Three Penn profs tape lectures for 'Teaching Company' series

If you missed a lecture in History Professor Thomas Childers' class on Nazi Germany, don't worry -- you might be able to buy a tape for $49.95 from The Teaching Company. Childers and fellow History professors Alan Kors and Bruce Kuklick have all taped several lectures for the company to sell to the public. The company -- which sells taped lectures through a catalog -- says its purpose is to "identify the best teachers in the country, and to make them available to everyone." The Penn professors traveled to Georgetown University and lectured for more than two days before a live audience. "It was great for me because the cameras were unobtrusive and there were real people there to talk to," Childers said. "It wasn't like a studio." Following the taping, the audience members had an opportunity to ask questions of the professors. Childers was one of the first professors in the nation who Teaching Company President Tom Rollins contacted about taping a course. He provided eight lectures on "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" but admitted that he "didn't think this was gonna fly." Childers said he was paid "royally," but he didn't think the program was financially sound. He said the company "didn't sound like a money-maker." Nevertheless, after his taping, Childers suggested Rollins contact Kors and Kuklick. Kors taped an eight-lecture course on "The 17th Century Mind" and another eight-lecture course on "The Enlightenment." The Teaching Company incorporated several of his lectures into a larger series -- a survey of Western thought from the Greeks to the present. This series has been advertised in several national publications. "It was more than enjoyable once I got over my discomfort over having three cameras aimed at me and someone holding up cards letting me know how much time I had left," Kors said. He said he had to take a different spin on the lectures he delivered for The Teaching Company, departing from his usual practices with Penn students. "The challenge of the lectures was that, unlike a college course, you could not assume any readings were done by the listeners, so you would have to impart the content of what students at Penn, by contrast, would have read," Kors said. Rollins served as chief counsel and chief of staff to the United States Senate Committee on Labor and Human Resources before leaving government to found The Teaching Company in 1989. Since 1990, his company has produced more than 80 courses in subjects ranging from "Plato, Socrates, and the Dialogues" to "Using Literature to Understand the Human Side of Medicine." The cost of the tapes -- starting at $49.95 for audio tapes and $149.95 for video tapes -- goes to pay for the cost of recording the course, producing the tapes and paying the salaries of employees. The company advertises a money-back guarantee for all its tapes, stating in a catalog that "when you disagree with our judgment and are unhappy with a course, you can exchange it for another or we can refund your money promptly."

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