Five longtime faculty members are retiring from Roanoke College this year. In this issue, Dr. William Ergle and Dr. Denis Lape are featured. Check back in the May E-news for a story on Dr. Ronda Carpenter, Dr. Robert Jenkins and Dr. Susan Millinger.

By Karen Doss Bowman

Much has changed at Roanoke College during the last four decades, but one thing remains the same: Dr. Denis Lape, professor of English, doesn't have a personal computer in his office. And he makes it clear that he also has nothing to do with e-mail or voicemail. For him, they depersonalize the educational experience.

"I don't like computers - I've never had anything but grief with them," he says. "They've become too much of an obsession."

On the other hand, his contemporary Dr. William Ergle, professor of mathematics and statistics, not only uses computers - he even helped develop the College's major in computer sciences. Still, even he doesn't use his PC without complaint.

"I've now evolved into a grumpy user," Ergle says. "I don't want to do anything but point and click."

Some things change, others not so much

When Ergle and Lape started teaching at the College in 1963 and 1964, respectively, technology wasn't pervasive in society as it is today. The proliferation of computers into every aspect of the academic experience is just one of many changes the men have witnessed during their tenures at the College. As both prepare to retire in June, they are still astonished by how much Roanoke College has evolved from when they joined the campus community.

Roanoke "has changed in about every respect," says Lape. "Most of the big buildings that are here now were not here then. The College, when I came, was just on the brink of expanding the physical plant."

In the early 1960s, the campus consisted mainly of just a few residence halls and academic buildings. Compared to today, the classrooms were somewhat ill-equipped and dingy, Lape recalls. Once the campus facilities were expanded, he says, "the student body grew, and proportionally, the faculty began to grow."

Students in the sixties experienced few social freedoms, Ergle says. Housemothers supervised the residence halls, and none were co-ed. Women were required to wear dresses to class; men had to wear ties, and the freshmen even wore beanies.

Although average SAT scores and grade point averages among students are higher today, Lape and Ergle agree that each generation has its share of outstanding scholars as well as unmotivated students. "The students are students," Lape says. "Some things never change. They're on their own for the first time, going through adjustments. They're not sure what they want to do. It's fun to watch them develop and respond."

As the College grew over the years, new academic programs and services were added. While serving as chairman of the mathematics and physics department during the 1980s, Ergle developed the College's first computer courses, though he had never taken a computer course himself. He and Dr. Benjamin Huddle, professor of chemistry, taught the College's first computer course, called "Computer: Friend or Foe." He also served as director of the College's Computing Center.

"I kind of evolved into computers," says Ergle. "Everything we did back then we were really winging it and doing it by the seat of our pants because we didn't know as much as we needed to."

Lape credits former College President Norman Fintel as a visionary who "brought the College a long way." Roanoke was undergoing significant physical growth, he recalls, and Fintel wanted the academic program to keep pace with the expansion. Lape was appointed to chair a committee that wrote a successful grant proposal for about $135,000 to develop a comprehensive faculty development program, which he directed for three years. The program initially was funded for a five-year period, but it has become a permanent endowment.

Class can be fun

A thespian during his years as a student at Yale University, Lape admits to being "a real ham" when it comes to showing off his dramatic talents in the classroom - especially when teaching his course on William Shakespeare. He nearly chose acting as a career but decided he wasn't "temperamentally suited" for the grueling schedules and competitive nature of the industry. "Now I've got the best of both worlds," he says. "I can act things out in class, and I don't have to worry about reading the reviews in the paper the next morning."

Lape, who was the College's first professor to receive the Dean's Council Award for Outstanding Teaching, actually taught about 25 different courses over the years, including American Humor in Literature and Politics, which he team taught with Dr. Bill Hill. One of the real highlights of his 43 years on campus, however, was meeting his wife, the former Mary Jane Cowan '67. She was one of his students, and they began dating after her graduation. The couple has been married almost 40 years. "That's the best thing I got out of Roanoke College," Lape says. Their daughter, Alison Lape Clendenen '94 also earned her degree at Roanoke.

For the last decade of Ergle's tenure, he served as chief marshal for the College's premier events, such as opening convocation and graduation. Though he jokes that the "honor" could be a hassle at times, one of the highlights of his career came while serving in that post. At the graduation ceremonies, he explains, the chief marshal is responsible for handing each diploma to the College president, who then presents them to each graduate. During the 2000 commencement ceremony, then-President David Gring stepped aside when Ergle's son, Michael Ergle '00, marched across the stage to receive his diploma, allowing Ergle the honor of making the presentation.

Looking back on other defining moments of his time at Roanoke College, Ergle recalls that shortly after his arrival on campus, on Nov. 23, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. He was in Miller Hall, he says, when a group gathered there heard the radio announcement of Kennedy's death. In contrast, nearly 40 years later on Sept. 11, 2001, Ergle and his students watched on television the horrific news coverage of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City and at the Pentagon in the Washington, D.C., area.

"Those were kind of the bookends," he says. "Those were tragedies beginning my time at Roanoke and ending my time at Roanoke. They both are still very vivid."

Ergle and Lape both say they'll miss the one-on-one interaction with students and witnessing the maturity that takes place during their four years as students. For Ergle, some of the most rewarding experiences in teaching have come from working with students who, despite being convinced that they wouldn't enjoy his classes, ended up learning something and had a good time along the way.

"I've always thought that in a classroom you should have fun," Ergle says. "And if you aren't having fun, you should be doing something else. So I even tried to make statistics fun. I had a good time-I hope [the students] did."