at the university.”
Besides showing students how to get the most out of their college experience, Tipton has taught everything from Reporting and Editing labs to Public Opinion, Editorial Analysis and Journalism Research. Although he’s learned that “undergraduate students are more fun,” he still teaches graduate courses (Communication Theory, Mass Communication and Society, Issues and the Press).
“He brings intelligence, caring and warmth to his students in a way that can’t be duplicated,” retired journalism Prof. Kurt Kent said in an e-mail from New Zealand.
Tipton’s teaching philosophy emphasizes class participation. McKeen, a self-described “control freak” in his teaching style, admires Tipton’s ability to adapt and let class discussions forge their own path.
“Leonard doesn’t teach in a vacuum,” McKeen said. “He’s about getting to know students.”
Like a baseball manager, Tipton circles the classroom, touches shoulders, calls students by name and constantly checks, “Are you square?” When one of his Editing students answers meekly “yes,” Tipton pitches, “No you’re not, I can hear that in your voice!” and settles in to help, giving his full attention to the student’s work.
The students help each other, calling out, “What’s the abbreviation for pica?” and “Where do we put the slug?” Tipton throws in a, “C’mon, where’s that creativity?”
“He definitely cares personally about how each student does and is always looking for suggestions on how to make the class better,” said photojournalism senior Tricia Coyne.
Tipton’s statistics show his devotion: He has played a role on 275 thesis committees – 32 on the doctoral level and 242 on the master’s. Telecommunication Chair David Ostroff puts it in perspective: “I’ve done 125 in the same amount of time.”
In separate interviews, Leonard and Judy said they feel a sense of satisfaction seeing students make progress. In Leonard’s editing lab, students exclaim, “Oh, OK,” and, “Now I see.” The couple enjoys instructing courses that lend to what Judy calls “instant gratification” – evidence that a student has picked up and applied a new skill.
“I would say many of our former students are proofreading more diligently because of Mrs. Tipton,” said Prof. Julie Dodd, who coordinates Writing for Mass Communication. “She understands students so well and writing so well.”
Dodd met the Tiptons in Lexington, Ky., when Leonard sat on her master’s thesis committee at the University of Kentucky. Teaching at a local high school, Dodd knew Judy as a school board member and a “champion for student expression.” She recognized Judy would be an ideal lab instructor for her mass communication course.
“If there’s an error in your writing, by golly, she’s going to catch it,” said Dodd, who used Judy’s sharp eye to edit her test questions and develop the course’s CD-ROM in 2002.
The couple is always ready to help – international students, graduate students, friends, family, or even nature, Dodd said. “They couldn’t water their yard one season because a wren had built a nest in their hose, and of course that took priority.”
In 45 years, they’ve experienced all of the “usual turmoil” that comes with marriage – balancing a budget, earning advanced degrees, raising two sons, and relocating. And while they’ve overcome additional turmoil in Florida – including Leonard’s diagnosis of bladder cancer in 2001 and Judy’s recent hip and knee replacements – Leonard insists that “life has been so easy,” and Judy declares that their biggest battle has been the sinkhole under their house, which required 23 trucks full of concrete to fix.
Their retirement plans include moving into a different Gainesville house, visiting family and getting involved in the community.
“The biggest difference will be the freedom to pick up and go somewhere when we want to, and I’m looking forward to that,” Judy said. “I hope Leonard is. We’ll find out.”
–Valerie Payne
Smith’s last call
NAME IT: Prof. Les Smith calls graduates to the stage during the August commencement.
In 1995, Hank Conner, now a retired telecommunication professor, asked Prof. Les Smith, who worked as a radio and TV announcer and did voiceover for films and videotapes, to help him announce names at graduation.
“I loved not just the name-calling but the whole thing: working with the other marshals, the pageantry, the tradition,” Smith says.
Smith became associate chief commencement marshal in 2004. Then when the College started holding its own commencement that spring, he volunteered to take on the name-reading duties. In the past 10 years, he has called the names of more than 10,000 graduates.
Lisa Ellison-Cherny, TEL 2005, who took Telecommunication Programming with Smith in 2003 and played tuba with him in the Gainesville Community Band, will never forget him calling her name at the ceremony.
A couple of days before graduation, she asked him if he had to read whatever the pronunciation card said, joking that she was going to write “Lisa Page Ellison-Cherny: tuba player extraordinaire and certified genius.”
On graduation day, Ellison-Cherny put down only her name, but as she walked across the stage she heard “Lisa Page Ellison-Cherny: tuba player extraordinaire and certified genius.”
After Smith retires in December, he plans to continue playing tuba, a passion he rediscovered nearly 40 years after he originally learned to play. He’d like to play in a brass quintet like he once did. He also hopes to travel around the country. If the urge strikes him, he may return to doing historical research in telecommunication.
During his 23 years with the College, Smith spent five years, 1995-2000, as telecommunication department chair. He published several articles and books, such as Perspectives on Radio and Television: Telecommunication in the United States, a book he co-wrote with David Ostroff, current telecommunication chair, and John Wright, executive associate dean.
Wright describes Smith as a “great person to share a pitcher of Sam Adams with,” something he, Smith, and Ostroff did on Wednesdays at Café Gardens, just north of campus, for several years.
Smith, a practical joker, would leave notes in Wright’s mailbox signed as if they were from the dean, telling him to clean up his act.
“He got me a few times,” Wright says.
Smith’s programming class has the reputation of being one of the hardest in the College.
“I work them hard,” he says. “Gee whiz, I don’t think I could survive my course.”
Ellison-Cherny initially felt intimidated by the class. “Everybody thought that he was really strict,” she says. “I really liked him because he was really funny.”
After she earned her bachelor’s degree, she sent a letter to Ostroff and Dean Terry Hynes praising Smith.
“He really just goes above and beyond with his students,” she says.
–Katie Evans
