“The people always have more power than they think.”
Dr. Robert Harrison is a history professor at Linn-Benton Community College, well known for his dress up “historical talk-show” exercises and novel-heavy curriculum. Teaching at LBCC for the better part of two decades, he is dedicated to making his classes engaging and memorable to students of all ages and backgrounds.
Packed to the brim with books, reenactment props, costumes, and even a claw machine, Harrisons’ office is a reflection of the dynamic classroom environment he strives to create. To combat the reputation of history classes for being monotonous, textbook heavy, and memorization-based, Harrison prioritizes interactive roleplay and immersive experiences to get students to understand and enjoy the course material.
Harrison’s passion for World War II and Civil War history extends to his understanding of modern politics and provides a well-rounded perspective in a climate that all too often slips into a fit of tunnel vision. He said, “You may forget the past, but you will be reliving it again and again.
How long have you been teaching here? Have you taught anywhere else?
Nineteen years. I taught in New Jersey before here. And I taught at several schools before that also.
Because I love Oregon so much. And of all the places I've taught around the country, Oregon's the best. So that's really the main reason. I met my wife in Oregon the year before I came here, and so we love it here. We don't really want to teach or live anywhere else.
Well, I was a journalism major in college, but it didn't work out. And then I took a history of journalism class, and I liked it. I liked the history part of it. And so my dad was a teacher, and it was just kind of natural for me to try history.
What kind of classes do you most enjoy teaching?
I like all my history classes, and I've taught just about every history you could name of any culture or any period. I think ancient civilization is probably my favorite.
What does that entail?
Ancient cultures of, say, Egypt, Mesopotamia, Greece, Rome, and the rise of Christianity. It's just a lot of fun. It's colorful.
You have to pick and choose. You can't cover everything, but you can make it a lot of fun. You can focus on the pyramids and mummies and people like that kind of stuff. And then the other period I like very much is the American Civil War and World War II. So all of those together, I like everything.
Is there a specific subject or event within history that you're most passionate about?
Well, for example, in my History 103, we study World War II, but I have the students go through spy training. Some of the same training that British spies went through in World War II. So we do that hands-on training stuff.
This term, I'm teaching my Living Civil War History class. It's two weekends, and the students become Civil War reenactors or living historians, and they participate in a reenactment out near Lebanon. So any opportunity I have to get students not just to learn history but do it, that I think is very valuable for them.
What does your spy training entail?
They have to learn Morse code. They have to memorize the blueprint of LBCC, because that's something spies had to do. They have to avoid distractions and stay focused. They have to be interrogated to see if they've memorized their — they have a spy persona. They portray people who actually were spies in World War II.
Gesturing to a rack of colorful costumes behind him, spanning astronaut uniforms, to old gowns, military uniforms from different time periods, and more …
This is for something all my classes do. It's called “Meeting of the Minds,” and it's where students portray historical people. They come into class and I interview them in a talk show format.
Probably the best thing about my class is most students, even if they get nervous about doing it, they remember. More than anything, they remember the character they portrayed.
I never do multiple guess tests. My classes are all essays. And I also use historical novels. There is a ton of reading in my classes. They're not easy, and I want students to read extensively because they don't read enough these days. So a novel is a great way to get introduced to history because it's not like a textbook. It's more interesting. The more they're reading about history or anything else, the better educated they're going to be.
My favorite all-time book, and I probably have it here. It's called “The Source.” It's a novel about ancient civilization by a guy named James Michener. He's a world-famous author, or was while he was living. This is my favorite book that I use without a doubt. It's about 1,100 pages. They only do half of it. It's still challenging, though.
This book is called “The March.” It's a historical novel about Sherman's March during the Civil War. And this is what I use in my History 202 class. So this brings you inside this event with some of the characters, and the events really happened. You get more committed to the characters, to the events when it's written up like this.
I don't use that many, what we call regular “textbooks.” They're dry, and I don't believe in them. I do use a couple that I've had experience with and I think are really good. But in some of my classes, like Ancient Civ, there is no textbook. All the reading is on Moodle, and then they get that novel that they have to read.
I think we have a huge gap between the very wealthy and poor again in this country. That's happened before. It's a pattern that we've seen in American history. It's not good.
We also see, in my opinion, demagoguery in American politics now. Politicians who really are not interested in the public good, but in their own increase of their own power. That's happened before, plenty of times. And I don't think we have enough people pointing that out.
The other thing I see a lot is we whitewash our past. We take events that were very negative, slavery, racism. Many people tend to want to whitewash those and downplay it.
