WAUKESHA – Ken Cooley slipped into a closing market for philosophy professors in 1968 and this June, at age 65, will retire from it. In those 33 years at the University of Wisconsin-Waukesha, the professor has instructed thousands of students in the more than 250 classes he has led.
A doctoral student, Cooley left his position as preceptor at Southern Illinois University in 1968 and took advantage of a job market the last year there were more openings than candidates for teachers of philosophy. With a bachelor’s degree in philosophy and religion from Phillips University, Enid, OK, (The 90-year old institution closed its doors May 9, just as alumnus Cooley wound up his teaching career.) a master’s from Wichita State University, and coursework toward a doctorate from Southern Illinois under his belt, he interviewed at two baccalaureate institutions and at the fledgling UW-Waukesha, a two-year campus of the University of Wisconsin founded only two years earlier. In its newness, he found excitement. There was the freedom to start something, the chance to build a campus department molded in large part to specs he, its first ranked faculty member, would devise.
And he loved it. “I love to teach – even in the bad moments,” he says. After a career studded with more than 100 sections of Introduction to Philosophy, he regrets only the infrequency of more in-depth courses. “I enjoyed teaching all of them. However, I sure wish there had been many more opportunities to teach such courses as Plato, American Philosophy, and the Nature of Moral Reasoning,” he grumbles, but he understands that was the trade-off he made when he accepted a teaching post at a freshman/sophomore institution. Each time he taught a course, he prepared anew, so the subject never grew old. He did research primarily to teach and to teach well. His reward has come in the form of letters from former students, who have made glowing, “almost embarrassing” comments about him.
At the request of the student president of Phi Theta Kappa, the national honor society for two-year colleges, he took over as advisor to the group when its first advisor, Fred Moss, retired in 1999. The Alpha Chi Rho Chapter, which was established on campus in 1993, has continued to grow, having its largest class of inductees this spring.
Regulatory urges, he believes, have injured the student/teacher relationship, however. In the mid 1970’s when the teaching load for each faculty member was raised from 9 credit hours per semester to 12, he perceived a growing gap in the collegiality among faculty and students. It took a long period to adjust and left faculty with less time to interact with students. Yet, he admits, his predictions about woeful consequences have not been fully realized.
Similarly, he recalls how some state laws adversely affected campus life. The state mandate that fall classes start after Labor Day put pressure on both students and teachers to finish all the work in a shorter semester. Changing the drinking age from 18 to 21 also inserted a wedge: It halted the weekly TGIF parties on campus at which students and faculty enjoyed beer and popcorn and conversation together.
On a more personal level, he had mixed feelings about the banning of smoking materials on campus. On the one hand, he appreciates the health benefits. On the other, he bemoans the loss of his pipe smoking. “I gained thinking time with the pipe,” he says. When students asked difficult questions, he could toy with the pipe for a bit before offering an answer.
In addition to working with students, Cooley took on institutional chores and organizational roles. He was the prime author of the campus constitution and a vocal debater in hammering out its content. A longtime member of the group, he was president from 1995 to 2000 of the Wisconsin Conference of the American Association of University Professors, chaired the American Philosophical Association Committee on Philosophy at Two-Year Colleges for a number of years, and served on the City of Waukesha Ethics Board for many years, some 15 or so as chair.
In 1992, he completed the doctorate he had started before he came to UW-Waukesha, writing a dissertation on Sir David Ross’ Pluralistic Theory of Duty.
In retirement, he will go back to the reading and studying that interested him in philosophy in the first place. The philosophy professor from Kansas City who went from religious studies to sales manager for a trucking firm, back to college, and then to teaching will take the new-found time to “discover the freedom from a daily schedule. I have hundreds of things to do,” he assures, including reading and travel to New England by car in the fall and to family haunts in the Rocky Mountains.
“I won’t miss campus, because I’m only 5 minutes away,” he concludes.
Ken and Jill, his wife of 44 years, live in Waukesha. They have four grown children and 12 grandchildren. |
