College offers intelligent time with biology instructors

The evening, presented as part of DSCC's celebration of Community College Month, will provide an informal setting to visit with the professors who have been on staff at DSCC since its beginnings.

Between them, the two biology professors have instructed over 10,000 students and the majority of the nursing students who have passed through the college's prestigious program.

Music will be provided by Ken Jones.

The casual dinner will be held at The Farms Golf Course and Country Club from 6:30 p.m. until 8 p.m., on Tuesday, April 22, with each professor scheduled to speak for five minutes and questions and discussion welcome.

"I'll be happy if 15 people show up," said Williams, with a smile.

"Me, too," said Flatt.

The professors will discuss their own paths in academics and share personal anecdotes of the students and experiences that have been most memorable to them in their service to DSCC and the Dyersburg community.

"All of these (old) doctors here in Dyersburg were our students," said Flatt, who also taught in Germany at the John F. Kennedy School in Berlin, a primary and secondary school established in 1960 to foster a cultural exchange between young natives of West Berlin and children from U.S. Armed Forces families.

"I look back and we had some great times," said Williams. "I've had students stand on water moccasins, and one to get bit. I've gone rattlesnake hunting with two of my students. A teacher teaches long enough, you see all personalities. I learned one thing not to do as a teacher -- not to put people in categories."

Williams, who joined DSCC as original faculty in 1969, currently teaches general biology, three biology lectures and two labs.

"I've been asked three times today, by three different people, when I was going to retire," said Williams. "I take it a year at a time and as long as I'm enjoying it, I'll stay."

Flatt joined the DSCC faculty three years after the college opened and currently teaches three sections of anatomy and physiology with three labs, and one section of microbiology on the Dyersburg and Gibson County campuses.