There's now an effort to rid schools of what's called DEI, diversity, equity, and inclusion training or learning. I think that's a mistake. We've seen that before in U.S. history too. Our history gets rewritten, repackaged for different political purposes. And usually that repackaging is a distortion of what really happened.
That doesn't mean we haven't made progress because we have, but I don't think enough Americans know their past. It's kind of like to me, America is a live-for-now culture.
I've actually heard people say, “Well, that's past. You can forget it.” You may forget the past, but you will be reliving it again and again.
I believe in an educated citizenry who's engaged. And they can have different opinions, right, left, all that, but they care about their community. They know what's going on. They get engaged. Maybe it's voting. Maybe it's being on a school board. Maybe it's just like what you're doing, you know, writing a newspaper article. And I don't see enough of that engagement. That's an issue we've had in the past too in this country.
I'm still optimistic because things in the past in some ways were so much worse than now. And progress has been made by courageous people and groups. And maybe it's slower than we'd like, but I think we have, you know, we have a Constitution and a form of government, a republic that is durable. And it gets tested and pushed and challenged. I think it's happening right now where you have a president wanting more and more power. That's happened in the past too. But I think we will come out of it maybe even better. And the republic, its institutions and ideas are very resilient.
I have even heard people say, well, this could be the end of democracy in this country. And I don't think so. I think it's going to endure. And, you know, in the end, the people always have more power than they think.
What part of history do you think doesn't get enough coverage in education today?
I still think there's too much political history. We need more history of the arts, of culture. There can still be a tendency to use the “great man theory” of history, like you've got this king or this emperor or this president, and then it kind of all flows from that. So I try to go from the bottom up to tell stories of so-called ordinary people.
You have to talk about great leaders and big events. Like even when I'm talking about World War II and big battles, I always try to show how it's shaped by people we may not have ever heard of.
I think we need to challenge students with more on issues of race, gender, sexual orientation. How many people, if you ask them and said, “What was Stonewall?” would know? Or if you say “What happened at Selma, Alabama in the 1960s?”
Howard Zinn, the great historian, wrote “A People's History of the United States.” That's what I think we need more about. I think we've done enough about presidents.
What's your favorite memory of teaching in your career?
One favorite memory? Man. You know, the best is when you continue a relationship. I know this guy. He was in my class in Missouri in the ’90s. We still correspond on Facebook. He's a teacher, history teacher. That is one of my favorite memories because he still calls me Doc. And I shared teaching ideas with him and him with me.
Student travel could be the greatest memories. I've led student groups abroad several times. All those trips: Costa Rica, France, Spain, the British Isles, Peru, Italy (twice), Germany, Greece.
But because then you're seeing history, like when you see the Sistine Chapel Michelangelo painted in Rome, it just blows you away instead of reading about it in a book. But every day is great.
I try to relish every part of teaching. You never know what's going to happen. You have a plan when you go into the class, but somebody says something, it's funny or it's interesting or you make a twist or turn. So I think it's all great.
I think when I get those notes by email, sometimes I even get a written card. And every once in a while I'll get these, and they'll say, you know, Dear Dr. Harrison, I wasn't crazy about history. I didn't think I'd like this class, but I like the way you taught it. And I think, you know, I'll read more about it. That's the best, by far. You get those.
Hopefully some students are thinking that, even if they don't write it on a card or send an email. Those just make my day. They're so important.
I think I try to just make them aware that everything has a history. The history of their own lives, of their culture. Everything has a historical dimension. You can't understand anything without appreciating that.
Whatever their major is, to get them to think, hey, there's this big item in the news, you know. I wonder where that came from? What was the history of that? And what does that teach us going forward? It didn't just pop up today, it’s the product of everything that happened up to this point. That would be the impact I want to have.
Dr. Robert Harrison
Occupation: Instructor at LBCC
Age: 66
Hometown: Lindale Texas, but considers it to really be Albany, Oregon.
Family: Married to wife Callie, also a college teacher; two grown daughters, and four grandsons
Education: Went to Ohio State University for his PhD and is a proud buckeye! Had a focus in religious history, covering a set of sermons in the Middle Ages by a German monk.
Years at LBCC: 19
Before teaching at LBCC: Taught history at Ocean County College in New Jersey and several other schools. Taught history for a total of 36 years, teaching for 43 years (additional English and writing)
Classes he teaches at LBCC: History and humanities classes.
Other Interests: Halloween is his big day! As well as Jazzercise and baseball.
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