One telltale sign of an effective educator: Alumni are still talking about you half-a-hundred years after commencement.
Exhibit A: Joe Wenzel, as described here in 2020 by Chicago broadcast journalism legend and 1997 Chicago Illini of the Year Carol Marin:
“Joe was not only my professor but my debate coach. He still lives there with his wife Patricia and back in the day, they would host our team at their home," Marin says.
“Joe taught me so much from Aristotle's Rhetorica to how to frame an argument. And he did so with so much ease and humor.
“After one tournament on campus, I also remember we all celebrated at my apartment — over the shoe repair shop next door to Stan's, down the street from Kam's — and Joe marked the end of that debate competition by doing a headstand in the middle of my very small living room. It was quite impressive.
“Those of us who are privileged to have been Joe's students and debaters still gather with him and Patricia from time to time for a dinner in Chicago to tell old war stories and remind him of all that he meant to us.”
