Five classes is just right for Anderson
Having students learn is Andy Anderson’s first priority.
He said sometimes there are scheduling problems and students can’t attend each lecture. That’s why Utah State University’s only anatomy teacher has each of his lectures tape-recorded and lecture notes made available for purchase.
Anderson’s book of lecture notes is twice as long as one would suppose. This is because notes are only printed on the left page so students can take their own supplemental notes on all of the right pages, just to make classes a little more enjoyable.
“Anybody who’s gone through college has had courses they didn’t like,” Anderson said. “I could count on one hand [the professors who were] wonderful mentors.”
He said he resolved to teach better than he was taught in college.
Anderson said one example of this is his use of undergraduate aides who volunteer and are basically a herd of free tutors.
“These are things I wish I had,” he said.
His love for biology started quite awhile ago.
“It’s safer to say I was always interested in biological science,” Anderson said.
He said animals and the structure of the human body have always been a source of intrigue, and has followed a course throughout life that has allowed him to study both fields.
After doing undergraduate work at Ventura Community College and the University of the Pacific in California, Anderson joined the Army as a volunteer from 1971-1973 where he was trained in all degrees of microbiology.
Learning to recognize tuberculosis, performing fertility testing and testing animal heads for rabies that arrived from around the United States were some of his duties while stationed in San Francisco, Calif.
Anderson received the G.I. Bill upon his release from the Army and went on to pursue a master’s degree at Iowa State University. He earned his doctorate from Creighton University in Omaha, Neb., and then made his way to USU to teach in 1983.
His first job at USU was to train students to work in hospital laboratories. He said it was sad to see the program canceled in 1995, but USU has been designing programs other than medicine because the University of Utah provides the nearest complete medical program.
Being the principal lecturer for the biology department, Anderson is the prehealth adviser and now teaches five courses – human anatomy, human physiology, elementary microbiology, human dissection and bioethics.
“I like to teach different classes because each gives me a different view of the human body,” he said.
One view of the human body can be obtained through Anderson’s human dissection class. He said approximately 1,000 high school and 500 college students visit the dissection lab, located in the Biology and Natural Resources Building, Room 320.
The lab houses seven cadavers, each of which was purchased from the University of Utah. Cadavers are replaced each year and each costs $1,150 – well worth it, Anderson said.
Having cadavers made available to students gives students heading to medical school a head start.
“We want students to learn [on a dead person] so they don’t make a mess on a living person,” Anderson said.
He said cadavers are usually dead for about six months before coming to USU and specified they wanted their bodies donated to science for study and research.
Anderson’s advice for students pursuing any career is they need to decide what they really want. Of course, students want to explore.
“But sometime you have to settle down [on something],” he said.