Faculty of the Week: Kent A. McConnell

By SAM ALTMAN, JOSEPH KIM, LAUREN LEE, and MARVIN SHIM

A teacher? An artist? A woodworker? Perhaps all of them! 

Dedicated and well respected is the chair of the History Department, Dr. Kent McConnell. A devoted teacher with a particular interest in 19th-century American history, K. McConnell is admired and respected by faculty and students alike. However, he is much more than only a passionate historian and a supportive instructor.

K. McConnell is admired by many of his students and advisees for his relaxed, steady nature. Lower and advisee Neal Veeranna explained, “He’s willing to take shots at us, he is a really fun guy to be around. What makes him such a good teacher and advisor is that he had a nature to keep everything balanced. He can be funny, but he also has a seriousness that surfaces when he needs it.”

“He is very passionate about what he does. He will always go the extra step to make sure something is done right and with quality,” lower Thad McConnell, his son, said. “I admire his ability to balance a challenging work life, yet still come home and provide for his family. If he’s had a bad day, he doesn’t let those feelings carry over to the other spectrum.”

Senior Colin Jung agreed. “You always gain something after a conversation with him. That’s something you can’t say about most people.”

“He’s a very sincere individual, and that’s something to be valued. I think it’s hard to come across people who are entirely genuine and passionate in the way he is. I was fearful of adulthood myself because I felt that most adults in my life didn’t have the sort of curiosity for life he did,” senior Ghena Kubba said. “But Mr. McConnell still had that spark, and I think that’s really inspiring to see. He works hard because he genuinely cares about the things that he works for.”

Instructor in History Bill Jordan recalled several fond memories of the Christmas parties K. McConnell holds every year to celebrate with the department. “He’s a great colleague. He steps up and does the work. But even before he was chair, he would host the Christmas party of the year, and it was the best Christmas party we’ve ever had. Their home is so beautiful and the way they put it together is so warm. I, and I am sure everyone, always really enjoyed those.” 

K. McConnell is also praised by many for being open to the needs of his students. 

“While I was writing my history paper, I got sick for multiple days,” upper and advisee Will Murphy, and a former student, said. “Afterwards, I met with him in class, stayed a bit after class, and asked him about my predicament. He was very kind and very caring, open to giving me an extension. He was also welcome for me to meet with him multiple times outside of class if I needed any help getting organized or catching up.”

Others agreed. “If he cares about something, he really cares about it. I appreciate his passion and just his commitment to work,” Kubba said. “I respect that he treats students like human beings. I find that a lot of teachers can sometimes see you as a young person in a patronizing way. He may also feel the same way, but he never lets it infiltrate in the way he’s talking to you or the way he sees you. He’s actually listening to you fully and looking at you completely for who you are.”

“He’s a wonderful teacher,” upper and advisee Joonyoung Heo said. “I can’t quite describe it, but when you tell him about a problem, he gives you all the confidence you need that he can help you solve it. He understands his students and appreciates the things they say.”

Unsurprisingly, this trend reflects his own time with his family. “He has been about as big of a life influence as they come,” T. McConnell said. “If I do something wrong, rather than pointing out what was wrong with it and its negatives, he’s more focused on teaching me in a meaningful way about what I can do so I don’t make the same mistake again. He’s invested in my life, doing the little things like asking how my day was every single day.”

Those who have been inside K. McConnell’s classroom know there’s something special about it. 

“He and I were chatting in my room, rather than his, the other day, and all of a sudden I looked around and said, ‘Oh my gosh, I wish we were in his room. It’s so much cozier up there,’” Jordan said. “It feels almost warm in his classroom, and it makes me feel like perhaps I should get a few lamps for mine.”

Jordan continued, “You know, I just love sitting in his rocking chair and chatting for a while in his room. He has all sorts of stuff on his walls, even rock stars. He’s really into Bruce Springsteen and Bob Dylan, and I think he even used to have some memorabilia from them on the walls. Overall, he’s very multidimensional.”

“It’s probably the best classroom on campus, in my opinion,” Heo said. “You look at the walls and the photographs — you have Lincoln and Sherman watching over you, Thaddeus Stevens above the projector, even a bust of Charles Sumner on his desk — and it just feels right. It’s the perfect setting for history when you sit down at the table.”

“And I’m almost certainly reading into it too much, but I like to think he made an intentional choice to have a whiteboard on one side and a blackboard on the other,” Heo continued. “It’s a juncture between the old and the new, a sort of devotion to traditional, tried-and-tested methods of history even as he adapts to the times.”

