LACC teacher became SMC trustee last year
LOS ANGELES Perhaps the greatest gift a teacher could give their student is a passion for learning.
That is what one college professor did for Andrew Walzer, a Los Angeles City College teacher whose life changed after taking a political science course during his junior year at the University of California at Santa Cruz.
It was a love for education that the professor instilled in the Santa Monican — who had left college twice up until that point — setting the tone for his own teaching approach, which recently earned Walzer the accolades of his students at LACC.
The student government at the college honored Walzer last week with the Teacher of the Year award for the 2006-07 school year. The humanities instructor has been a member of the LACC faculty since 2004 and a Santa Monica College trustee since November.
A series of courses taught by exuberant professors, encouraging students to both engage in class and with each other, further molded the teaching style for which Walzer would become known on the LACC campus.
“I had some inspirational teachers that transformed the way I thought about knowledge and about the world, and got me excited about learning and thinking more broadly about the world,” he said.
More than 800 of the roughly 16,000-member student body cast their votes for their choice of favorite professor as part of a student government election in April — a 5-percent turnout. Walzer garnered the majority vote, said Arsen Mkrtchyan, who was named the student government president from the election.
Mkrtchyan took a humanities course taught by Walzer in spring 2006, an experience that helped motivate the student to participate in school activities and run for student body president.
“Students really enjoy his class... you don’t see a lot of students not show up to his class,” he said.
Walzer received his bachelor’s degree in politics from the University of California at Santa Cruz in 1983 and his doctorate in American Studies from the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities in 1997.
He taught part-time in the history and writing departments for about six years at SMC before accepting a full-time gig at LACC in winter 2004, a decision that eliminated a conflict of interest with SMC and enabled him to secure a seat on its Board of Trustees in November.
Walzer calls his teaching approach “collaborative learning” or “student-centered learning” — a method to encourage students to take control of their education by involving themselves in the learning process. It’s a style that helps with student retention, especially in the community college level, Walzer said.
But perhaps what might have secured Walzer’s place as teacher of the year is his advocacy to preserve the current fee structure for the MTA student bus passes at $30 a semester, said Susan Aminoff, a colleague at both the board of trustees and LA City College.
The SMC board chairman teaches sociology at LA City College.
“He’s a deeply committed student activist who happens to be a faculty member,” she said. “He spends a great deal of time with students and he is an advocate and an activist.”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on August 29, 2007. Read the original PDF.