I t can take a college student both considerable work and imaginative power to picture a professor outside of the classroom or the lecture hall. We often categorize them by their department, and we associate them with all types of intellectual minutiae -- obscure novels, medieval painters, historical dates, the Krebs cycle. Yet for some Dartmouth academics, the scholastic life does not constitute a whole life, and they extend their interests, influence and abilities far beyond the limited realms of a 10A or 2A. For professors Lee Witters and Gerald Auten, the classroom is, in many ways, only the beginning.
Many undergraduates who are not necessarily scientifically inclined know Lee Witters, M.D., as the popular professor who teaches Biology 2. They remember his anecdotes, his knack for storytelling, his podcasts and his interactive lectures. What they may not know, however, is that Witters is something of a Renaissance man.
A biochemist and physician who only recently stopped practicing, Witters teaches three undergraduate courses in the biology department as a full faculty member, acts as the Eugene W. Leonard 1921 Professor of Medicine and Biochemistry at Dartmouth Medical School and serves as the head of the Nathan Smith Premedical Society. And that's just his professional resum.
Witters, who also finds time for his own research and acts as a mentor and advisor to countless students, both pre-med and not. When asked how he does everything, Witters admits it has not always been easy, but that hard work and his students keep him sharp and motivated.
"I balance it all by working hard, by being here on Sunday morning," he said. "I really love to teach. I really love the undergraduate classroom. I love office hours, and I will peel off anything that gets in the way of that."
For the record, Witters is indeed in his Remsen office every Saturday and Sunday morning, driving in from the Norwich farm where he lives with his wife, to meet with and advise his students.
Witters finds an incredible satisfaction in his capacity as a mentor, which often extends beyond Dartmouth. Witters didn't always know he would end up here, however, and he credits much of his career path to "serendipity."
The son of an English teacher and a high school band director, Witters noted that his own undergraduate education contributed immensely to the launch of his medical career. He said, of attending Oberlin College, "It was maybe the best thing I ever did. It changed the way I look at the world entirely -- in so many ways, both intellectually and socially. It was also an era of incredible student activism."
After obtaining his chemistry degree, Witters went on to medical school, residency and eventually a position as a research fellow at Harvard Medical School, where he stayed for over a decade.
Dartmouth came into the equation only after he, along with his family, spent a formative year in Scotland as a fellow at the University of Dundee. After working, traveling and reading history in Scotland, Witters' outlook was changed.
"By then, I had a serious case of Harvard-itis: the idea that you can't do anything wonderful anywhere else," he said. "I came back cured. It wasn't that I was necessarily looking to leave, but then one of my friends, a '63, called me up one day and said, 'You know there's a job up at Dartmouth, to be the Chief of Endocrinology.'"
His response?
"Where's Dartmouth?"
Witters came and interviewed for the job, and the rest, as they say, is history.
When Witters first came to Dartmouth, however, he worked solely with the Medical School and it was not until another serendipitous occurrence, during the mid-'90s, that he began to work with undergraduates.
"One of my dear friends, Prof. George Cahill, who had retired up here, walked into my office one day, and in two weeks he was supposed to start teaching Bio 2."
Cahill requested that Witters teach the class for the year in his place, so he could spend more time with his wife.
"He had been my mentor and my friend, and without a thought I said yes," Witters said. "It was certainly a subject that I could teach, but I was really thrown into the storm. Total serendipity. That June he came back and said, 'By the way, I don't think I'm going to teach the course anymore.' I inherited Bio 2."
Proving that a multifaceted approach to teaching and a busy schedule are not unique to the sciences, Gerald Auten also boasts a uniquely full day.
Auten, a senior lecturer in the studio art department, serves as director of the Artist in Residence and Exhibitions Program and is also a painter himself, showing his work in galleries all over the world.
Auten's diverse set of interests and singular background make him an artistic force both in and out of the classroom. As a young adult growing up on a farm in northwest Iowa, Dartmouth and the world of painting seemed remote, but all it took was a course in drawing and a significant exhibition to bring art to the forefront of his life.
"I didn't know Dartmouth existed," Auten said. "I didn't know I'd be an artist. I had no idea until I fell into my first year in college. I took a drawing course and I saw Giorgio Mirandi painting at the University of Iowa museum and it blew me away."
Auten went on to gain a BFA in Drawing and Painting from the University of Iowa and an MFA in Painting from Washington University in St. Louis. Even though it would seem that he had found his niche, an innate artistic curiosity drove him to seek a Masters of Architecture from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee only a few years after his graduate degree in painting.
Though Auten noted he has "always loved architecture," he feels most at home in the painting studio.
"I still work on [architecture] competitions with friends of mine who are registered architects, and I enjoy that," he said. "But I don't think I would have enjoyed immersing myself solely in architecture. The studio life was more for me."
It is here at Dartmouth that Auten found an acutely satisfying balance between his own practice, teaching and, later, the position as program director. He said he started as a visiting professor and then was asked to stay on, and has been here ever since.
Auten said he thoroughly enjoys teaching and feels such a sense of possibility with each subsequent class.
"My favorite part has to be just meeting each new class as they come in," he said. "There's always a surprise, and I'm always amazed at just how unique every student is. It's really amazing how bright they are, how resourceful they are, what they've already accomplished at that age."
He added that the College offers such a unique approach to artistic thought, given its interdisciplinary, liberal arts style.
"I think students that go to art school are just focused on art -- nothing else," Auten said. "But here, I once had a math major in Drawing I. This kid talked about the number one for about 10 minutes and about how elegant the number one was ... This kid ended up being a writer. Now he never would have gone to an art school. Here was a mathematician who ended up being a writer. I'm totally committed to the liberal arts education."
Despite his love of teaching and the hours spent mentoring young artists at Dartmouth, Auten spends 30 to 40 hours a week in his own Hopkins Center studio. It is here he paints, often until 2 or 3 in the morning.
"Really, I'm a painter," he said. "I mostly work in my studio... That's all I do other than hike with my dog. Even when I'm home I work. When I'm through with teaching or directing my program, I'll go to my studio."
Auten, who had gotten up at 6 a.m. to walk his dog the morning we spoke, has found a certain harmony among his many pursuits. The Artist-in-Residence program, which brings world-renowned artists to Dartmouth every year, serves as inspiration to both Auten and his students.
Though he noted the often-hectic nature of his schedule, Auten wouldn't have it any other way.
"It's funny how the relationship between the exhibition program and teaching and the studio is seamless," he said. "You just grow. Then in my teaching I take what I learn into the classroom -- into my job, into my studio and into my interactions with the artists-in-residence. All artists are extreme individuals but there's something in common. You're always immersed in the artistic practice. I never get out of it."
And immerse he does.
"I haven't watched television in 12 years," he said, laughing. "I think if you look at any human being who's trying to come to terms with what living really is, and the brief time we have here, it seems that comes through as the greatest thing," Auten said. "That's what I see in all this -- with the number one. This is what a human being is capable of. It's what I love."
Christine is a staff writer for The Mirror.
