A Complete Person

by Bren Landon ’01

A retiring French professor taught generations that there’s more to life than conjugating verbs

We were eating a lavish lunch in the small French town of Riquewihr. My dad, visiting me in France, was talking away with my professor, Dr. Vahlkamp, as if they were old friends. And in a sense they were. Thirty years prior to being the director of my semester in France, Charles Vahlkamp was a brand new assistant professor teaching French to my father, Brooks Landon ’70. Now, as the man named the first Hazelrigg Professor in the Humanities finishes his final year of teaching, I realize my dad and I are bookends to Vahlkamp’s Centre College career.

It is a career marked by commitment to his students, not just in the classroom, but outside as well. "The more you know about your students and what they’re interested in, the better you deal with them," Vahlkamp says. One of my dad’s strongest memories of Vahlkamp is of playing pickup basketball with him. "There were some professors that you never saw," my dad says. "He was a professor that you always saw."

Basketball was not just a casual recreational activity for Vahlkamp. He played some in college and later represented Centre and other Division III colleges on the NCAA committee charged with addressing academic issues that affect the integrity of intercollegiate athletics.

He has also played a major role in building Centre’s programs abroad. Milton Reigelman, director of international studies, calls him "one of the founders." Since arriving at Centre in 1967, Vahlkamp has encouraged and supported overseas study. He led five winter-term trips to France and directed the Strasbourg program three semesters.

The Strasbourg program has made a tremendous difference in French classrooms back in Danville, according to Vahlkamp. Students in the upper-level classes are more willing to participate now since so many have lived in France. However, he has always stressed that the most important part of the program is the students’ experience of all aspects of a culture, which accounts for his emphasis on including students in the program who have never studied French.

I learned a lot from Vahlkamp in our formal classes on French language and culture and Voltaire and the Enlightenment. However, more meaningful to me are the times when we talked about less predictable issues, such as the reasons behind the continuous strikes on the Strasbourg streets or even the changes that have taken place in Centre’s social scene. His expertise and engagement with the world around him is especially clear when he encourages his students to think about life outside their academics.
Although Vahlkamp’s retirement will take him out of the classroom, it will not diminish his involvement in the Centre community, nor cut down on his travel. He and his wife, Sarah, have led six Alumni Association-sponsored trips in France and will probably continue to guide tours. Vahlkamp also wants to focus on his passion for film history. He hopes to write a book about the exhibition and reception of early American films in France. In addition, he plans to take full advantage of his privileges as an emeritus professor and "enjoy the life of the College." Vahlkamp points out that he will still be living just two blocks from the campus. "You couldn’t find a better place to retire than Danville," he says.

Walking along the cobblestone street in Riquewihr, I could tell that my dad was enjoying himself, particularly for the chance to talk with his former teacher. Now an English professor himself, my dad felt a new connection with Vahlkamp, that of academic colleague. He says, "Vahlkamp was the first professor who made me realize that being a professor was a part of being a complete person."

My dad had only one class with Vahlkamp, but it made a lasting impact. It means a lot to me to be able to share with my dad the influence Vahlkamp had on us. It is an influence that goes well beyond the classroom. We both benefited from Vahlkamp’s showing us what it is like to be complete people. This, of course, wouldn’t seem in any way a remarkable accomplishment to Vahlkamp. He simply sees it as the commitment he made to his students.

Bren Landon ’01, an English major from Iowa City, Iowa, spent a term at Centre’s program in Strasbourg, France, with Charles Vahlkamp.