Emily Rose Antlick paints a very true portrait of life in Cornett’s class. As a former student of his, I also shared in the pseudonym-creating, the dialogic session-debating, and the uninhibited expressing of our thoughts. Many outsiders might consider Cornett’s methods a form of pedagogical madness, but I can assure you that the professor has a method in his madness. Rather than being a number or a statistic on a bell curve, we were made agents of learning who were able to engage with each other and with scenarios of life with real personal experiences. Cornett, or Bubba, as we called him, brought to our attention fascinating and often difficult topics such as the Holocaust, aboriginal rights, and palliative care. In doing so, Bubba did not lay off the quality dispenser and accompanied this exposure with real face-to-face people. This included powerful pow-wows with former prime minister Paul Martin, famous director Alanis Obomsawin, elite medical doctors, U.N. lawyers and officials, supreme court judges, community leaders, and the list goes on and on. This man has magnetism and manages to bring the highest quality learning experience to his students. I often look back at the Bubba days as some of the most engaging and stimulating I ever passed.
Giancarlo Maiolo
BSc Biology 2007