Glenn Gass -- a student's dream

Two and a half years ago, my life fell apart. Studying history continuously for three years had weakened my mind and body, and I began to suffer panic attacks. I had to take a semester off school, a semester spent vegging on the couch watching Oprah and taking Xanax and Paxil. After returning, I decided to take a rock and roll history class to "ease" the load of other history classes I was going to take. \n Unfortunately, I didn't get in to the class that semester. I dove into absolute laziness. I grew tired of the same old boring series of lectures and notes and tests, lectures and notes and tests. I grew angry with many teachers for claiming that they did not get "paid" for us to have fun, and that college was "a place for you to learn how to think." \nMy basic plan for the rest of my college life was to just get through it. I really could not find anything about school anymore that interested me (besides the thousands of supermodels here) in staying another minute. \nThat was until I met Professor Glenn Gass.\nI took the first rock music class, and then a second. If there were a third I would have taken that one, too. From day one to this very second, it changed my attitude about what a teacher should be and sparked my enthusiasm once again.\nIf an attendance award had been given for the two semesters I was in his courses, I would have taken home a big gold one with a "perfect" on it. Even if I was sick or a tempting distraction crossed my path, I still went to that class. I had that old feeling I used to get in high school when a class actually excited me. \nGass is hands down the most prepared and most thought-provoking teacher I have ever had. To get me up and out of my house, into my seat 15 minutes before class for every class would have even baffled the generals of the Normandy invasion. \nBut Gass did it. And never once did he exclaim, "You're here to learn how to think. Now shut up and take down these 40 million notes!" \nOh, and he also checked his e-mail, because he knew how to use it. He engaged in class discussions during actual class time, and he used more than a black chalkboard or Satan's own invention, the overhead, to teach. \nIf I went into a class thinking I didn't care for a particular musician, I was buying that same musician's CD after class because Gass made me feel infatuated about knowing more about everything.\nOn more than one occasion I was sitting in class and a real rock star walked in and talked to us. \nI met blues legends, drummers and lead guitarists both physically and spiritually in the world Gass created in his classes. \nSadly, I ran out of his courses to take, but it has not stopped me from spreading the unbelievably mind-numbing amount of knowledge he has shared with me. \nI learned to play the guitar; I learned to understand the reason why Elvis really was the King and Buddy Holly was a genius and the Beatles are the greatest ever (I hope Axl Rose doesn't read this). \nI was inspired on more than just a learning level. I had friends from all over the state wanting to take this class, and on more than one occasion I brought them in, even though it meant I had to use a crowbar to pry them out.\nI cannot say that I get that same kind of energy and professionalism out of many other teachers I have had here. And if they are passionate about their jobs and they are here to teach us to think, then they should all be required to sit in on one of Gass' courses. It should be a job requirement here on campus for every teacher in every field. If they want to know how to make us think and get us to class for their 8 a.m. courses on boredom, sit with Gass for five minutes. \nWhen someone has to pry you out of your seat, you'll see what I'm talking about.