Teaching, says Chandler
Davidson,
is just plain hard work, and if you don’t love it, then
you probably won’t do a good job. Davidson chairs the sociology
department, is the Radoslav A. Tsanoff Professor of Public Affairs,
and has won six university-wide teaching awards. He has written
several books and numerous articles, and his works on minority
voting rights have been cited in eight U.S. Supreme Court opinions.
Among the reasons Davidson enjoys teaching, besides the obvious ones of seeing
his students learn and grow as human beings, is that it helps him organize
and analyze his material better, which in turn helps him with his research.
When he started teaching at Rice 37 years ago, he says, he often felt overwhelmed.
But his demanding students have helped him learn. “I feel that any Rice
classroom I walk into will contain some students who are smarter than I am,” he
explains.“So I work hard to prepare good lectures.”
Nancy D. Safer ’69, now executive director for the Council for Exceptional
Children in Arlington, Virginia, remembers Davidson as being an excellent instructor,
one who gave her the opportunity to discuss social issues inside and outside
the classroom. “Davidson was able to convey sociological principles that
helped me see the multiple dimensions of civil rights issues,” she says.
