Narrative moments, creativity and humor are the topics for "dream courses" developed by Ball State University’s outstanding teachers.

University Teaching Professors for 1999-2000 are William Holbrook, assistant professor of English; Michael O’Hara, professor of theater and dance; and Richard Shade, associate professor of special education.

The blue-ribbon teachers are nominated by undergraduate students and selected based on classroom observation and ideas for an original course. The teaching professors receive a merit award and funds to develop their "dream course" to be taught during an upcoming semester.

Holbrook hopes his course, to be offered during first summer session 2000, will allow students to view and reflect upon a kind of personal, community and national "album of narrative moments." He will ask students to research their own generation’s narratives and the narratives of their parents and grandparents.

Students will research and reflect upon letters, novels, short stories, e-mail messages, oral and written histories, film and news stories. They will compose and recreate memories which still seem most prominent, researching how others might have seen the same moments and synthesizing altered views. They will then recompose those narratives into reflections of how many personal and historical narratives are perhaps "stories" understood as truth.

"It will be a class in studying perception, reflection and deception," Holbrook said. "When we are completed students should better understand their past and the past of their communities and nation so they can better appreciate their present and future."

O’Hara’s "Exercise in Creativity: An Exploration of the Human" is intended for non-arts majors, based on the belief that creativity can be and ought to be taught to students who do not major in so-called "creative" disciplines. The course focuses on aesthetic, cultural, psychological and performative facets of creativity.

"Students will read--a lot, argue, paint, write poetry, watch performances, solve mechanical problems, sing songs, write stories, do theater, get muddy, write criticism, tell stories, try to solve social problems and be creative," O’Hara said.

O’Hara plans to survey students at the beginning and end of the course to determine if they become more creative or report a higher confidence in their own creativity. The final projects will ask students to take the concepts and practices learned in the class and develop direct applications to their original disciplines.

Shade will ask students to determine their HQ (Humor Quotient) in his course, "Exploring the Phenomenon of Humor." He will lead learners in analyzing the taxonomy of humor, producing humor and investigating humor styles.

His students will learn to creative positive learning and work environments and explore the benefits of humor related to health care, business and education. They will also discover the connections to creativity and thinking skills.