Beyond his classroom, K. McConnell’s classes are well respected and thoroughly enjoyed by many of his students, due largely to his ability to lead discussions at the table. 

“He’s pretty hands-off,” Kubba reflected. “He definitely does let students share their own thoughts, but he’s incredibly talented at teasing the more important ideas out. In Harkness, oftentimes we’ll come to a point where we’re a bit confused or we’ve come to a critical point of contention in the content, and a lot of teachers are very passive about it, but Dr. McConnell is far more direct, and I really appreciate that communication because it’s key to our learning.”

“He asks a lot of questions that are a lot like fast facts, a fill-in-the-blank sort of thing,” Kubba continued. “He’ll mention the Jamestown settlement, for example, and ask, ‘Well, when was that?’ Then we answer, and he’ll go on to make his point. Essentially, he ensures that we’re engaging with the material, and I think more teachers could do that.”

Jung also discussed McConnell’s Harkness methods. “A lot of instructors allow Harkness to become anarchy,” he said. “Dr. McConnell makes sure that doesn’t happen — he makes sure that we take something away from each class, almost as we would during a lecture. I think that’s a very positive thing, that we always have a concrete thing to learn.”

“He is the finest history instructor I’ve ever had, and it’s not particularly close,” Jung continued. “I would say that he understands his role very well as an instructor: neither to lecture, nor to sit back and do nothing. Instead, it’s ultimately to conduct. And honestly, I feel that a lot of history teachers think that the epitome of Harkness is indeed to simply sit back and just let people take away whatever conclusions they’ll take away from whatever arbitrary readings are assigned. On the contrary, whenever Dr. McConnell assigns readings, they seem somewhat disconnected at first, but he always has an underlying point or message or lesson that he is trying to teach, and he always makes sure that lesson comes across. That’s what makes his class special: he has a direction he knows is interesting and worthwhile, and he conducts the class as such.”

Others felt the same way about K. McConnell’s pedagogy. “There’s something about the way that he conducts himself in class that’s really quite unique,” Heo said. “He knows exactly what to say, what information to present to string along a path of discovery for his students. He knows exactly when silences are productive, and when they’re not. That’s because he knows exactly what he wants his students to get out of the class, and he knows what he has to do to help them get there.”

Heo continued, “Take the Salem Witch Trials, for example. The typical approach is fairly one-dimensional: the people went crazy, saw witches everywhere, and a lot of them were killed. It takes a great deal of control and experience to help the class see more than that, and at the same time not let the conversation devolve into confusion. There was self-interest, certainly, but there was also genuine fear; there was religious dogma, but also rationality. All this to say, it really is a complicated subject, and I’ve found there’s no one better who can guide a class through each of the nuances than him.”

Jordan also commented on his teaching style. “I think that in his courses, he tends to look at history through a more philosophical lens,” he said. “When he’s teaching about a given topic, he always has kids reading about underlying philosophical issues. There are a lot of students who really just enjoy that. I think particularly bright students are attracted to him.”

Heo also discussed McConnell’s practices with regard to measuring and improving Harkness ability. “He has several ‘tracking’ sessions throughout the term where he sits at his desk and simply watches the discussion unfold. He tracks what everyone says, timestamps turning points, records important themes identified and missed, and so much more. Then, after it’s over, he tells us what we did well and what we didn’t — perhaps where the conversation derailed, where a certain idea was discarded too quickly, et cetera.”

Even beyond his teaching, K. McConnell deeply influences the lives of his advisees, every Wednesday and in between. “As a department chair, Dr. McConnell is very busy but is always willing to talk to us,” upper Drew Manderlink said. “If I’m struggling in a class he always prompts me to meet with the teacher and seems to genuinely care about my success.” 

For his advising group, the Wednesday meeting period is a safe haven from their often chaotic academic and athletic schedules. “During advisory, I feel comfortable talking about whatever is on my mind,” lower Neal Veeranna said. “He is a relaxed person, so talking to Dr. McConnell is very easy. He is not afraid to speak his mind and expects you to be straightforward when interacting with him.” 

Upper Andrew Voulgarelis highlighted the extent to which McConnell is receptive and responsive to the needs of his group. “Whatever we need from him, he is always there for us. If we show up to advisory all suffering from a heavy workload, he will let us use the time as an advisory work period. If we look stressed, he will often put on a movie, offer up some candy for us to play a fun game of poker with, or take us outside for a walk.”

K. McConnell advocates for his advisees in all areas of life at Exeter. Upper William Murphy commented: “He was very helpful organizing absences with the deans when I would be missing a Saturday class for lacrosse. He was just always on my side, and was very kind and receptive to my situation.” 

