John Ketterer: A biography
By Brad Hulke '02
(Historiography Seminar Research Paper, 2002)
 John
Ketterer was born in Philadelphia and attended Northeast High School in that city, an
institution of which he was proud--“If I’m not mistaken, 50 percent of that faculty had
Ph.D.s,” he noted. He felt that it gave him a many
opportunities because of the stellar faculty and the diversity within the student’s body: “You
name the ethnic group, I went to school with it…
It made me learn to judge the individual.”
Ketterer attended Dickinson College, about 120 some miles
outside of Philadelphia. Ketterer claims it was his uncle who helped him in the search for his
college and eventually persuaded him to attend Dickinson.
“I was beginning to look at college catalogs and he came down to visit, and he saw all
these college catalogs. He said that he didn’t see
Dickinson’s there. By George, the next week I got a
package full of everything I needed. We went up and
visited and I had a great four years there.” Ketterer
enjoyed Dickinson because of the liberal arts education.
He has many different interests and through his diverse education, he was able to enjoy
many different subjects. "Dickinson told me that small liberal arts college teaching is
what I wanted,” he said.
Ketterer entered the Navy following college. “I
graduated from college one Sunday, May 31, 1943, and went in for duty the next Sunday," he
explained. He had enrolled in a Navy program that
allowed him to enter officer's school upon earning his bachelor's degree. “The
draft board was kind of breathing down my neck," he said. "I
was sure I didn’t want to go into the infantry. I
knew that. At the college, one of the faculty members
was coordinator of all these programs. I enlisted at
the beginning of my senior year.”
Following midshipman’s school, Ketterer reported first to Pearl
Harbor and then to the Aleutian Islands in Alaska. He
was on a destroyer tender, the mission of which was to look for the Japanese fleet.
“Never found it; it was down in the China Sea.” He then was re-stationed in San
Francisco setting up cargo boats with primarily Jeeps.
He was also there to help put a ship into commission.
The cargo that Ketterer and his unit placed on the boat was
dropped off at Iwo Jima. The Navy placed the Marine Fifth Division on the ground there. He
then made his way south to Guadalcanal. There his unit
unloaded all the equipment that was damaged. The Navy
again departed and returned to Pearl Harbor, where Ketterer went through a routine physical
and a problem was found with his lung. Although it
wasn’t serious, Ketterer did spend some time in a Naval hospital.
Ketterer was transferred to temporary active duty in
Philadelphia. He was there while the war was won
on both fronts. Ketterer decided the military was not
for him. When asked by a superior officer if he would
be interested in pursing a career he simply said, "No." Due to a preponderence of temporary
officers, Ketterer was able to fill out the necessary paperwork in one day and be discharged
from the Navy. His superior officer told him if he
skipped lunch, he could be done by the end of the day. "By that day at four o’clock I was a
civilian." Ketterer said.
Ketterer began to look into graduate schools, narrowing his
choices to two schools--Syracuse University and New York University. NYU
offered a number of opportunities. Ketterer spent seven
years there getting his Ph.D. and teacher aiding. He
was now teaching in front of college students and was well on his way to a career that would
last 40 years.
During graduate school, Ketterer took a summer course at Woods
Hole, Mass. While studying marine invertebrate zoology,
Ketterer met Malcolm Reed, who was the head of the biology department at Monmouth College.
The other professors there represented some prestigious institutions--one man was
on the Yale faculty and another came from Brown. The
professor from Monmouth College, however, impressed Ketterer most.
“They had high-powered folks there and here was Malcolm Reed.
I thought Monmouth must be a pretty decent place.”
Ketterer finished his degree in 1953.
He had an opportunity to continue to teach at NYU.
He had received notices from many colleges needing biology professors.
He screened them by going through his cooperating professor. When
the request came from Monmouth, he was advised to apply for that one. Ketterer
traveled to Monmouth for an interview. “I went home
with the job in my pocket,” he said.
NYU offered Ketterer a salary of $3,750 to continue teaching but
Monmouth offered $4,000. Ketterer was very pleased to be heading to the Midwest.
He noted that his dean congratulated him on the appointment, saying, "It is
a great compliment to you that they would offer a new Ph.D. an assistant professorship, and a
credit to NYU.”
Ketterer came to Monmouth in 1953 with high hopes for his
career. He loved to teach and he was getting paid for
it. Monmouth allowed Ketterer to teach his way as long as he taught competently. With
this freedom, Ketterer flourished in his new surroundings.
Hired as an assistant professor in the biology department, he
had to go through a three-year probationary period. In
1956, Ketterer received a letter from President Gibson stating that he had made tenure, and
with that came a salary increase.
Ketterer was named Pressly Professor of Natural Sciences in
1969. The endowed professorship was vacated upon the death of Dr. Thiessen, for whom the
science building is partially named. The head of the
department at that time, Dr. Buchholz, nominated Ketterer, who held the position until his
retirement in 1986.
