Taking a history class from WSU History Professor Richard Williams is an adventure sometimes fringing on the intergalactic. Williams is a Trekkie (“Star Trek” fan) and a Parrot Head (Jimmy Buffett enthusiast), and often weaves these pop culture interests into his classes.
“My colleagues think I’m a little strange,” he said, as he looked around his office in Wilson-Short Hall, which is full of Star Trek photos, posters, cartoons and trinkets. “Maybe I am a little strange.” He picked up a tribble (a creature that resembles a large white hairball) and squeezed it. It chittered angrily. “It doesn’t like you,” Williams told a visitor.
To engage his students, Williams plays recordings of Jimmy Buffett songs, such as “Margaritaville” and “Cheeseburger in Paradise,” as they enter his classroom. And he uses Star Trek scenarios in his class materials.
For example, in his online History 341 class, Rome: Republic and Empire, which Williams teaches for WSU’s Distance Degree Programs, Star Trek is woven into the class presentation. A recent exam included a video clip featuring a Trek character named Q, who is both omnipotent and impish, saying “no race ignorant of its own history has a right to exist.” Students then time-traveled to Ancient Rome where they had to give a speech. “Hopefully, it gets students more interested,” he said. “It certainly makes it more fun for me.”
At the end of his online course, he beams out from the video like someone leaving the Enterprise. And, at the end of his on-campus courses, he beams out from his PowerPoint presentation.
Gail Langseth took Williams’ Roman history course this spring.
“The Star Trek theme shakes things up and forces the students to look at how our past affects our future,” she said. “I would take any other class he taught.”
Langseth’s daughter Amy took Williams’ on-campus Ancient Greece course class a few years ago. “When she was home visiting,” Langseth said, “she walked by while I was watching his video. She stopped dead in her tracks and said, ‘I just love that guy I actually went to his classes!’”
Williams has been teaching at WSU since 1974 and now is easing into retirement, working every other semester. Full retirement, he said, depends on the whims of the stock market.
Parrot Heads (who wear Hawaiian shirts, flip-flops, and parrot hats) and Trekkies share a similar utopian vision — although Parrot Heads put more emphasis on tequila. “Star Trek portrays a future that’s hopeful,” Williams said. “It’s a future where mankind has learned to solve its own problems.”
Star Trek’s impact can be seen in other parts of Williams’ life as well. The website for the Whitman County Historical Society, where he volunteers, lists Williams hometown as “Star Fleet.” His WSU e-mail name is “Sarek” (Spock’s father). His website, the Richard S. Williams Unpretentious Home Page, includes movie reviews and depicts the Starship Enterprise blasting a Borg cube above the Great Seal of the United Federation of Planets.
Williams also attends Star Trek conventions and collects memorabilia. “I don’t have a costume,” he said. “I do have several Star Fleet shirts.”
During his 35 years at WSU, Richards has tried to teach students a subversive idea: No one is right and no one is wrong. “There is no objectivity. There are points of view,” he said. “And often what people believe isn’t true.” He cites those who followed Hitler because they thought they were being oppressed by Jews, and those who wanted to invade Iraq because they thought it had WMDs.
Living in peace, he contends, requires knowing how history has shaped our beliefs “If we don’t understand ourselves, we have no hope of understanding anybody,” he said. Others, he adds, are entitled to different views: “If you see the people who oppose you as an amorphous enemy, there’s no hope of ever getting along.” The other option is the military approach, which has a dismal success record, he said, citing the Roman Empire, the Napoleonic Empire, and Hitler’s Thousand Year Reich, which lasted 12 years.
“It’s not about building empires. It’s about learning who we are and how to get along with others,” he said. “We live on a very small planet. But, until we get warp drive it’s the only one that’s habitable. We need to learn to live with each other, or someone will start exploding bombs.”
Is peaceful co-existence possible? Or is it a utopian fiction, like Margaritaville and the United Federation of Planets?
“When I was growing up,” Williams said, “air raid sirens went off once a month. I remember being out in the yard, holding my breath, waiting for the sound to change to show it was a test. We no longer have missiles pointed at the Soviet Union or at us. There is no Soviet Union. That was dealt with. I think other things can be dealt with.”
“It’s not about building empires. It’s about learning who we are and how to get along with others,” he said. “We live on a very small planet. But, until we get warp drive it’s the only one that’s habitable. We need to learn to live with each other, or someone will start exploding bombs.”
Is peaceful co-existence possible? Or is it a utopian fiction, like Margaritaville and the United Federation of Planets?
“When I was growing up,” Williams said, “air raid sirens went off once a month. I remember being out in the yard, holding my breath, waiting for the sound to change to show it was a test. We no longer have missiles pointed at the Soviet Union or at us. There is no Soviet Union. That was dealt with. I think other things can be dealt with.”
