Ross Vander Meulen

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Ross Vander Meulen is a professor emeritus at Knox College. He taught Latin and German there from 1968 through 2000 and chooses to stick around now to teach German 201 and German 202. From 1979 through 1983 he held Dean Bailey's job as Associate Dean of the College.

Although Herr Vander Meulen is a native American, his German is impeccable.

In German 201 he has a tendency to address his students by their last names for the first half of the term and their first names for the second half. That way he ensures that he's learned their entire name quite thoroughly.

He starts every class meeting with a grand pronouncement of the phrase "Guten Morgen meinen Damen und Herren!" (Good morning ladies and gentlemen!) Many mornings he will follow this greeting by leaving and getting a drink from the drinking fountain in the hallway. He then proceeds to tell a factoid from that date in history. Although the Fall 2005 class took it upon themselves to research the pertinent days in history, they rarely if ever correctly guessed the historical factoid Herr Vander Meulen would share with them at the start of class.

Education[edit]

Herr Vander Meulen received his BA in English from Northwestern University in 1958, his MA in English and in German from the University of Michigan in 1962 and his PhD in German from the University of Michigan in 1972.


References[edit]

Herr Vander Meulen's Bio on the Knox Webpage