Abstract
Wilbert J. (Bill) McKeachie used to tell the story about one of the few negative teaching evaluations he received during his career in teaching psychology. Smiling broadly, he loved to quote the student complaint: “It isn’t fair. Dr. McKeachie explains the material in such a way that everybody understands.” He cherished that review as a confirmation that he had been successful in his lifelong student-centered teaching mission.
Bill passed away at the age of 97 on June 12, 2019, after completing an illustrious career as a member of the Psychology Department at the University of Michigan. He was on the faculty for 44 years and served as chair of the department for 11 years. Retiring 27 years ago, he remained intellectually vigorous and committed to psychology throughout his career and well into his retirement.
Born in 1921 in Clarkston, MI, he majored in mathematics at the Michigan State Normal College (now Eastern Michigan University). As a young man, he had thought about the ministry and even preached a few sermons. World War II dramatically shaped his career trajectory. A gentleman, he was inclined toward the conscientious objector status until the atrocities of the war compelled him to serve. Bill’s draft board determined that he had become a minister too late to be exempted from service. Bill was drafted into the Navy and served as a radar and communications officer on a destroyer in the Pacific.
He met the love of his life, Virginia (Ginny) in college. They married the day before Bill joined the Navy and the marriage lasted happily for 74 years. The couple raised two daughters, Karen and Linda, and also enjoyed a granddaughter and great granddaughter. Both Ginny and daughter Karen passed away before Bill.
Bill and Ginny regularly attended the First Baptist Church of Ann Arbor for 70 years, singing in the choir for most of those years. A self-taught pianist, Bill appreciated music and made a point to spend Tuesday nights listening to jazz at. He was well known for remembering birthdays and calling to sing “happy birthday.” He was also an exuberant card player. He dedicated most lunch hours to playing a game called “Murder” that was made up by some Michigan graduate students. Bill and Ginny loved to travel internationally but developed a special fondness for visiting Finland.
Of all of his accomplishments, including any honorific or award from his professional life, Bill was proudest of his record as a softball pitcher. His lifetime career pitching record was roughly 900-300, with 31 no-hitters, one perfect game, and a lifetime batting average of about .300.
In his teaching assignments at Michigan, he focused on the teaching of Introductory Psychology but also taught Psychology of Religion. He was inventive in his approaches. For example, he experimented in Introductory Psychology with letting students pick the textbook, each preferred from a narrowed range he offered. He was able to accommodate those differences in perspective in his creative teaching and used student satisfaction ratings to support future textbook choices. Students rated him highly, even lovingly. He won multiple awards for his exemplary teaching at Michigan and also took top prizes for teaching at American Psychological Association (APA) conventions.
His most famous scholarly contribution in psychology started out as a collection of notes he made about what strategies seemed to work for him in the classroom when he was a teaching assistant. As his collection of observations grew over the course of his career, colleagues began asking him to share his ideas. He complied by compiling a collection of mimeographed pages, which he distributed to colleagues and teaching assistants. That collection evolved into McKeachie’s Teaching Tips (Svnicki & McKeachie, 2014), a work that sustained into 14 editions and today remains a primary faculty development source for teachers both in and outside of psychology. In addition to this highly influential resource, Bill was the author or coauthor of over 30 monographs or books, more than 120 book chapters, and more than 200 articles.
His interest in psychology curriculum led to many opportunities to shape the modern major at a national level, starting with a Michigan-sponsored gathering of faculty in 1960 that was the first effort of its kind to look at how to define high-quality education in the major (Brewer, 1997; McKeachie & Milholland, 1961). He helped to assemble the first important national discussion of relevant student learning outcomes in psychology (McGovern, Furumoto, Halpern, Kimble, & McKeachie, 1991). He was a popular speaker at regional and national teaching conferences.
Because of his strong commitment to high-quality teaching, he recognized that new faculty members took their first jobs without being fully prepared for their roles. To address that need, he established the first teaching and learning center in the country. At present, a faculty development center tends to be a fixture on many campuses, thanks to his foresight.
Bill served the professional community through various roles in the APA and divisions as well as other higher education organizations. He was elected APA president in 1976. He continued to serve as an APA Council Member until late in his career. He presided over the Division 2, the Society for the Teaching of Psychology, where he was a generous mentor and inspiring speaker. The Society’s annual recognition of outstanding teacher at the 4-year level is named the Wilbert J. McKeachie Award. For the breadth of his service, APA awarded Bill with both the Distinguished Career Contributions to Education and Training in Psychology and the Gold Medal Award for Enduring Contributions to Psychology in the Public Interest in 1998. Bill also served as president of the American Association of Higher Education.
His influence wasn’t just national. Inspired by a suggestion from his beloved wife Ginny, he converted a faculty development outing sponsored by the University of Maryland University College into a full-blown teaching conference that changes international venues every year. As a consequence of his Improving University Teaching (IUT) Conference, he was able to tour much of the world and found his student-centered teaching strategies were warmly received the world over. An award for best contribution to the annual conference is named in the honor of both McKeachies.
Those who knew Bill adored him whether they were fortunate enough to work side by side with him in any capacity or if they only knew and appreciated Bill through the pages of Teaching Tips. His gentle and generous spirit rang true in all contexts. His fans claimed they learned something about teaching or about life whenever they were in his presence. He taught instructors how to listen more and talk less. He showed them how to handle questions for which they didn’t know the answer—“What an interesting question! What made you ask that?”—to allow more time to think and to convert the potentially embarrassing moment into an opportunity for critical thinking. Well known for being quick to express sentimental emotion, Bill also provided lessons in what to do if you tear up during a lecture: “Just tell them you cry easily and then let it go.” He argued that genuine expression of emotion was a better approach then pretending you weren’t moved. Although counterintuitive, he insisted that teaching gets harder every year despite faculty expertise, as a professor’s life experience become more and more remote from that of incoming classes, an axiom that has proven to be true.
He was equally wise as administrator. He knew how to parlay the best features of Michigan living to help build arguably one of the strongest psychology departments in the nation. He had remarkable intuition about when a restless faculty member might be “pluckable.” He offered wise counsel for faculty members looking to enhance their performance or change direction and was prescient about giving life-changing advice that was well timed and inspiring.
For the remarkable contributions he made to University of Michigan, an auditorium on the Ann Arbor campus was named in his honor. One of his proudest tributes was a crabapple tree donated in his honor by the Society of Teaching of Psychology planted outside his U of M office. He would dutifully report with pride the quality of the tree’s blooming every year.
Bill often said, “I was just lucky.” Although luck may have played some role in his remarkable achievements, those who grieve his loss recognize that his dedication, hard work, curiosity, humility, and humanity somehow produced the perfect academic. It is we who were the lucky ones.
Individuals wishing to make a donation in his honor can contact the Psychology Department at the University of Michigan or connect with the IUT Conference at www.iut.org