How long did you teach psychology?
Approximately 40 years

Where did you teach?

I first taught psychology as a graduate assistant in the 1967-68 academic year at Kansas State College of Pittsburg (Now Pittsburg State University; KS; USA), and then again as a doctoral student at the University of Nebraska (NE; USA) in the 1971-72 academic year. From 1973-76 I taught behavioral science at the University of Nebraska College of Dentistry (NE; USA), before joining the staff of the University of Nebraska Medical Center (NE; USA), where I served as assistant professor of medical psychology and research coordinator for the Family Rehabilitation Program. While at the medical center, I supervised graduate students and taught a few graduate courses in behavior analysis for the university’s extension division. Then, in 1980, I joined the faculty at Nebraska Wesleyan University (USA), where I remained until moving to the University of San Diego (CA; USA) in 1999. I retired from USD in 2012.

My early jobs were in medical centers, but when Connie and I would drive past the Nebraska Wesleyan University campus, I would sometimes remark that I should probably be working at a place like that—an opportunity that came in 1980. Nebraska Wesleyan and the University of San Diego are liberal arts universities, and both provided environments and opportunities that I loved. I was fortunate to have the early career experience in a large research-oriented environment, in large part because it allowed me to move on to liberal arts settings, knowing that I no longer aspired to be a medical center research psychologist. And, of course, the liberal arts schools where I spent the rest of my career provided ample opportunities for research and writing.

I also had the good fortune, on sabbaticals and summer assignments, to teach at St. Clare’s College Oxford (UK), Kwansei Gakuin University (JP), and in London (UK) and Guadalajara (MX).

What did you find the most rewarding about teaching?

This is a tough question, because it’s difficult to know where to start. Abraham Maslow once spoke about his view of the significance of the university commencement ceremony. Marching in the line at commencement, he said, he realized that the great scholars of the past were somewhere up there, ahead of him in the line. And all the great scholars of the future were also in the line, somewhere back there, following. Maslow may have been wrong about a lot of things, but he was right about this one; teaching is a serious business and a great privilege. We are entrusted with some of the brightest members of the next generation, and we are given the opportunity to help them develop skills that will make them more careful thinkers, more critical consumers of information, and, we hope, better citizens.

In part due to the influence of my doctoral advisor (Jay M. Toews), and in part based on my own experience, I came to believe that no one really teaches; the best among us are simply skilled at providing environments in which others can learn. That, I think, allows (and perhaps requires) an atmosphere of collegiality, a sense of freedom that makes learning more important than grades, discovery more important than convention. If there is a single rewarding aspect to teaching, perhaps that is where it lies—in seeing students truly become learners. That can result in joy, not just for students, but also for faculty. In the end, the answer to the question is easy; it is students who are the most rewarding thing about teaching.

How did your teaching change over the course of your career?

My teaching changed in important ways both practical and attitudinal or philosophical. The practical changes came in many ways, but most often in my exposure to others whom I saw as fine teachers. This happened sometimes in my colleagues’ writing—their ideas in books and journals such as ToP; sometimes in personal exchanges at meetings or social gatherings. STP was important in this respect; at an early point, I was ready to resign my APA membership, when my friend Ludy Benjamin made clear to me that I was delinquent in my failure to be a member of Division 2 (STP). A pivotal period occurred in the 1980s, when I had opportunity to participate in several writing-across-the-curriculum workshops, and I began to see writing as a learning tool rather than simply a testing tool. I learned that there is a scholarship of teaching and learning, and that teaching well requires more than just some sort of affinity for it.

In broader, more philosophic ways, my teaching evolved as I became more comfortable with it over the years. I learned that a teacher need not know everything, and need not fear saying so. I learned, and tried to convey to students, that often the best answer to a scientific question is “It depends,” or “I don’t know; let’s try to find out.” When I learned to see students as partners in personal and scientific ventures, I became a better teacher. When I learned that students respect a good example more than an authority, I became a better teacher. And when I learned to accept my own limitations, I became a better teacher.

How did you make the decision to retire? How long have you been retired?

This was somewhat complicated, but perhaps not for the typical reasons. I loved my job, rarely experiencing a day when I didn’t want to get up and get to work. In fact, I would sometimes tell students about Lou Gehrig’s famous “luckiest man on the face of the earth” speech, and explain that, with all due respect to Mr. Gehrig, he hadn’t met me. I expected to teach as long as I had good health, felt on top of my game, and enjoyed it.

Then came Sunday, September 12, 2004. Lying on the floor with a cold drink after mowing the lawn at our San Diego home, I reached over to scratch an itch high on my left side, and in the process noticed a couple of good-sized lumps that should not have been there. I mentioned it to Connie, who insisted that I call the clinic on Monday morning. The short version is that I had Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, and over the next three years I had chemotherapy, radiation, and surgery, culminating in a stem cell transplant in early 2007. I worked through nearly all this time, still loving it, missing only the semester of the transplant. Ultimately, I emerged healthy, and continued to teach. But I had learned an important lesson: I will not live forever, and if I want good time with family and friends, I need to make that time. So, in 2012, at the age of 67, I decided it was time, and Connie and I retired back in Nebraska. The result is that I have been happily retired now for nearly 13 years.

What activities (personal and/or professional) do you most enjoy in your retirement?

