U’s oldest professor, 90, will retire in May 2015

By Jenny Handke
Murphy News Service

Professor John F. Hart, the University of Minnesota’s oldest professor at age 90, said he will end his teaching career next May when he retires after the spring semester.

Hart has taught geography at the U since 1967, sometimes using the same Kodachrome slides in his lectures that he used nearly 50 years ago.

Hart’s office is a time-warp of a workspace of sorts, resembling something out of the 1960s; books are arranged neatly in tall aluminum shelves that line his office walls, a large file cabinet in the middle of his room within arms-reach to his desk is packed with exams, notes, papers and documents, an old projector sits on top of his desk, a standing projector screen across from it, and a sign that reads “Smoking” hangs on the wall across from the door.

The Virginia native’s office on the fifth floor of a newly-renovated building on the West Bank campus looks and feels like it could have come from a scene in the Nutty Professor, except much cleaner. To Hart, though, the only odd-item-out in his office is the iMac computer on his desk, which is seldom used for anything but email, he said.

His office isn’t the only thing that’s old-school about Hart. He wears bowties and lugs a wheeled briefcase full of slides to class every day, students say. Not only does he look like what Millennials might perceive a teacher from the 40 years ago would have appeared, his classroom tools reflect those of the same decade. Hart has about 40,000 slides, 18,000 of which are a part of what he calls his “working collection” — or slides that he uses regularly during his lectures.

All of his slides are of photos that he’s taken and had produced at a photo shop near his home in Edina. To him, the slides are his lecture notes and each one tells a different story.

“Slides are like toothbrushes,” he said. “They’re personal.”

“The best way to learn geography is to see it,” Hart said. “I do the job that students can’t do. I go out, take pictures of [geography], bring them back and show them that’s what it’s like.”

Mady Olson, a current graduate student at Oregon State University, took Hart’s U.S. and Canada geography course when she was a senior at the U. She was especially fond of the detailed stories he told that went along with his slides.

“The craziest thing about his stories are that decades later he still remembers the names of the farmers and the people and reminisces about them like it was yesterday,” Olson said. “It actually was refreshing to have a class taught only with pictures and stories.”

Some students on ratemyprofessors.com said that, despite his tough grading, Hart is among the most knowledgeable professors they’ve had at the U. Many recognized that his thoroughness and expertise in the subject matter was a manifestation of his passion in the field.

One student on the website wrote, “Prof Hart is a gem. He has been to every place he talks about and has a story about each place. His lectures are interesting and interspersed with shots of dry humor.”

How it started

Before coming to the University of Minnesota, and before he even began teaching, Hart went to Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. By 1943, just two and a half years after he started college, he earned a degree in classical languages. Instead of entering the workforce, Hart had other plans.

“To avoid being drafted I signed up in the Navy,” Hart said. “So I was commissioned, became a 90-day wonder, and spent two and a half years on an aircraft carrier in the Pacific Ocean.”

Hart spent 3½ years in the U.S. Navy during World War II. One of his jobs was to train sailors, which to Hart was not an easy task. That particular experience turned him off to the idea of teaching, a job that would ultimately evolve into a life-long career for Hart.

“When I got home after the war I said to my mother, ‘I know the one thing I never want to do is to be a teacher,’” Hart said recently as he sat back in his office chair, surrounded by graded exams and his lecture slides. “I guess you could say that I drifted into graduate school and most liberal arts graduate schools lead to college teaching,” he added.

Hart went back to school at the University of Georgia after the war. He developed an interest in geography. It was during those years that Hart met his wife, of whom he’s been married to for 65 years.

Hart went to graduate school at Northwestern, where he earned his Ph.D. in 1950. Hart has published between 15 to 17 books since he started teaching.

“I jest that books are like children,” Hart said. “After a while you forget how many you have.”

Hart went on to teach at the University of Georgia for six years, despite his initial aversion to it in the Navy, and then taught in Indiana for 12. He came to the U in 1967 and hasn’t budged since.

“Each year is new, each year is different, each year is fun,” he said.

When asked why he didn’t retire earlier, Hart’s answer was simple.

“I enjoy it,” he said. “I have a wonderful time and I look forward to it. I enjoyed my class today and I’m already looking forward to what I’ll be teaching on Wednesday.”

Hart and his wife, Meredith, have two children and two grandchildren.

He will give his last lectures in May. Then he plans on spending time with his family.

Reporter Jenny Handke is studying journalism at the University of Minnesota.

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