Text-Only Version
Announcer: She retired 20 years ago, but today, at the age of 85, Katherine Musgrave keeps a schedule that would wear out most people who are half her age. In addition to her teaching duties, she continues an active practice, counseling patients on nutrition--she speaks to many groups and even does a weekly radio nutrition segment. On a recent afternoon, Katherine Musgrave records a lecture for her Introduction to Food and Nutrition course-a Web-based class that her 220 students take online. This new way of interacting with her students is a far cry from how she first began teaching in the 1940’s.
Katherine Musgrave: "When I first taught, I could put students in alphabetical rows and they had to sit in that seat all semester. About midway into my teaching career, students started not liking being told. Also, I have to be much more careful in lecturing when you're putting something on tape that anybody in the world can listen to because I have students all over the world. I wish I could teach with as carefree an attitude as I did 40 years ago, when I thought I knew it all."
Announcer: One former student fondly recalls the time he spent in Katherine Musgrave’s classroom. Rod Bushway took her class in 1971. Now, he’s Chair of Food Science and Human Nutrition at UMaine.
Rod Bushway: "We look at her as a person that never gives up, keeps going and learns new things. To teach a Web-based course take a lot more work than a lecture course. She's been a great role model to all our students. She's seen a lot of students go through and she's also a role model to our faculty. With fad diets, supplements, and genetic engineering, the field of nutrition has changed drastically since she first stepped into a classroom at Vanderbilt University in the 1940s. One thing that has not changed is the best way to live a healthy life.
Katherine: "The basic principles that I learned in my first nutrition class in 1937 are the same guidelines that we see in our textbooks today. Eat a variety of foods. Don't eat the same thing every day. Eat moderate amounts. Watch our servings. I think it's a shame that people get bogged down with food rules. There are no rules. Just be sure you get the nutrients and make sure you're expending enough energy to burn them up. I believe that as long as I can breathe, it's my duty to impart whatever little information I've gathered and share it. We'll never pay for health care if we worry just about how to pay for it. We have to start preventing disease and that starts in childhood."
