Todd Butler: Much Ado About Someone
by Rachael Nelson, WSU Alumna
Todd Butler is an Associate Professor in the WSU English Department where he specializes in 17th-Century British Literature.
When I asked Dr. Todd Butler whether he makes it a habit to check his ratings and reviews on RateMyProfessors.com, he replied, “No. I’ve looked at it, just out of curiosity. I know other professors who have jokingly reviewed each other. But no, I don’t.” Like many professors, Butler pays little attention to RateMyProfessors.com and similar websites. Comments may be published by anyone, not just a professor’s students, and range from high praise to scathing denouncements. Anonymous student evaluations collected during class time at the end of each semester tend to provide constructive criticisms.
We began discussing RateMyProfessors.com when I mentioned Butler’s talent for humor in lecture. Apparently a student had commented on the site that Butler’s lectures “got old quick” and that despite liking the professor, the student hated his classes. A colleague passed this review onto Butler, who shared it with me. I responded with a surprised, “Really?” and Butler was quick to come back with “Yeah, exactly.” It is this self-aware sarcasm that holds sleep-deprived students’ interest on weekday afternoons and leads to comments about Butler published in RateMyProfessors.com like the italicized remarks that follow.
This man's class feels more like a stand-up comedy routine. He never settles for the normal way to approach a text, and as a result grants students unique and valuable insights. He does an excellent job of creating a positive classroom environment and making difficult subjects accessible.
Butler’s comedic timing is paired with sharp intellect and, perhaps most importantly, a natural approach to teaching. “I think there’s a barrier between professor and student that can be broken down any number of ways – you don’t have to be funny to be a good professor,” said Butler. Butler is keenly aware of his purpose at the podium, and it isn’t to deliver jokes about Shakespeare or Milton or, for that matter, VH1 – it’s to give his students a greater understanding of the questions literature can pose and to let them arrive there on their own.
Butler brings a lot of theatrical interest to his topics, making really amazing connections to current questions. The reading is made a lot more interesting as his discussion shows that he has a real passion for it. He lets students draw conclusions but has a lot of insight as well to push the discussion along.
“I try to build questions into the lecture so that as people answer the questions, we advance in our knowledge,” answered Butler when I asked him what it is he does to foster such a participatory environment. “I consider the texts I read – Shakespeare for example – living documents. That is, I don’t shy away from making what might seem to be unintellectual comparisons between present-day concerns and ideas and what the text itself says. I don’t retreat from pop-culture references. I want to know not just what the text says but what it means to the students who are in the classroom.”
When I asked for an example, Butler explained, “There’s a whole segment in Henry IV in which Falstaff talks about how honor doesn’t mean anything, that it’s just a word people use when people get killed. Well, at the start of the Iraq war, people had profoundly different readings of that moment in Henry IV and disagreed much more aggressively with Falstaff, saying things like, ‘No, these words mean something; we’re going into Iraq to remove this dictator.’ I’ve seen that response become more complicated the longer this conflict goes on. Whether people feel good about the conflict or not is a different question, but those meanings change. And they should. Because otherwise, literature just stays the same. And if I could predict the answer every student was going to give me year after year, I would get bored.”
Butler’s former student, Brinn McKinney, enrolled in WSU’s Master of Teaching program and a student-teacher at Pullman High School, finds herself modeling lessons after those she received in his class. She regularly “Butlers” her classes. “It's much easier for students to become comfortable engaging in the material when you treat a text like it's not a waste of anyone's time,” said McKinney. “Even the smallest details can reveal the greatest truths that an author is trying to convey.”
When Butler speaks of his dissertation director in graduate school, who Butler credits with inspiring his teaching style, it sounds similar to McKinney’s comments. Butler said, “My director was powerfully engaged and passionate about what he did and what he talked about. But it’s not so much about the content; it’s about the quality. What he did was really important to him, and he wasn’t ashamed about insisting that it be really important for anybody who was in class for those fifty minutes.”
Outstanding Professor. It’s professors like him that make going to class worthwhile.
On the first day I attended Butler’s class, he stomped in shouting a date and scenario, passionately picking up a pen before furiously scribbling on the whiteboard. “On the first day of class,” Butler said, “you need to teach. You don’t need to read the syllabus. It’s a waste of a moment, of the one time when everybody is potentially engaged and fresh and not beaten down.”
Butler described his greatest moments in teaching thus far as “times when somebody, after listening to questions, raised their hand, not to ask a question, but to say, ‘So therefore, thinking about this moment, this paragraph, or whatever,’ and they go on speaking for about a minute. And I think, ‘You got it. Something clicked for you.’ Or a conversation in class where I didn’t have to say anything for five or ten minutes because people started talking to each other. When it happens, it’s because a student accomplishes something, not because I necessarily accomplished anything.”
McKinney experienced many of these moments in Butler’s classes. “I believe that 90% of success in teaching is having a personality that students can at least tolerate, if not enjoy,” she said. “Butler has that going for him. His approach to literature made me think about what was being read, but also what I thought, how I processed things, and challenged me to figure out where I stood on some issues - morality with Merchant of Venice, integrity with the Henrys. I loved reading Arden of Favershem and thinking about social responsibility and fidelity.”
This is the best professor I've ever had, and I'm taking another class with him next semester.
The class material (Shakespeare) has always been so hard until I had Butler, and he made the course whiz by so easily. I feel like I can tackle anything now that I can tackle Shakespeare!
TAKE HIS CLASS!!!
“I’ve always been, I don’t know if this is the right word, flattered that a student’s parents would give part of the student’s life to me to do something with,” Butler said. “That’s a really big responsibility, and you have to live up to that. At certain times of the semester I sometimes feel like ‘whatever--just grade these things.’ But I’ve always been struck by the thought that people give me money to do this. There’s responsibility as well as joy in teaching.”
Clearly, Butler is living up to his responsibility. Recently Butler was named the department's Lewis E. & Stella G. Buchanan Scholar. He also was named Vice Chair of the WSU English Department as of fall 2009. Despite these credits to his career and his stellar overall RateMyProfessors.com rating of 4.9 out of 5, Butler remains humble. “My successes and what I’m able to do aren’t just because of me,” said Butler. “They're because of other people that have come before me – the professors who trained me, my colleagues here, and my wife - they all share in that success.”
After a semester in class with Butler, I found the way I looked at literature, particularly Shakespeare, profoundly different. In a good way. One review on RateMyProfessors.com reads, “Best lit prof. I've ever had, hands down. Has high expectations, and helps you reach them. Very knowledgeable and an interesting lecturer. If all my profs were this good, I'd be happy to be paying out of state tuition and know I'm getting my money's worth.” Butler remarked, “I take the [evaluations] I get back very seriously. And that should be important. I'm happy when students are appreciative of what I do. Though not everybody is, obviously.” Even so, comments about Butler indicate that I’m not alone in my sentiments toward the class or the professor.