#Inspection May 11

We may earn money or products from the companies mentioned in this post.

“The highest form of motivation is constant INSPECTION”.

That was the teaching philosophy of one of the best professors I ever had in college

We all have had teachers that have impacted our lives. For me it was Dr. Henry Ferrell Jr. an outstanding professor of history at East Carolina University. He died on Friday, August 21, 2020, from complications of Covid 19. He was 86 years old and a proud member of the Cypress Glen Retirement Community.

Dr. Ferrell received his Ph.D from the University of Virginia in 1964 but in 1960 he joined the faculty in the History Department at East Carolina University; he spent 46 years there in the capacity of teacher, mentor, crusader and friend. I am glad that in 2015 before he died I reached out to him and let him know what he meant to me.

My freshman year (1971) I had to take a general education course in American history at East Carolina University. The course was taught in the Brewster Building.

I remember purchasing the oversized history textbook and watching a very in charge history professor by the name of Dr Henry C Ferrell Jr taking attendance in my first class at ECU. There was something different about him from the first moment he began to call out names from his class roster. He asked each student to briefly tell him something about themselves mostly hometown, classification, and major. He asked each of us to keep our same seats for the next two weeks. I was amazed after two weeks he knew each of us by name. We were not a number to him.

In that first class he was quick to review his expectations and made an assignment for the 2nd class meeting. He reminded us of a teaching philosophy he had. The highest form of motivation is constant INSPECTION. He would be checking.

Well the 2nd class came and he began immediately by administering a quiz on the material he assigned. I had not read that assignment. He began the 3^rd class by passing out the results from our second class quizzes. When it came time for me to receive my quiz I knew it wasn’t going to be good but I wasn’t prepared for him to do the following. He asked me to stand up and to answer a question “Was I stupid or lazy?” He went on to say that the only way he could comprehend my quiz score was to determine if I was lazy or stupid. I was embarrassed and muttered to Dr. Ferrell I didn’t read the material. He said then you must be lazy. He went on to another student but I got the message I bettered be prepared for constant INSPECTION.

To Dr. Ferrell’s credit three weeks later on a major test in that history class he asked me to stand again as he passed out the test results. He stated; “Apparently out of state students from New Jersey are not lazy-well done Mr. Kenney you had the highest grade in the class”.

The lessons I learned from Dr. Ferrell is to have expectations and measure them daily, confront behavior that don’t meet your expectations, and recognize when people make a change. He did that for me and his philosophy of constant INSPECTION became part of my personal coaching and teaching philosophy.

Rest in peace Dr. Ferrell and thanks for the “Life Lesson”