WAUKESHA – Raised in Montana, where he was expected to become a cowboy like his uncles, John Knight nevertheless chose philosophy. This summer, he will retire from teaching for the last 34 years at the University of Wisconsin-Waukesha.
In his early years, Knight, now 62, milked and tended cows at his grandparents’ homestead in Round Butte. He graduated from a one-room school and, at the age of 14, moved to the city of Missoula with his mother.
With the draft looming when he graduated from high school, he enlisted in the Army Reserves and was sent to Fort Ord, CA, for basic training. Allowed a specialty either as a clerk/typist or a cook, he chose the latter and still enjoys chef duties at home. Upon completing the training, he enrolled at the University of Montana in Missoula.
Back home, he settled into the lifestyle he had left: delivered milk, lived at home, went trout fishing with his stepfather, attended school. Tempted to join some of his friends who were moving to Alaska to homestead, Knight resisted – on his mother’s very vocal insistence. He found himself attracted to the disciplined free thinking of the existentialists. They convinced him he could create his own destiny. So he was drawn into philosophy and in 1963 became the first member of his family to earn a college degree. He added a minor in German.
All but one of his fellow philosophy graduates went back to the farm. Knight, however, accepted the most lucrative of four offers for a graduate teaching assistantship, and he headed east to Ohio State University. There he found an approach to philosophy that did not suit him as well, yet the teaching did. “The program was grounded in critical analytical philosophy, which is the antithesis of existentialism,” he explains. He adjusted. At first supplementing his income by driving cab, he later was able to earn the additional dollars in a more academic style, teaching part-time at the Art Institute of Columbus.
Holding a master’s degree and with coursework toward a doctorate completed, he was hired in 1968 to teach at Ohio State University-Mansfield, a two-year campus. The campus also needed a basketball coach, and he volunteered for the position, guiding the team to its first winning season. The dean saw student activities coordinator potential in his performance, but his advisor wisely counseled him to stay with the academics.
Those credentials brought him an offer to teach at the 3-year old UW-Waukesha campus, and in 1969 he made the last stop on his career quest – in Waukesha. From knowing no one, he found classrooms full of students eager to experiment with ideas, welcoming colleagues, and a good place to raise his own two sons.
“This campus has been good to me in many ways,” he believes. Besides affording him the opportunity to present philosophical thinking to so many, it’s provided outlets for his competitive energies – intramural basketball and volleyball in the early days, later tennis with the very accomplished Dan Zielinski, who taught geography, and more recently badminton with retired historian Blake McNulty, retired physical education professor Jerry Klingbeil, biology lab assistant Jim Sellon, engineering professor Luis Rodriguez, and Dan Stalder from the psychology and mathematics departments. In fact, he has won gold medals at the Badger State badminton games, displaying the prowess his colleagues helped him hone.
He considers the small class sizes at UW-Waukesha a perk, allowing him to get to know his students, and enjoys learning of their endeavors after they move on. With his retirement, he will leave behind 32 years of advising a very active philosophy club, which engendered friendships with a number of students.
In addition to sports companions and fellow philosophers, he has developed cross-disciplinary friendships with faculty, having taught with psychologists Sue Andrews and Bob Bermant, biologists Gene Braun and David Skryja, and Fred Moss from English, Mary Ellen Young from art, Walt Sadler from math, and Vic Wrigley from physics. The support staff – Lillian Bohrman, Dianne Miskie, and Diane Dalhoe – interpreted his handwriting better than he could, he claims.
A responsible member of the collegiate community and believer in shared governance, Knight served on the UW Colleges Senate for many years including a term as chair. He has been a part of the philosophy department executive committee, served as chair of the Colleges-wide philosophy department, and sat on almost every local campus committee at one time or another. “UW-Waukesha is very fortunate to have administrative leaders such as Brad Stewart and Phil Zweifel who want to work in meaningful partnerships with students, faculty, and staff,” Knight acknowledges.
Outside the university, he has served as a preceptor at the Medical College of Wisconsin and adjunct professor at the Milwaukee School of Nursing. He holds a seat on the bioethics committees at two area hospitals.
Strongly recommended by his peers for emeritus status on his retirement, Knight intends to slow his pace: keeping up work in the garden and reading in bioethics and evolutionary psychology, maybe returning to co-teach “Sex, Lies and Immorality” with Professors Bermant and Skryja, and possibly developing a continuing education course to teach through the UW Extension on campus. The release from regular commitment will allow him to travel as well.
John and Lynn Knight live in the Town of Waukesha. Son JT, a federal bankruptcy law clerk, lives in Connecticut, and son TJ works for the City of Los Angeles. |
