Holocaust Specialist at Claremont Gains Professor of the Year Honor

John K. Roth, a philosophy professor at Claremont McKenna College who confronts students with ethical implications of the Nazi Holocaust, has been named the national Professor of the Year in a competition sponsored by two well-known organizations in higher education.

Roth, the son of a Presbyterian minister, was chosen for his research about the genocide of European Jewry and for his ability to make his students think carefully about moral dilemmas for years after they leave his classroom, according to judges who announced the award Thursday.

“The key criterion is evidence of a long term effect on students’ lives and careers,” said Sarah Hardesty, spokeswoman for the Council for Advancement and Support of Education, which began the annual contest in 1981. The winner receives $5,000 from the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.

Chairman of Department

Roth, 48, has been teaching at the small liberal arts college in Claremont since 1966 and is chairman of the Department of Philosophy and Religion there. Among his many writings are works on American philosopher William James and a 1979 book about Elie Wiesel, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate and author who survived a concentration camp.

“The Holocaust raises so many questions about human beings and what people can and will do to each other,” Roth said Thursday in a telephone interview from Washington, where he is researching a new book. “Many of the students at Claremont McKenna are headed for careers, like law, in which they will have certain kind of authority over the fates of other people.

“I just feel it’s important for them to know about this part of the 20th Century and be alert and sensitive to the dark sides such responsibilities can involve.”

His students say that Roth does not force conclusions on them but stresses the need to make thoughtful decisions. “They have to be prepared to take a stand for some things or they may wind up inadvertently being an accomplice to something that is very destructive . . . , “ Roth explained. “That is more important than remembering what Aristotle or Kant had to say.”

‘Outstanding Individual’

Rabbi Daniel Landes, director of educational projects at the Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies in Los Angeles, said he was “delighted” by Roth’s award. “To teach this Holocaust material, which is very threatening and very complex, and to teach it so it does not lose its threatening aspect and complexity, takes an outstanding individual like John Roth,” Landes said. He added that Roth, unlike some other Christian scholars, “never minimizes or distorts the authentic and ultimately Jewish nature of the Holocaust.”

Megan Scott-Kakures, a Los Angeles attorney who was graduated from Claremont McKenna in 1981, said her studies with Roth deeply influenced her. “When I face an ethical dilemma, I often think what would John think about this,” she said.

Roth sometimes upsets his students by asking them if God shares some of the blame for the Holocaust by creating the potential for evil in humans, said the Rev. Timothy Safford, an Episcopal priest in Pasadena who is a 1981 graduate of Claremont McKenna. “Most people want to apologize for God, but (Roth) would take God on,” said Safford, who described Roth as “easily the best” teacher he ever encountered.

Roth received his bachelor’s degree from Pomona College, Claremont McKenna’s sister school in the Claremont Colleges consortium. He earned M.A. and Ph.D degrees from Yale University. He said he and his wife are not sure of how they will spend the $5,000 award but “there is some talk of putting a hot tub in the back yard.”

Nearly 500 Nominated

He and nearly 500 other professors were nominated for the honor by their own campuses, and two panels of scholars, administrators and students made the final choices, officials said. Twenty-six other professors were named runners-up, divided among three categories: gold, silver and bronze medalists. Winners were also named Thursday for each state.

This years’ California Professor of the Year and a national gold medalist is Norman Jacobson, a political scientist at UC Berkeley. Jacobson, 65, has taught at Berkeley since 1951.