2008 Woodie Awards
The death of a great professor: Dr. Delasanta
Kelly Jones '07
Issue date: 4/19/07 Section: Commentary
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For one semester, spanning the months at the beginning of 2005, I lived in fear of Dr. Rodney K. Delasanta. To this day, I still do not know much about the man who inspired so many English majors, outside of the information sent by Providence College President Rev. Brian J. Shanley, O.P., informing the school of Delasanta's death last Tuesday.
I was Delasanta's student for a semester in Development of Western Civilization-it was a trial, to say the least. Delasanta expected perfection from every one of his students. He did not discriminate. He did not "gently break the news" when he told me, minutes before my mid-term essay exam, that he didn't think I knew how to write. Luckily, I was one of those students who loved a challenge, even then in my sophomoric (literally) and formative years.
I did not know Delasanta personally, but I can say that he was a tough cookie-in the best sense of the term. He drove me to defend myself in class beyond the point at which I would normally give up, and accept the traditional reading of, say, Graham Greene. He asked questions of my DWC seminar that seemed to simultaneously require and dare the students to disagree. Suffice it to say, no one slept in that class. Delasanta knew that we were all arrogant "honors" students, and he did his best to force us to earn our opinions.
In short, Delasanta embodied what is right about the DWC program. He gave no outlines, no written notes, no formula in which to fit the text. He rarely told his students explicitly what he wanted them to learn-he drew it out of them, slowly and (at times, because we were young and ignorant) painfully. In short, he never lectured at us, but rather sat with us for our two and a half hour seminar and guided us to where we needed to go.
Though it took many of Delasanta's students a while to learn to appreciate his method, I doubt they would be the same students they are today had they had a different DWC experience. In fact, I know many of his DWC students who continued taking his classes, regardless of the material, for the honor of being able to pick his brain and have him pick theirs.
It seems to me, in retrospect (because I was intimidated beyond all thought at the time) that this was a more honest, more fruitful teaching method than many others I have experienced. Delasanta made us work; he made his students get their education for themselves. And that is what DWC should be: Led (but not dominated) by intelligent professors who are humble enough to let students take the floor, and then hold them responsible for the way in which they take it.
I don't know if he ever read The Cowl, and I don't know that he would consider me "a writer," even to this day, but I know that Delasanta was a teaching force not to be reckoned with. He will never be forgotten by those who had him in class, and he will be known to future English majors and Honors DWC students through legend. He certainly deserved to have it that way.
I was Delasanta's student for a semester in Development of Western Civilization-it was a trial, to say the least. Delasanta expected perfection from every one of his students. He did not discriminate. He did not "gently break the news" when he told me, minutes before my mid-term essay exam, that he didn't think I knew how to write. Luckily, I was one of those students who loved a challenge, even then in my sophomoric (literally) and formative years.
I did not know Delasanta personally, but I can say that he was a tough cookie-in the best sense of the term. He drove me to defend myself in class beyond the point at which I would normally give up, and accept the traditional reading of, say, Graham Greene. He asked questions of my DWC seminar that seemed to simultaneously require and dare the students to disagree. Suffice it to say, no one slept in that class. Delasanta knew that we were all arrogant "honors" students, and he did his best to force us to earn our opinions.
In short, Delasanta embodied what is right about the DWC program. He gave no outlines, no written notes, no formula in which to fit the text. He rarely told his students explicitly what he wanted them to learn-he drew it out of them, slowly and (at times, because we were young and ignorant) painfully. In short, he never lectured at us, but rather sat with us for our two and a half hour seminar and guided us to where we needed to go.
Though it took many of Delasanta's students a while to learn to appreciate his method, I doubt they would be the same students they are today had they had a different DWC experience. In fact, I know many of his DWC students who continued taking his classes, regardless of the material, for the honor of being able to pick his brain and have him pick theirs.
It seems to me, in retrospect (because I was intimidated beyond all thought at the time) that this was a more honest, more fruitful teaching method than many others I have experienced. Delasanta made us work; he made his students get their education for themselves. And that is what DWC should be: Led (but not dominated) by intelligent professors who are humble enough to let students take the floor, and then hold them responsible for the way in which they take it.
I don't know if he ever read The Cowl, and I don't know that he would consider me "a writer," even to this day, but I know that Delasanta was a teaching force not to be reckoned with. He will never be forgotten by those who had him in class, and he will be known to future English majors and Honors DWC students through legend. He certainly deserved to have it that way.