Further, McConnell takes special care to celebrate his advisees. “Whenever one of us has a birthday, he will bake their favorite treat, either brownies or cake or cupcakes, and bring it to us during advisory as soon as he can,” Murphy said.

But even his stellar role as department chair and advisor does not entirely define his life, with all the time he spends as a loving husband and father, and all his hobbies and pastimes.

“One thing is that I love doing is woodworking and fly fishing,and I also build furniture for different projects,” K. McConnell said. “I was also pretty good at basketball when I was your age.”

He continued, “My wife and I have owned three historic homes that I’ve basically renovated down to like the studs. I’ve had homes up on hydraulic jacks: I can do the wiring, I can do all the siding, I can do all the plumbing. There’s very little I could not tackle. I also play guitar and harmonica and used to do that in coffee shops in grad school. In general, I think I can be quite fun to be around, but I don’t necessarily evoke that on campus because I tend to do that more around my peers, people my age.”

Jordan has also observed K. McConnell’s devotion to his work outside the classroom. “He’s still active in his capacity as a researching historian, which is incredibly difficult when you’re also teaching here and raising a family. He must have a lot of amazing energy. He’s also constantly renovating his homes, for example, I know he had a place up in Maine and he fixed it up. He’s Mr. Handyman. He does woodworking and he’s a very devoted father.”

Jordan continued, “I don’t know if others know this, but I was certainly surprised to find out that he plays the guitar. You know, he’s got a guitar at his house and he looks so serious and scholarly. He’s always got a tie and a suit on, so I can’t quite picture him playing guitar, and it seems like it’s not quite in keeping with the rest of the picture, but it’s part of him nonetheless.

K. McConnell also regularly chats with students in his free time if they so choose. “You always gain something after a conversation with him, and that’s really quite rare,” Jung reminisced. “I’ve talked to him outside of class somewhat often, about pragmatic matters like classes or college, topics entirely unrelated to academics like personal things and restaurant recommendations, and about intellectual debates: theology, philosophy, law, and much more.”

Kubba agreed. “I work in his classroom all the time, and we always talk together about whatever we’re thinking about. Sometimes it’s a continuation of the discussion in class, sometimes it’s about philosophy (I think we talked about Jackie Kennedy one time, too), and sometimes it’s just random jokes.”

Kubba continued, “We have very different views and disagree 99 percent of the time, but it’s not about that. Honestly, I really enjoy having conversations with him, because not only do I want to hear what he has to say, but if I’m going to believe what I believe, I want to be able to check off all the boxes, to engage in discussion with someone who disagrees with me. He really pushes me to do that, and I’ve grown so much as a result.”

K. McConnell himself reflected on the time he spends outside of class with students. “It’s not uncommon to have conversations with students well after the class is over, and that’s what I love. It’s remarkable, really, and it’s very enjoyable and very rewarding. Those are the types of students that are thriving. On the flip side, I have worked with students, who, given my 27 years of teaching experience, I know need help.”

“For example, a few years ago I had a student who was really insightful,” he continued. “What she said in class was always on the mark, but her comments were infrequent. So, at one point in term, I asked her if we could just agree that she could talk about her notes with me, because she took voluminous amounts of them in class. That’s how I kind of recognized the brilliance of this mind sitting before me.”

K. McConnell is also constantly involved with historical research and literary projects, particularly to do with the Civil War period.

“I guess I’m at the stage in my life where it comes a little bit easier now, which is why I enjoy writing and researching,” he said. “So, I’m working on a large book and we’ll have that published in probably a year or two.”

In addition, Heo reflected on how K. McConnell has helped him with his own research projects. “I’ve developed several research projects and lengthy papers with his help. He’s read drafts and given me ideas to restructure or reframe arguments, and he’s given me a great deal of advice on conducting extensive research.”

At the end of the day, K. McConnell is a highly respected member of the community. In his capacity as an instructor, he brings to life the nuances and intricacies of history for his students. For his advisees, and really for everyone else, he is an invaluable source of advice and academic counsel. And, outside the classroom, from fly-fishing to the guitar, he is a man of many different interests.

“He’s the best instructor I’ve had in seventeen years, for what it’s worth,” Heo said. “And I do mean it. He’s a wonderful teacher and an adviser and an extraordinary human being.”

“I used to find him quite intimidating, and I think many still do,” Jung said. “But if you get to know him, he’s truly a very personable, very caring person. My impression now is that he’s very much an adept scholar. He knows and has studied an extraordinary amount, and he has a great passion for intellectual inquiry. But most of all, he is a consummate teacher with a great passion for making his students better thinkers and better people.”