Dave Stachowiak [00:00:00]:

Today on episode 594 of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast, Remembering Ken Bain. Production Credit: Produced by Innovate Learning, Maximizing Human Potential.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:00:11]:

Welcome to this episode of Teaching in Higher Ed. I’m Bonni Stachowiak and this is the space where we explore the art and science of being more effective and at facilitating learning. We also share ways to improve our productivity approaches so we can have more peace in our lives and be even more present for our students.

Dave Stachowiak [00:00:44]:

Hello, it’s Dave Stachowiak and I am joined by Bonni and we are here today to share, unfortunately, some sad news and there may be a few tears along the way, but still some hope. I’m sharing a social media post by James Lang and I’ll just read right from what James posted. He writes, “I learned some sad news over the weekend. Ken Bain, the author of What the Best College Teachers Do and several other books, passed away on Friday in the company of his family. Ken was one of the pioneers in bringing the scholarship of teaching and learning to broad audiences. And as well as being a talented writer and inspiring speaker and workshop leader. Ken gave me my first job, mentored me for many years, and never stopped commending and promoting my work. I would not have had a career in faculty development without him. I hope to write something more formal about his life and influence in the coming weeks. If you knew Ken and his work and it influenced you in some way, feel free to share in the comments below. “

Dave Stachowiak [00:01:40]:

Bonni we are going beyond just looking at the comments below and talking about him today on this episode.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:01:49]:

I was upstairs before we started recording because I wanted to bring down the book and I can’t find it. I mean, I only looked for five minutes, but I can’t find it. I know I’ll find it, but it’s the first book I ever read about teaching in higher education and it felt like an unlocking. I felt a connection that I had never experienced before. I had so many struggles and so many joys and everything in between. And here is a man who studied this. He had a longitudinal study that looked at what the best college teachers do. And as I read, I remember just every page thinking, wow, I I’ve learned some of this or I haven’t learned this, or I’ve failed at that before.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:02:37]:

And I remember when I was reading James Lang’s most recent book, Write like you Teach, he talks about as a writer being good company. Ken Bain was such good company to me and to countless people from around the world. I was reading on the place where Jim invited People to share. And just one example from Jose Bowen. He writes, “Ken was a huge influence in my life. His was the first book on teaching I ever read.” And Jose and I are not alone. There are many people for whom this book connected us to our values, to our pedagogy.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:03:14]:

And I remember, and I know you remember too, Dave, the first time I spoke to Ken Bain.

Dave Stachowiak [00:03:20]:

Yes, I do.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:03:21]:

It was in early 2015. And let me say, it is, to my recollection, the worst Autocorrect has ever done to me. I sat there and he didn’t really understand how podcasting worked. He kind of thought it was like radio. And I realized later he was excited to promote his work and his book. And this was new to him and talking to him was new to me. And after we stopped recording, he said, gosh, I really wish I could have said some things. And I said, well, that’s the magic of podcasting.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:03:54]:

I was editing my own podcast at the time. I knew I would be able to repurpose and move the, the clips around and things. Why don’t you just share what it is that you wanted to say? And before I could even press record, he started sharing words and names I wasn’t familiar with. He says, eric Mazur. And he talks about how Eric Mazur won a half a million dollar prize. It’s the Minerva Prize, and it was a prize for teaching. This was all brand new to me, Dave. And I’m perspiring and still shaking.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:04:25]:

Cause I’m nervous as I’ll get out and ready to hit record. And I was typing. I also type really, really fast. So I, that’s, I mean, that’s the good thing. So I’m typing while he’s talking, I go press play. And I go back and I say, tell me about the Manure Award. And do you know that man? Let me say Manure Award three times before he gently corrected me and informed me that it was in fact the Minerva Prize, not the Manure Prize. And out of that we actually celebrated you and I.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:04:57]:

Episode 100 was a failure episode. And at the time, there was a very popular, I believe he was from Germany person who had a resume of failure, a CV of failures. And failure was a really big topic about why do we only ever get to learn about people’s successes? It would be so helpful to us in higher education if we could see behind the curtain, so to speak, and see those failures. And so we had people write in or phone in or voicemail in from all over the world. And Mahabali all the Way in Cairo, Egypt, was the winner of the first ever and to this date only manure prize. But who knows, we might bring it back and celebrating the legacy of Ken.

