I took his basic Introduction to Humanities class toward the end of my undergraduate time. Most of the class was freshmen but I took it because I needed another elective and decided that it would be a good mix of things I would like to learn about. I absolutely loved the class. I got to spend time in the AV part of the library with headphones on learning to identify musical pieces, went to watch foreign films, we studied art and architecture and a bunch of other stuff. I can still remember many of the operatic arias, classical music pieces, paintings and sculptures we had to learn to identify. I really didn't have a lot of exposure to that stuff up until that point. Throughout my life I have drawn on the broad (but admittedly very shallow) exposure I got to the arts from his class.

But it was Don Marshall himself who probably had a greater impact on me. He seemed to absolutely love to teach students. His class were large (100-200 students, probably) but he wanted to know all his students' names. So he stood at the door with his camcorder and had each student say their name and where they were from as they exited the class. He then would take home his video and watch it over and over so he could memorize the students names. I saw him on campus early in the semester and he called me by name. He spotted me at a musical performance I was in (one of the large BYU music groups) and he found me afterward and we talked about the music. We became friends of sorts — we'd run into each other on campus and always stop and have a good discussion. He had a passion for teaching and I could always sense his enthusiasm.

I just did a little Googling and was pleased to see that someone had endowed a chair in his name.

"The Donald R. Marshall Endowed Professor of Humanities was established through a generous gift from John L. and Stephanie S. Sorensen to celebrate the career of former BYU faculty member Don Marshall and by so doing to 'promote and encourage outstanding teaching and research leading to a superior education for students.' Winners of this professorship will have compiled a distinguished record as a teacher and scholar, and are recognized by department, college and university colleagues as an 'agent of improvement.' In particular, the Marshall Professorship seeks to honor teachers whose classroom work has an enduring impact on the lives of students."

I agree wholeheartedly. Anyone else take a class from him? What were your thoughts?