{"id":8720,"date":"2014-09-08T14:59:07","date_gmt":"2014-09-08T19:59:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/college.unc.edu\/?p=8720"},"modified":"2024-07-02T14:42:06","modified_gmt":"2024-07-02T14:42:06","slug":"armitage-takes-teaching-seriously-not-solemnly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/?p=8720","title":{"rendered":"Armitage takes teaching \u2018seriously, not solemnly\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Coach<\/a>
Coach Dean Smith, left, and professor Christopher Armitage shake hands during Carolina\u2019s Bicentennial ceremony. Armitage was dressed as William R. Davie for his part in the celebration, held on University Day, Oct. 12, 1993.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The teaching awards line the corner office in Greenlaw Hall like wallpaper, but it is the unusual picture above the desk that rivets the eye.<\/p>\n

It shows a bemused Dean Smith shaking hands with General William Richardson Davie, portrayed by Christopher Armitage, to whom the picture belongs. It was taken 21 years ago, when the two men took center stage \u2013 Armitage on horseback \u2013 for Carolina\u2019s bicentennial celebration in October 1993.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was the day,\u201d Armitage deadpans, \u201cI met God.\u201d<\/p>\n

The first experience Armitage shared with North Carolina was in October 1954, courtesy of Hurricane Hazel that careened north from the Tar Heel state and reached Canada before veering east.<\/p>\n

Somewhere in the mid-Atlantic, it hit the Canadian passenger ship \u201cThe Empress of France,\u201d with both Armitage and his fianc\u00e9e Pauline Brooks on board. The experience, Armitage said, demonstrated the truth of Samuel Johnson\u2019s observation that being on a ship \u201cis like being in jail, with the chance of being drowned.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was about the only time in my life that I thought it would be good to die,\u201d Armitage said, recalling being tossed up and down endlessly by the enormous waves.<\/p>\n

During his last year at Oxford University, a friend had set him up with a cousin visiting from Canada. That cousin was Pauline. \u201cVery soon after that blind date I decided I was going to emigrate to Canada to marry her,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Professor Chris Armitage passes by the Davie Poplar and the Caldwell Monument on McCorkle Place at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 8\/11.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

After surviving the wild ride across the Atlantic, they were married and settled near Pauline\u2019s hometown in northern Ontario. Armitage took a job in Toronto selling encyclopedias door to door, but he quit after two days \u2013 without a single sale.<\/p>\n

Then, three years as a technical writer for the Royal Canadian Air Force helped him decide life as an academic might be for him, after all.<\/p>\n

He taught three years at the University of Western Ontario, and three more at the University of Guelph before Pauline planted a bug in his ear about getting his Ph.D.<\/p>\n

He resisted at first. \u201cWhat exactly is a Ph.D.?\u201d he asked. \u201cAt Oxford, I sat at the feet of C.S. Lewis and he didn\u2019t have one. I sat at the feet of J.R.R. Tolkien. He didn\u2019t have one.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yes, his wife insisted, but you have three young boys to support and, for an academic in America, a Ph.D. is the union card.<\/p>\n

As with most things, Armitage said, he knew she was right. So in spring 1964 he and his family ended up at Duke where he would complete his doctorate in three years.<\/p>\n

He came to Carolina\u2019s English department in fall 1967 at age 36 and has received many accolades for teaching 17th- and 20th-century English and Canadian literature. Armitage became the first UNC Professor of Distinguished Teaching in 1995, and other awards he has received include the Nicholas Salgo Outstanding Teaching Award and two Bowman and Gordon Gray chairs for undergraduate teaching. In 2009, he received the UNC Board of Governors Award for career excellence in teaching.<\/p>\n

At 83, he shows no sign of slowing down.<\/p>\n

\u2018Fortune\u2019s tennis ball\u2019<\/h3>\n

Last fall \u2013 25 years after the publication of his annotated bibliography of Sir Walter Raleigh \u2013 Armitage wrote \u201cLiterary and Visual Ralegh: Essays on the Writings and the Visual Images of Sir Walter Ralegh.\u201d (Don\u2019t worry about the spelling, Armitage said. The biographer Willard Wallace lists 73 spellings of the explorer\u2019s name in European languages.)<\/p>\n