Dave Stachowiak [00:05:39]:

Bain, there’s the old phrase of turning lemons into lemonade. I’m not sure what the manure equivalent of that is. Probably not appropriate. But hey, everything, everything worked out somehow.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:05:51]:

Yes, there’s a message from John Kane who writes, “I’m really sorry to hear this. My first interaction with Ken was when he gave a talk on what the Best College Teachers do, followed by a syllabus workshop the next day based on, quote, the promising syllabus on my campus in 2007. His work has been extremely influential on my teaching and on my role as an educational developer.” Sarah Rose Kavanaugh also writes in talks about the power of that book for her, although she also mentions what the Best College Students do as having an even more profound impact on her how it insp her to consider the quest for being a lifelong learner rather than thinking about the more traditional type of ways of thinking about a student. She says she never had a chance to meet him in person, but they did speak on the phone a few times after he reached out about some of her writing and she said he wrote some beautiful words in support of my latest book. They were kind, generous conversations. He had a profound impact on the world of education in general. But then so many of these individual touch points too.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:07:06]:

Dave, would you read what Josh Eyler shared?

Dave Stachowiak [00:07:09]:

Josh writes, “this is incredibly sad news. I met him twice and he was so very kind and generous. What the Best College Teachers do is just a landmark book. It changed the way I thought about teaching and changed the whole landscape of teaching and learning books.”

Bonni Stachowiak [00:07:23]:

Ken’s wife was so pleased to see the outpouring of social media posts from Jim Lang’s original post, and she shared his obituary. Dave and I will read a small section of it now.

Dave Stachowiak [00:07:36]:

“Kenneth Ray Bain of Morristown, New Jersey, passed away peacefully in the presence of family on October 10, 2025. As a North Texas State University graduate student, he met Marsha, a charming and remarkably tolerant undergrad and eventual wife of 59 years. They married on July 23, 1966, and soon had two children, Marshall and Tanya.”

Bonni Stachowiak [00:07:57]:

“He earned his Ph.D. in U.S. history from the University of Texas at Austin. As a professor, he discovered not only a passion for sharing history, but also for the art and science of teaching and learning. He became the founding director of the History Teaching center at the University of Texas Pan American before launching major teaching and learning centers at Vanderbilt University, Northwestern University, New York University, and Montclair State University. Through his work, as well as his own pioneering scholarship and role leading his organization, Best Teachers Institute, he drove an increased focus on teaching quality at colleges and universities around the world.”

Dave Stachowiak [00:08:45]:

“Ken was known for his quirky sense of humor, his contagious love of learning, including a good faith attempt to learn Mandarin, a knack for answering any question about history, his devotion to the St. Louis Cardinals, and his enthusiasm for model trains. He cherished his role as a grandfather and was immensely proud of his three grandsons.”

Bonni Stachowiak [00:09:04]:

Dave and I will be reading the last part of the obituary as our recommendation for today’s episode. Dave, let’s talk now a bit about this book that had such a profound impact and of course the broader scholarship that he and his workshops and all of his work and how much impact it had. So we’re going to be sharing about the book some of the key findings that he reveals in what the Best College Teachers do and Dave, this was published back in 2004 and it might as well have been published yesterday for how relevant it remains. So first, this was a 16 year longitudinal study examining nearly 100 professors from a wide range of disciplines and institutions. The focus of the research was to identify what do the best college teachers do? What do they have in common? How do they help students achieve deep, meaningful and lasting learning rather than just what at the time was so focused more on student satisfaction, more student as consumers. And the methods that he used was a combined classroom observations, lots of student interviews, syllabi analysis and faculty self reflection. And his core findings Dave and I are going to briefly share now. There are six of them.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:10:32]:

The first finding and he actually outlines this throughout the book. He talks about what do they all have in common? And the first thing is they have a deep understanding of their subject and how people learn it.

Dave Stachowiak [00:10:48]:

Second, they treat teaching as an intellectual and moral endeavor.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:10:52]:

The third finding, in terms of student expectations, is that they create natural, critical learning environments. They challenge students with authentic, intriguing and consequential questions or problems, prompting them to reason, evaluate evidence, and apply ideas in meaningful contexts.

Dave Stachowiak [00:11:15]:

Fourth, they foster trust and respect. They cultivate a climate of safe yet demanding engagement where students feel supported to take intellectual risks.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:11:25]:

Fifth, they motivate students to learn deeply instead of relying on extrinsic motivators like grades. They help students develop intrinsic motivation, a sense of curiosity. Sound familiar? Dave that word comes up a lot in my work. Purpose and ownership of their learning. And for the sixth one, Dave’s going to read a quote from page 19 of what the best college teachers do around evaluating student efforts.

