Section: People
Metro State’s success begins with … Lawrence Glatz
Nov 5, 2008

Lawrence Glatz says his year in Germany on a Fulbright Scholarship was a gift of time that extended his understanding of German language and culture.

Lawrence Glatz says teachers love being students.

Glatz, a professor of German, had the opportunity last year to experience the thrill of both delivering knowledge as a professor and immersing himself in his own scholarship as a student during a one-year stay in Germany as a Fulbright Senior Researcher and Lecturer.

“Teaching is always the best way to learn,” says Glatz, who has been at Metro State since 1996.

While in Germany, Glatz set out to immerse himself (and his wife, son and daughter) in the culture of the country while teaching at the University of Siegen.

“It is … of enormous linguistic value to be immersed in the German language and not experience German as an exception in the mainstream world of English, but rather as the norm for all speech and reading for such an extended period,” writes Glatz in a post-sabbatical leave report. “I am much more aware of new expressions and sayings, and … enjoyed daily contact with people from various walks of life.”

Glatz taught an advanced-level course at the university that allowed him to share his expertise with second-language acquisition theory, computer-assisted language learning, multimedia and Web-based instructional materials. One particular assignment, says Glatz, had students working in groups and posting their research to a Wiki, a Web site that allows users to collectively contribute to broader understanding of a chosen topic.

“It’s a new way of looking at how you assign work and how people work together,” says Glatz, who has since implemented a similar learning approach in his Metro State classroom.

The free exchange of knowledge through media such as online discussion boards and podcasts, Glatz says, is a wonderful way to augment conventional classroom learning and connect learners.

“I don’t think we appreciate what is coming and what has already arrived in terms of the Web,” says Glatz. “It’s the dream of ‘The Enlightenment’ to share this knowledge.”

Glatz also set out to conduct vast research on Heinrich Böll, one of Germany’s most influential authors. Glatz says he is perhaps one of the few Americans of his generation who are “picking up the torch” to do scholarly work on the Nobel Prize-winning writer.

To this end, Glatz visited the Heinrich Böll Archive in Cologne and conducted meaningful dialogue with Böll family members and other Böll scholars. Ultimately, he plans to use his extensive study to produce a book in English that “will serve to present fully to the larger English-reading world the most fitting summation now possible of (Böll’s) life and works.”

“The significance of my research on Böll is its importance within the context of German literature by a broad, international audience,” Glatz writes. “To strengthen the presentation of one of Germany’s foremost authors … is an extremely worthwhile endeavor.”

Glatz says he is thankful for having had the opportunity to spend a year extending his understanding of the German language and culture without the heavy time commitment of the 14-credit course load that he typically carries at Metro State.

“A sabbatical is a gift,” says Glatz. “It’s a reward in a way. You have to promise you’re going to use it well, but it’s the gift of time.”