Timothy Boyd, of the Classics Department, is one of the best professors I've had at UB. He teaches upper-level Latin and Greek, World Civ, and Classics courses.

I always hated the study of languages -- so much rote memorization without practical application is the sort of thing that absolutely turns me off. I hated the thought of taking Latin 202, but I had to do so for my major. When the class began, however, I was amazed. Boyd, who is fluent in over 14 languages, made a point not to force his students to stay up late at night memorizing charts of verb declensions or vocabulary lists for tests. Instead, he immediately began to teach us techniques of how to "break apart" words, so that one could go through and translate them without ever having looked up a definition. He also taught us how to see many Latin words which had been passed on to English, which exponentially enhances one's English vocabulary.

Boyd, who came to UB from Harvard in 1999 with his wife, Carolyn Higbie, takes the notion of "positive encouragement" to a whole new level. By the end of the first class, he had every single student's name memorized, and for the first several weeks, as the class ended, and students left, he would address each one by name and mention something specific that student had done well that particular class period.

Seeing as our class, which was originally supposed to be MWF at noon, had been bumped up to 8:30 in the morning because of a scheduling conflict, Boyd often brought in doughnuts for everyone as breakfast.

Boyd often refers to himself as "your Uncle Timothy," and when the class seems to be getting dry and tedious, he will stop going over material for a few moments, and like your real favorite uncle, tell you the story of something ridiculous that happened to him in the past, or about some character he had met.

He is probably a little bit more conventional in a large lecture hall World Civ setting, but I am sure there are certain parts of Uncle Timothy's nature which will always shine through.