Dave Stachowiak [00:11:54]:

“All the teachers we studied have some systemic program, some more elaborate than others, to assess their own efforts and to make appropriate changes. Furthermore, because they are checking their own efforts when they evaluate students, they avoid judging them on arbitrary standards. Rather, the assessment of students flows from primary learning objectives.”

Bonni, unlike you, I didn’t have a chance to meet him or get to speak with Ken ever. But I was thinking about the publication date of his book, 2004, which was, for me, five years after my undergraduate work was done. And I just remember thinking about my college experience, as valuable as it was in so many ways, that the teachers, the instructors, the professors, the graduate assistants that really connected with me and other students were by and large the exception in my undergraduate years. And in talking with lots of other people of our age and generation, I think that was often the norm. And while I didn’t ever have a chance to meet him or talk to him, I’ve heard his name so many times from following your work and James Lang and, of course, so many people over the years.

Dave Stachowiak [00:13:05]:

And I’m so glad for everything he did, his writing and how he’s inspired a new generation of leadership and faculty development to do some really cool things and to have a conversation emerge in higher education that I think was one that was really needed.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:13:20]:

I know that I am feeling rather emotional here. In case listeners cannot tell if this is your first time listening to teaching Higher ed, I usually don’t cry through most of the episode, but I’m sitting here counting on my fingers thinking, oh, my gosh, how could the math be right? That. That was five years after you graduated. Spoiler alerts to people listening. Dave is six years younger than me, and I am not often aware of that until you start doing math like that. And they have to count on my fingers and go, how is that possible?

Dave Stachowiak [00:13:46]:

You know, as we get older, it wasn’t even that big a deal early on. And as you get older, we were just talking about this the other day and something else. It’s just kind of six years is meaningless, you know?

Bonni Stachowiak [00:13:56]:

Yes.

Dave Stachowiak [00:13:57]:

Except when it comes to musical pop culture references that you come up then. Yeah, there’s that.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:14:03]:

Yep.

Dave Stachowiak [00:14:04]:

All right. With that. Bonni, of course, wouldn’t be a good ending if we didn’t have a couple of calls to action and some recommendations. So first of all, a couple calls to.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:14:13]:

If you haven’t read what the great college teachers do, if it’s not obvious to you. I suggest pick it up, read it. It’s so relevant to us today. Think about the things that you’re already doing that are represented in that research and think about don’t get too overwhelmed. Think about one thing that you might begin to pursue toward better teaching and talk about it. Find somebody at your campus to talk to. Find someone who teaches at another campus to begin that reflection. It’s a very powerful, transformative book.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:14:49]:

And then I also encourage you to listen to the former Teach it in Higher Ed episodes with Ken. I already mentioned one of them was him on his own talking about what the best college teachers do. And then there was an episode, which I will forever treasure, where Jim Lang interviews Ken Bain. And as Jim shared when Dave read his post, he absolutely was such a Ken was such a transformative figure for Jim as well, in his career and in his life. So this is the time in the show where we each get to share our recommendations. And Dave and I are joining in together on this one. And Dave’s going to read the last line of Ken Bain’s obituary.

Dave Stachowiak [00:15:35]:

It writes, “in lieu of flowers, please consider a gift to the Alzheimer’s foundation of America or the ACLU foundation of Texas.” And there are links for both of these. They’re a little lengthy to read, so we’re going to place them in the episode notes, and I’m sure Bonni will include them in the weekly email that goes out as well, too. So we hope that you’ll take a moment to consider a donation of support to one of those organizations.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:16:00]:

And His Honor, if you’ve been listening to teaching in Higher ed for a while, you know that our lives have been impacted by Alzheimer’s and what a wonderful tribute to a life well lived. And of course, this is a time in our country and in our world where the ability for people to pursue their own liberty and have access to civil rights is so vital. So two wonderful organizations to donate to in honor of Ken Bain. Thanks everybody for listening to today’s episode of Teaching in Higher Ed. Today’s episode was produced by me, Bonni Stachowiak. It was edited by the ever talented Andrew Kroeger podcast Production support was provided by the amazing Sierra Priest. If you haven’t signed up for the weekly email updates, head over to teachinginhighered.com/subscribe. You’ll receive the most recent episodes, show notes, some discussion questions which wouldn’t this be a good one to have a discussion about, as well as some other resources that don’t show up in those show notes.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:17:09]:

Thank you so much for listening. And we’ll see you next time on Teaching in Higher Ed.

Teaching in Higher Ed transcripts are created using a combination of an automated transcription service and human beings. This text likely will not represent the precise, word-for-word conversation that was had. The accuracy of the transcripts will vary. The authoritative record of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcasts is contained in the audio file.