< Back | A to Z Index | Search | Home
Larry Davis
Associate Professor of Geology
Larry Davis started collecting rocks as a third grader, and he never stopped. The CSB/SJU associate professor of geology and biology said that third-grader’s curiosity continues to motivate him in the classroom and in the lab.
“I never outgrew the third grade,” he said to explain his interest in geology. His parents supported his early interest. On long drives from Kansas to Georgia to visit relatives, they would make roadside stops to allow their young son to collect rocks. At Christmas, he received rocks as gifts.
Later, when as a junior high student his family moved to Kentucky, Davis had trouble adjusting. “I was such a nerd, with no friends. My parents went to the community college and talked with a geologist. He took me on as an adopted son.”
By now a confirmed rock hound, Davis went on weekend excursions to hunt fossils with his new mentor.
He has since had more mentors. Davis received his bachelor’s degree in marine biology at Western Washington University, while also serving for 12 years in the Army. He received his master’s in geology and Ph.D. in paleontology at Washington State University. As an undergraduate, he received military leave to travel with Claude Spinosa of Boise State University, where he was working on a second bachelor's degree in geology, and Bruce Saunders, now at Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania, to the South Pacific to study the chambered nautilus. “They taught me to conduct research and the value of working with students,” Davis said. Another mentor, David Gillette, curator at the Museum of Northern Arizona, instilled in Davis the desire to explore.
Davis described the mentoring process in action. Two of his former students are now graduate students at Boise State, where Spinosa is their major professor. One of those former students, Nikki Hemmesch, had earlier had an internship with Gillette at the Museum of Northern Arizona. Furthermore, Brian Glenister, now retired from the faculty at the University of Iowa, was a mentor for Spinosa and Saunders. When Nikki studied with Davis, she used books that had been donated here by Glenister.
Davis, who in 2002 received the S. Mary Grell Teacher of Distinction Award, described his teaching style. In the classroom, he said he wants his students to experience the excitement of discovery, a joy many of them resist initially. “They’re used to science that is already known. Verification of what is already known is boring. Discovery is exciting.”
To begin the process of scientific inquiry, Davis may give the students a sample to describe. At first, a student’s response may be simply “a pink rock.” Six weeks later, that same sample may elicit from the same student a half page description, demonstrating the student’s newfound skills in observation.
In 2002, Davis rekindled his third grader’s love of discovery when he coordinated at Saint John’s a simulated dinosaur excavation (using the skeleton of a cow) for third graders from Cold Spring. Davis’s students assisted with the project, which was co-sponsored by the Arboretum and well received by Cold Spring teachers.
Whether working with third graders or college students, or touring national parks, Davis continues to experience and share the world with the wonder and generosity of a third grader. His description of a visit to the Grand Canyon best exemplifies the reverence he shares with his students: “You can read the history of the earth in those layers of earth. It’s like a great book. My area is not any different from that of the great books, only my books are bigger.”