Kottman (IV)

I got to thinking about Kottman this morning. Not sure why…but heard ‘Dietzyousunuvabitch’ in my mind.

The photo is Dr. Kottman’s obituary photo.

I think it was because I’ve been writing a ton.

Anyways,

Sophomore year, I wrote a massive paper for Kottman on the United States’ recognition of Israel as a state back in 1948 (the short version: We did it so we could say we did it before the Soviets and so Truman could shore up the Jewish vote)

In those days, there was no word processing–it was ALL about typewriters and part of a research paper was having proper margins, no typos, etc. On a computer, I am capable of typing fast and without looking at the keyboard…but on a typewriter, I have to slow down to 10-15 words/minute. When you are writing 7,000-8,000 words, that is a lot of time in front of the typewriter. (12-15 hours)

So I get it done, turn it in. Kottman gets it back a few weeks later. I looked at the grade…’B’…which was exhilarating and depressing all at once. Then I started looking at his comments. I’ll reproduce one here:

~~~~~~ ~~~~,~~~~~, ~~~~~ ~~~~~~!

Now you have the same feedback I had back in ’86.

So I ratcheted up my courage to see him and ask what it said…I was still intimidated by him at that point. I go inand Kottman starts with, “I’m not changing the grade, dammit.” I said it wasn’t about the grade and he then said “Then get to the point” …and then asked if I was Dietz…that he had the name right (Dude could remember the entire FRUS, but students…different story until he saw you were putting in effort)

I explained that I just wanted to know what his comments were. He asked me to show him. I did, pointing to a long comment at the bottom of the very first page. Kottman asked, “Well what do you think it says?”

I said, “Well, I can’t read it, but I think [gave him my answer].”

He squinted at the paper, looked at me and said, “How the hell do you expect me to read that? It’s chicken scratch.”

“Ummmm, because you wrote it?” (I did not say this out loud!)

He waved a hand, “Well it must have been important. What you said sounds right.” –and to be fair, I remember him elaborating, making it clear he remembered my paper…that he wasn’t just giving me the brush off. He even went on a couple of tangents that would have made for other great papers. At that point, he looked at his watch. “Anything else?” “No, sir.” “Good. Get out of here, Dietz.”

I know I sound like an old man saying ‘get off my lawn!’ but the world needs more instructors like Kottman–ones that push students, make them work, not content to let them use college classes as tic-marks to get a degree.