The most important aspect of retirement has perhaps been the increased opportunity for time with family and friends. We’ve had good years with children and grandchildren, travel with friends, and the luxury of enjoying these things without the pressure of being prepared for class on Monday. I doubt that many people who have not done it realize how all-consuming the life of an academic can be, and being free from that, as much as I loved it, has been great.

Nebraskan Ted Kooser, a former U.S. Poet Laureate, a few years ago published a book titled Local Wonders, in which he wrote about his observations in and around his home region, known locally as the Bohemian Alps. And my old friend, novelist Kent Haruf, wrote, as he approached the end of his life, about the tightening of the circle of his activities and the transition from a larger view to a more local perspective. I guess I see a similar trend in my own life, as I have gradually withdrawn from national organizations and activities to a more local focus.

Early in my retirement, my attention remained on a number of activities of national scope. I completed The Encyclopedia of Cross-Cultural Psychology (2013), a handbook for the teaching of culture across the curriculum (2018), and a second edition of my cross-cultural psychology book (2019). I co-authored three books on aspects of intellectual disability, two of them with my daughter Heather Keith (2013, 2020) and one with long-time collaborator Bob Schalock (2016). My longstanding buddy Barney Beins and I wrote a book on scientific literacy (2017), and in 2017 I served as president of STP. But as time has moved along, my writing interests have gravitated closer to home, including two memoirs, one about our decades-long love affair with Japan (Letters From Japan, 2020), and one intertwining my own experience with lymphoma with the life and times of the 19^th-century physician Thomas Hodgkin (Doctor Hodgkin and Me: A Cancer Survivor’s Notebook, 2021).

The opportunity for travel as a leisure activity has been especially good. In addition to U.S. travel with family, I’ve made long-distance walks in England with my son David; spent time in London, Oxford, Cornwall, and Scotland with children and grandchildren; and taken European river cruises with Connie and good friends. These activities have been especially gratifying.

I’ve also branched out in my reading and writing interests, and am now working, as part of a team, on a book about the obscure US Navy tradition of writing the midnight ship’s log on New Year’s day as a poem—a project initiated by friends and colleagues Dave Johnson and Gary Guinn. I maintain two or three other interests that go beyond the local: First, I continue to edit a monograph series (Elements of Psychology & Culture) for the Cambridge University Press—an activity that keeps me in touch with interesting psychologists around the world. Second, I have served for some years as a member of the advisory board for the Center for the History of Psychology at the University of Akron. And finally (and most important), I have weekly Zoom meetings and annual in-person gatherings with a group of long-time friends and colleagues; we call ourselves the Psychology Boys. The Psychology Boys are all former leaders and officers in STP, but the thing that matters most at this point in our lives is the friendship and camaraderie of our little group.

The final way that my circle has tightened is very much local. Connie and I now live in a 55+ community, and very much enjoy a variety of neighborhood activities: monthly potluck dinners, weekly coffee gatherings, monthly card games, and such. Beyond the neighborhood, we now have more time for old Lincoln friends, more activities like plays and concerts, and enrollment in interesting classes in the University of Nebraska OLLI  program (Osher Lifelong Learning Institute; a nationwide program for seniors).

What advice would you give people who are not yet retired?

I don’t know whether I can give advice, but I can offer some observations. First, I think there is a temptation to believe that, when we are gone, our departments will go to hell in a handbasket; they will not. They will change, but they will go on, facing the challenges of their time, just as we faced the challenges of our time. When he knew that he was dying, Kent Haruf wrote to me, saying that the world would go on—people getting up, eating, going to the post office or library—without him. Similarly, our departments will go on, and the best thing we can do for those who follow us is to refrain from looking over their shoulders and offering unsolicited advice. And the best thing we can do for ourselves is to avoid the stress and strain of agonizing and worrying about whether they are doing things the way we would. I had my time; now they are having theirs.

Second, look forward, not back. It’s wonderful to share memories and tell tall tales about the past. But remember this: There is life after retirement, and it can be productive, satisfying, and fun. It can be invigorating to learn new things, try new activities, and engage with new people. Which leads me to . . .

Third, stay active. It would be easy in retirement to stretch out on the couch, a beer in one hand and a bag of Doritos in the other, and spend your days watching cable TV and football. But retirement age brings with it increasing health and wellness concerns—whether you’re a walker, biker, runner, or yoga enthusiast, keep at it. Take care of yourself, stay interested, and remain active; you will not pass this way again.

What are you currently reading for pleasure?

I tend to be an eclectic reader, moving back and forth between fiction and nonfiction, from serious literature to murder mysteries, from new books to old favorites. At the moment, I’m reading a new book, Accidental Shepherd, by Liese Greensfelder, published by the University of Minnesota Press. Liese is the spouse of a friend, and the book is the story of how, as a college-age young adult, she went to Norway for a summer job on a farm, only to find that the owner was hospitalized with a stroke, requiring her to take over the farm. A good read.

I’ve also recently read a couple of Ann Cleves’s Vera murder mysteries, and a new nonfiction work, The Bookshop: A History of the American Bookstore. The latter book is by Evan Friss, a history professor at James Madison University. A book that I read a while back, and that I can highly recommend if you have any interest in World War II, or in military history, is Dave Johnson and Gary Guinn’s Midwatch in Verse: New Year’s Deck Log Poetry of the United States Navy, 1941-1946.  If you were to ask me again in a month, it’s hard to predict what I might be reading!