Company markets videotapes of U. profs' lectures

For those of you who sleep through your 9 a.m. classes, there is an answer. Now you can sleep through them in the privacy of your own home. The Teaching Company, an educational company founded by a former lawyer, is now marketing video and audio tapes of "superstar teachers," some of whom you may know. University History Professors Alan Kors, Thomas Childers and Bruce Kuklick are all featured in the series. Just what are superstar teachers? According to Tom Rollins president of the Teaching Company, superstar teachers are "chosen by the students." "We went through student course evaluations and selected those the students seemed to think were the best," Rollins said. Rollins said he got the idea for the company while he was in law school, after he slept through an important class. "I found 10 hours of class on tape in the law school library," Rollins said. "I thought it would be horrible. Instead it was wonderful." Rollins said the company was doing fairly well, and that most of his sales were on audio tapes. "People buy them to listen to in their cars," Rollins said. Rollins said the tapes range from intellectual history to philosophy. The professors did not seem starstruck by their experience. If anything, they were jaded. Kuklick, who is featured on an audio tape entitled "The Good King: The American Presidency since the Depression," said the experience was "an awful lot of work." "I lectured for two days straight," Kuklick said. "That's eight 45-minute lectures with a half hour of discussion in between each." And Kors, who has released both an audio and video tape on "The Origin of the American Mind," said condensing his class was "very difficult." "There is no reading," Kuklick said. "In teaching you can assume students have done the reading. This way you have to put in what students would gain if they read primary sources and weave that into a coherent lecture." But Kors said he was pleased to "reach people outside the University." "I've had heartwarming feedback," Kors said. "I find it very rewarding. I very much like the idea that I touch people outside academia." But Kuklick said his colleagues have not been as receptive to the idea. "The faculty think it's kind of a joke," Kuklick said. "They don't appreciate it. The feeling is this is one of the many things I've done that has caused raised eyebrows." While Kuklick said that he "would not want" to hear his tape, Kors said that he had seen his. "I watched it and thought, 'Who is that aging, overweight, professor on the TV?' The camera is cruel." In addition to Kors and Kuklick, History professor Thomas Childers has also released an audio tape, entitled, "The History of Hitler's Empire." Childers was not available for comment. And for those of you who couldn't get enough the first time, Kors will be recording a new tape on the European Enlightenment later this month.

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