The essays, Armitage said, reveal Raleigh to be just as Sir Robert Naunton once described him: \u201cFortune\u2019s tennis ball\u201d with ups and downs that would take him from naval battles in Spain, to the glittering court of Queen Elizabeth, to Roanoke Island off the North Carolina shore where what became known as \u201cThe Lost Colony\u201d would be launched.<\/p>\n

In 1603, King James I threw Raleigh in prison in the Tower of London on trumped-up charges of treason, where Raleigh proceeded to write \u201cThe History of the World\u201d as a guide for Prince Henry, who was next in line to the throne. Raleigh wrote the book in hopes that Henry, once king, would set him free.<\/p>\n

Those hopes were dashed when Henry fell ill and died at 18.<\/p>\n

James I let him out of prison to lead an expedition to South America where Raleigh insisted he could find El Dorado, the city of gold. Up river, the expedition found instead a fortress filled with Spanish soldiers lying in wait to ambush them. Upon his return to England, Raleigh was summarily thrown back in prison and beheaded in 1618.<\/p>\n

Building on a legacy<\/h3>\n

Armitage said he has come to believe, as Raleigh did, that all of life is a diversion, cast less by the winds of fortune than chance.<\/p>\n

Pauline died many years ago at the age of 47, and Armitage lost his second wife nearly a decade ago.<\/p>\n

Sadness will find you on its own, Armitage said, and that is why it is important to seek what delights you \u2013 and to stick with it, even in the worst of times.<\/p>\n

Since 1975, he has taken pleasure in returning to England every summer to conduct a six-week study program on \u201cShakespeare in Performance\u201d for students and alumni. After three weeks in London, the program takes students to Oxford, and Armitage takes a trip back in time, to Saint Edmund Hall, where he entered his first year at Oxford in 1950 as he was about to turn 19.<\/p>\n

Saint Edmund Hall, as Armitage proudly boasts, is the last surviving medieval hall at Oxford and the oldest academic society for the education of undergraduates.<\/p>\n

Going back, he said, gives him \u201ca sense of the extraordinary feeling I had about what it meant to be in a place of great scholarship and considerable beauty.\u201d There is also a deep satisfaction watching students experience the place for the first time.<\/p>\n

In 2011, he established the Christopher Mead Armitage and Pauline Brooks Armitage Scholarship for Visiting Students, which provides a term at the college for a deserving Carolina undergraduate. This past summer, Armitage learned that Oxford plans to raise money so scholarship recipients can attend a full academic year.<\/p>\n

Several weeks ago, Armitage returned from Oxford to prepare for what will be his 48th year teaching at Carolina.<\/p>\n

\u201cI keep doing it because I love doing it,\u201d he said. \u201cI enjoy the students. Like all human activities, there is an element of self-interest in it in that it keeps me charged and prevents me from turning into a hermit, which I have a strong tendency to do.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe students are always telling me I am intimidating. I walk into class and I tell them (he lowers his voice into a growl) how it is. From day one, I tell them, \u2018I take my job seriously, but not solemnly.\u2019 I want to indicate that I run a tight ship, but that we can enjoy it.<\/p>\n

\u201cLiterature is a pleasure. That\u2019s the essence for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

By Gary Moss, University Gazette<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The teaching awards line the corner office in Greenlaw Hall like wallpaper, but it is the unusual picture above the desk that rivets the eye.<\/p>\n

It shows a bemused Dean Smith shaking hands with General William Richardson Davie, portrayed by Christopher Armitage, to whom the picture belongs. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":8721,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8720","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fine-arts-humanities","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8720","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8720"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8720\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46858,"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8720\/revisions\/46858"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8721"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8720"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8720"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8720"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}