JOHN RASSIAS’ EGG

Egg-cellence in teaching? For the fifth consecutive year Dartmouth has earned the top spot for “Strong Commitment to Teaching” and remains in the top 10 national universities in U.S. News & World Report’s “Best Colleges 2014.” The faculty’s commitment to teaching is exemplified by legendary professors such as John Rassias, the father of the Rassias method of language instruction. “The air [in his] classroom is filled with more than French adjectives. Very often there are flying desks or eggs or raw meat,” wrote an Associated Press reporter in 1978. “If I’m animated as a teacher then my students will be animated,” the professor explained to the reporter. “If I get up there and sleep, they will sleep.” A signature part of the Dartmouth experience, says dean of the faculty of arts and sciences Michael Mastanduno, “is to take extraordinary undergraduates and give them close, working access to a faculty that is both dedicated to teaching and mentoring and distinguished in research.” More recently, President Phil Hanlon ’77 expressed his commitment to undergraduate teaching excellence during his first major address to faculty last November.