After four or five years of classes, some students may struggle to recall courses they have taken. Remembering professors is equally as fruitless, but a certain professor seeks to buck this trend.

Frank T. Coulson is a professor in the department of Greek and Latin. He is a recipient of Ohio State’s Alumni Award for Distinguished Teaching. The Alumni Association gives $3,000 to each recipient.

The Ontario native received his bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees at Toronto University before coming to OSU where he has been a member of the faculty for 20 years.

“I was attracted to Ohio State because it had a strong classics program,” Coulson said.

Coulson teaches various courses based on the research he does. “First thing I teach is Medieval Latin, and the second thing I teach-I spent a lot of time developing-is an area called paleography,” he said.

Coulson describes paleography as “the study of documents written on parchment or paper primarily between 400 and 1600 A.D.” He is most interested in the production of the manuscripts and how people used them.

Paleography is a narrow field of research, and because of this, when teaching, Coulson said he does not have a regular textbook. As a result, he creates his own textbooks and has authored two books and written 30 academic articles.

Although studies of Medieval Latin and paleography are not available in textbook form, Coulson said this does not make them any less important.

“The reason why this is so important is that if you want to do any kind of original research, you obviously have to be able to read the documents in order to do it,” he said.

Throughout his time at OSU, Coulson has developed more courses in Medieval Latin studies and said doing so was not easy because of the lack of textbooks.

Despite this, the classes are quite popular and are usually filled to capacity.

“I think that one of the things that makes me really enthusiastic and keen as a teacher is the fact that I do a lot of research, and one of the things I like about my teaching situation is I can often combine the teaching with the research. So I think that makes me a little bit more excited, involved and engaged,” he said.

Coulson’s colleagues also think highly of him. David Hahm, professor and chair of the department of Greek and Latin, said, “I cannot think of a more deserving candidate.”

Professor June Allison said Coulson has good interaction with students and is adept at getting them to participate in class.

Coulson said his teaching style is “relatively rigorous” and opts for a very structured format for his lectures.

He said he prefers small classes to larger classes because they allow for textual analysis in the form of papers and essay tests, whereas larger classes usually rely on multiple-choice examinations.

Coulson usually teaches graduate classes but said he enjoys teaching undergraduate classes. He said the students are part of OSU’s appeal.

“One of the reasons that I like OSU is the quality of the students. I can say that sincerely – particularly at the graduate level,” he said.

Coulson said the students he has taught in the past differ greatly from the students he is teaching at the present.

“In the last honors class I taught, the difference was like night and day. These students were so tremendously well-prepared to the degree that I almost had to revise the whole course because I had anticipated teaching at a certain level,” he said.

Coulson said he enjoys teaching at OSU because it allows him to work within his area of expertise. He said if he taught at a smaller college he would have had to teach in areas in which he does not have as much knowledge.

For Coulson, the futures of Medieval Latin and paleography look especially bright because the courses have established themselves within the undergraduate and graduate curricula.

As the courses continue to gain notoriety among students, Coulson said he will still be able to come to work and do something that he takes great joy in teaching.

“One of the things that I said to a friend as he was grumbling about going to work at a company was that in one sense I’m kind of lucky because at least I have an enthusiasm about coming in to do the work,” he said.