If you’re sitting in class learning about European history, and the topic suddenly veers into how one of the Holy relics of the church is the foreskin of Jesus, chances are you’re sitting in Scott Phipps’ history class.I’ve come to think of Phipps as part of the Nicholls experience, much like seeing Thomas Mortillaro smoking while posing like Captain Morgan or J. Paul Leslie doing his Hannibal Lecter smiles during a lesson.
His classroom is one of the few places on campus where verbal battle without consequences are encouraged. I remember how entertaining his class was because of this, and how we’d randomly veer into the most random conversations, like discussing how silly the Victorian period was about sexual repression and how it inspired modern day S&M.
You always could see that the man enjoyed teaching; no matter what the subject was, he was willing to talk about it or answer questions. I didn’t know how much he enjoyed teaching until I took the time to interview him.
I learned that he graduated from the University of Michigan; he is a ‘Wolverine’ born and raised in the auto-manufacturing town of Flint, Mich.
He told me adventures of his youth, like how he and his friends once pretended to be Irish exchange students to get free beer while hanging out in Ann Arbor. He also went into the Peace Corp out of college, spending two years teaching English and social studies in Papa, New Guinea. There is where he met his wife. He enjoyed telling me tales of love in the jungle and malaria attacks.
After teaching a few years of history at a Catholic school in Guam, he came to Louisiana in 1998 and has remained here for the last twelve years; he is now completing his eighth year at Nicholls.
We also talked of his love of Motown and the Four Tops and how he “accidentally” became a historian because he “wasn’t as good at architecture as (he) thought,” Phipps said. “Plus it was bloody boring, and mathematics wasn’t working out.”
What truly draws him to history is Intellectual history: ideologies, philosophy, Hobbes and the history of ideas.
“Sure, we’re talking about dead white men from two hundred years ago,” he said, “but their ideas are still applicable today.”
His three favorite philosophers are Thomas Hobbes, Friedrich Nietzsche and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.
“They speak of the human spirit,” he said. “how it’s able to move mountains, how we’re capable of great things. Unfortunately, we’re too busy being jackasses and blaming others for our failures.”
He explained how Nietzsche and Hobbes covered the positive and negative sides of the Human scale, “Glory vs. Bullshit” as he put it, and how Goethe influences his own worldview.
“Never be satisfied,” Phipps told me with more passion than I’d ever seen from him, even in class. “Life always has something to offer. If it doesn’t, you’re dead physically and spiritually, a moral death. Achieve great things, rise above and push for more and never be satisfied.”
These three philosophers fuel his passion for teaching, attempting to pass on their lessons to his students each semester. I noticed how irritated he is by the narcissism and apathy of our generation and has made it a personal mission to challenge it. He also feels sorry for students that are just here marking time or because their parents force them to go, because they are not really enjoying the college experience.
“You don’t go just because mommy and daddy are forcing you to go, otherwise you’re wasting your time if you aren’t trying to better yourself through the experience,” he explained. “I try to pass this on to students, but the problem is that in the narcissism of the times, we’ve bought into ego, and I’m trying to pull their heads out of their asses when they step into my classroom. If we’re assholes on the road or at our jobs, we hurt people. The problem is that so many students are conceited and don’t care, which is a problem since they’re going into fields like nursing with that attitude. As long as I’m here, I will remind them that they should contribute to society and not be half wits.”
Of all the things he told me, nothing defined his character and contribution to Nicholls more than this: “I am a teacher before a historian. History is merely the paint. I contribute my report to my students and I will help them as much as they let me. If they’re half asses, I can do nothing.
