New Professor Impresses Campus with Teaching Methods

Arts and Entertainment Editor

Photo by Douglas Boultinghouse

Teaching - Gregory Borse, professor of English, gives a handout to students in his world literature class. Borse joined the University of Arkansas at Monticello faculty in fall 2008.

2008 and quickly earned praise and acceptance.

    Before coming to UAM, Borse taught at the Kokomo region of the Ivy Tech Community College in Indiana.

   According to Mark Spencer, dean of Arts and Humanities, the students at Ivy Tech voted Borse instructor of the year. This caught his eye, becoming one of the reasons he hired Borse. Spencer said it appealed to him on the basis of a student-inspired school.

   “He must be doing something the students like,” he said.

   Spencer described Borse as very articulate and outgoing, “I had a real good feeling about him,” he said.

   On the other side, UAM appealed to Borse in many aspects.

   The size and location attracted Borse, along with being a four-year institution entering its centennial.

   “I liked the faculty and administration here,” Borse said. “I felt very comfortable.”

   The Philological Review of Arkansas, now housed in UAM’s school of Arts and Humanities, also attracted him. He reads as part of a peer review for the journal.

   According to Spencer, he thinks faculty should be scholars and creative artists to make a better concentration to their disciplines as teachers. Borse fits that description.

   Borse earned his doctorate from Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, La.

   Borse, who teaches composition, literature, philosophy and ethics, said he really likes the students.

   “The students are very enthusiastic and excited about their education,” Borse said. “That makes it easier. It’s not like pulling teeth.”

   He said students do their work and seem to get a lot out of their UAM experience. Borse’s students’ view of his teaching mirrors his view of the students.

   “He is a very optimistic and animated professor,” said Kevin Shelby, a junior English major with a concentration in Literature, taking Borse’s modern literature course.

   Shelby said Borse likes to make sure students interact with the lesson, making it more of a discussion than a lecture.

   “I think he’s a very effective professor,” Shelby said. “I am impressed by his teaching methods.”

   “His method is different from most of the professor's I have encountered on campus,” said Belinda Jeffers, a senior Art and Creative Writing major.

   Jeffers said he takes it slow and enforces his lectures with stories, anecdotes, movies, artwork and other works of literature that may pertain to the assigned material to illustrate what he teaches.

   “Dr. Borse is a refreshing change,” Jeffers said. “I am not much of a poet. I prefer fiction writing, but he has been able to keep my attention in class because of the interest he creates in his lecture time.”

   Borse currently assists the Educational Renewal Zone by giving presentations to give high school students exposure of what their education prepares them for.  

   “I’m doing what I can to help ERZ reach out and expose students to what it is like to study in college,” Borse said.

   One of the lessons he taught included scanning poetry. He presented poetry lessons to high schools in Rison, Star City and other areas.

   “He is doing an excellent job by my observations,” Spencer said. “I’ve heard nothing but good things from students and faculty.”

   Borse recently wrote a paper that has been accepted for presentation by the Association of Core Texts and Courses in April. He will present “Hamlet and the Rise of the New Orality: Teaching in Age of the Internet” at the 15^th annual ACTC conference to be held April 9-11 in Memphis, Tenn.

   He described the presentation by saying, “Shakespeare's Hamlet is a character in crisis, one who must negotiate the interregnum, or ‘time between kings.’  He lives to see the passing away of one order as a new paradigm emerges, the contours of which are hard to see.  Our students, nourished almost exclusively on television and, increasingly, on the Internet, in many ways resemble Hamlet.  Their brains don't order reality the way their parents’ brains do--and this necessitates a new way of teaching, if we as educators are to prepare them for the demands of leadership in the future.”

   Borse lives in Monticello with his wife, Sheila, who teaches English at Drew Central High School, and their five children. Their three girls and two boys range from ages three to 17. Their oldest daughter recently received a scholarship and will attend UAM in the fall.

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