Profile: Jan Dauve
True economist and rare teacher
by Jessica Petzel, posted Dec. 7, 2007
One cannot truly get to know a person by merely watching him in an audience of more than 100 strong. Yet, professor Jan Dauve is a person worth knowing.
As a student
Dauve becoming an agricultural economics professor at MU is a series of odd developments. He started as an undergraduate student at MU majoring in fisheries and wildlife because he cared about preserving the wildlife and wanted to work outdoors.
However, he didn’t feel he fit in his field of interest and was also concerned about job opportunities, as it seemed everyone at that time wanted to major in an environmental field.
He first became interested in economics by taking the long-put-off, but required, economics class. Then, he kept taking economics courses because they made sense to him and he saw them as being very applicable to the world.
“Oh, we’re looking at solutions rather than complaining about the problems,” he remembers realizing in economics classes.
As a teacher
“I didn’t want to be a teacher either,” Dauve said.
In graduate school, a friend volunteered Dauve to be a teaching assistant. Dauve said he is a very non-confrontational individual, so he just went along with it.
“It took me awhile to get comfortable teaching,” Dauve said.
An unusual and relatively unknown fact about Dauve is that he is an extreme introvert, which is why it took him a few years to feel at ease teaching. He said that even now he walks into the first class of each semester with a handful of hours of sleep because he is so nervous. But he has learned how to cope.
“Once you’ve done something a few times, that in and of itself is very helpful,” Dauve said. “The classroom becomes my space; as an introvert, you are comfortable with your own space. There are things I do in class I would never do anywhere else because it’s my space.”
Dauve said he greatly enjoys teaching economics because it is unlike any other subject, stressing that the discipline involves learning how to think rather than memorizing a set of information.
Andrea Woolverton, one of Dauve’s former students and teaching assistants, agreed.
“He requires and prompts you to think through new ideas,” she said. “Emphasizing really teaching students how to critically think and analyze a problem. He does not require you to agree with him, but rather he teaches the skill of thinking through something objectively.”
Woolverton, who now has her doctoral degree and works at the World Trade Organization as an agriculture policy analyst for the USDA, said Dauve’s teaching was imperative to her doing her job now, and she appreciates his influence as her adviser and him being her mentor today.
Woolverton was an undergraduate student who majored in agricultural economics and business and minored in biology and chemistry. A few study abroad trips rounded out her academic career, and she still graduated in four years because Dauve was able to organize her education and make it the most beneficial for her.
“He is subtle, and always encouraging,” she said. “He didn’t look at you like you were crazy when you came in with a different idea. He helped you think through it so you could think through other things.”
One of Woolverton’s stories from being a teaching assistant is when a student came into the office for help with the class and vented a few frustrations, unaware that Dauve was lying out of sight on the floor due to some back trouble. Woolverton was impressed that Dauve didn’t take the complaints personally.
“Jan doesn’t have an ego,” she said. “He just wants the best for his students.”
Dauve certainly is focused on teaching students how to think and making a difference in his students’ lives.
“The main thing is anyone I can help think better,” he said. “Economics is about decision making and 'how do I think better, how do I make better decisions.' If you think about it globally, if people in America make better decisions then the country will be more successful.”
As a fisherman
Fishing is one of Dauve’s favorite hobbies and the topic comes up often as an example in class. The St. Louis Cardinals and MU basketball are also favorites, but fishing takes the cake.
“He’s a true economist,” Woolverton said. “The thing people don’t understand in the class is that it is a way of thinking. He applies it to fishing: he’s got mapped out a technical way of fishing for what time and what places. He can relate economics to anything: football, art major, whatever. It’s a fantastic skill to have. And it’s funny because it plays out in his fishing, his hobby.”
Joel Dauve, Dauve’s 30-year-old nephew and fishing partner, said getting ready for a fishing trip is intense, thorough and economic.
Dauve and his nephew take three to four fishing trips a year. Joel Dauve said there are several things he enjoys about fishing with his uncle. One is the unlimited patience and generosity.
“He brings everything we need collectively,” Joel said. “He doesn’t mind when I get his lure tangled up and lose it, or the more novice fisherman things I do.”
Fishing is a Dauve family pastime. His family greatly influenced his love of the outdoors. He remembers going to the Missouri River, which was about four miles from his house, to where the world was just a little more wild to explore, simply sit or fish.
“There was an uncle, everyone’s favorite uncle, who was rather rough around the edges,” Dauve said. “He fished and hunted regularly. Growing up and going to school, I’d see him on weekends. But I could spend more time during the summer and go fishing. Then it became a habit for whenever I got the chance.”
Dauve’s parents were also avid fisherpeople, Joel Dauve recalls. The couple taught Joel’s father and uncle the love of fishing.
“It’s the one place I can forget about work,” Dauve said. “When I’m fishing, it doesn’t even cross my mind.”
As a jokester
Megan Twellman, a current teaching assistant for Dauve and president of the Ag Economics Club, said one of the most memorable things about Dauve is his humor.
“He is a jokester,” Twellman said.
A few semesters ago, Dauve and his two current teaching assistants decided to play a prank on Twellman. When it was payday, Dauve and his accomplices took Twellman’s pay stub and made it look like she never got paid because her hours were being questioned. They used white-out to hide what her pay was and wrote a note on the paystub. At first glance, Twellman was freaked out, but once she had collected her thoughts, she realized this was all a joke.
“He’s got the kind of shyer sense of humor but [is] quite witty and bright,” Woolverton said.
Joel Dauve also enjoys his uncle’s love of life.
“He really is as fun-loving a guy as he seems in class,” Joel Dauve said. “And as intelligent.”
Dauve is much more than just a professor. He enjoys what he teaches and has made it part of his normal day in a way that also enhances his zest for the outdoors and life in general.
“He is a personable person when you get down to it,” Woolverton said. “He stays grounded. He knows how to have fun, knows how to laugh, all those things that can get lost in professional development. At the end of the day, [Dauve] just laughs and eats fish.”