Ketterer served the college in many different roles. He
was dean of men for a year, and had to deal with fraternity hazing. When the fraternities
presented him with a proposed schedule for “Hell Week,”
Ketterer signed off on it, but later found that the fraternities were not honoring the
schedule and pledges were falling asleep in class. Ketterer issued a revised schedule that
required all pledges to be allowed to sleep for a minimum of six to seven hours a night.
He felt this was plenty time for them to be rested for the next day.
The fraternities all complained, even calling him names.
Boycotts of school functions were planned, but in the end, Ketterer won out and the
presidents of the fraternities complied.
Ketterer chaired the department of biology from 1959 to 1967.
As head of the department he had many duties that included meetings and organizing the
faculty and the department. Ketterer wasn’t an
administrator. His roots were in teaching and that’s
what he wanted to do.
Ketterer was faculty representative to the Midwest Athletic
Conference for 15 years, serving two terms as president
and a term as secretary-treasurer. He believed it was important for athletics to be augment
the academic program, but to always remain secondary in importance.
Ketterer taught at Argonne National Laboratory for one year
through the Associated Colleges of the Midwest. He also
helped establish a field station along the Mississippi River, but his
favorite thing to do was teaching.
Ketterer
tells the story of a former student whose mother was not very excited about her daughter
taking a class on evolution. Apparently, the mothers told the daughter to "not let that man
change your mind and draw you into evolution."
When she went home from break, her mother asked how the class was going.
She told her mother that Ketterer had said that the Lutherans don’t have all the
answers either. This is classic Ketterer.
Ketterer has many stories of when he was teaching.
One story really catches the essence of the man.
Ketterer, in his first year, had two football players in his lab who were also biology majors.
He would often excuse them from lab (which ran from 1 to 5 p.m.) at 3:30 so they could
make practice. One afternoon, Ketterer received a call
from the football coach, “Jelly” Robinson. The coach
asked Ketterer why he wouldn’t let his players leave lab early to make practice.
Ketterer told the coach that he frequently let the two men go at 3:30. Upon
discovering the little scheme the two men were trying to pull, Ketterer decided to play a
little joke. The very next lab came along and he did as
he always had. He let the two men go at 3:30.
This time, instead of staying in the lab, he left and made his way out to the football
field. When the two men showed up very late for
practice, the coach asked them where they had been. The
two men responded with the usual excuse of lab. The
players on the team had just then been in a huddle. When they parted, in their midst was
Ketterer, who greeted the late students with a cheerful, “Afternoon, gentlemen!”
Ketterer had a very effective teaching style.
He was very animated and would often relate the information to his students in a way
that many would begin to comprehend rather than just learn for a day and forget. Ketterer
was a chalk talker. He would use the chalkboards and
overhead transparencies to illustrate his lessons. Ketterer
would roam the room from side to side. He was unable to
lecture from behind a podium. He needed to move and
illustrate his points with hand and arm movement.
When looking at his old syllabi, one realizes his commitment to
preparation. The detail that was put into these allowed
the students to stay on top of their studies and better prepare for tests. Ketterer
was a master at organizing his lectures and his outlines for the semester.
Ketterer was an inspiring teacher.
According to his colleague David Allison, Ketterer was a "universal man" who could
teach a number of different subjects even though his specialty was invertebrate biology.
“What I have to emphasize is that John Ketterer was a master teacher,” he
said, noting that many professors have the knowledge, but not as many can actually
relay the information to the students so they understand it. Allison had first-hand
experience, having been a student in Ketterer’s genetics class in 1954.
“He was first of all a teacher," Allison continued.
"Teaching was number one. The administrative
detail would come after the teaching was done. He was
here to teach and we’ll just get the other done later.”
Allison told the story of Dr. Ketterer’s car accident on his way to Galesburg.
He had gotten in an accident and had to have his jaw wired shut.
He taught genetics for a few weeks with his jaw wired shut.
This made for some interesting notes, but he was still there, teaching.
Allison considered Ketterer a colleague and a friend.
He mentioned some of the similarities between the two.
“We both served in the Pacific, although different wars, we both lost a brother in
World War II, we both were in the field of science, we both taught at Monmouth College, and we
both married Pi Phi’s.” The relationship between the
two men was more than just a working one, but rather a friendship.
Richard Kieft is another professor who knew Ketterer very well
and spoke very highly of him. “John was a master
teacher; he truly was.” Kieft also has a unique
relationship with Ketterer in that they both attended the same college.
Both men came from a small liberal arts college and both prefer to teach in small
liberal arts schools.
Kieft claims that when Ketterer spoke, people listened. “In
faculty meetings, if John spoke on an issue and said, 'Let's vote,' we stopped debate and we
voted.” Kieft noted that Ketterer was able to hold a
classroom and relay the information to his class in a way that most could understand.
Ketterer had an amazing career that affected many different
people. His legacy is simple.
He taught students. He was not an administrator.
He was a teacher and had a gift for making students understand the information. He
loved his subject and cared a great deal about his students.
Allison and Kieft both said that Ketterer had one great saying that most people would
recognize if they know him: “Give me a bucket of mud
and a microscope and I’ll be happy.”
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