by Susan Griffith

On September 12, 2001, Jutta Ittner walked into her first-year German class and knew she had to put aside the day's lesson plans.

Jutta Ittner

When the United States went to war against Iraq, she had a similar experience this semester with her German 381 students in the course, "Munich-Berlin: A Study of Urban Culture."

Her ability to relate to her students, discuss such events as these and make them relevant to classroom work earned Ittner, assistant professor of German and comparative literatures, the 2003 Carl F. Wittke Award for outstanding undergraduate teaching.

Ittner grew up in Munich, Germany, in the aftermath of the Nazis and saw what happens when war, evil and hatred exist. She said her father was a Nazi and had "known nothing but violence."

"I am from a generation who wants to turn things around for myself, my daughter and everyone else," she added.

After 9-11 and the beginning of the war this year, she gave her students a minute to pause from the media blitz of towers billowing smoke or tanks rolling across the desert to reflect upon how "if you meet violence with violence, you are part of the cycle."

She said she knows that her position as a teacher carries authority with the students and never wants to dictate to them about how they should feel about the war.

At the beginning of the war with Iraq, Ittner moved a lesson plan up by several weeks. She showed students the film, "The First Summer in Peacetime," made by two American GIs. The soldiers roamed the streets of Berlin in 1945 to document how Berliners were rebuilding their lives.

She points out one poignant scene of a little boy, carrying a satchel, looking for someone among the rubble that once was his city.

"This is what it is like to breathe in a place that has been in war," Ittner said.

She hopes that her students would come to understand why Germany did not want to unite with the Americans in their fight against Iraq.

"I wanted to offer something to these students that each can add to more of the puzzle of the world that they are putting together," she said.

While she had finished one doctoral dissertation in German studies at Munich University, she never completed her degree and instead taught for a number of years in the gymnasium (for students 10-20 years old) in Munich.

She came to CWRU in 1992 as a lecturer. Currently she teaches all levels of German.

During her first years at CWRU, faculty members in the department of modern languages and literatures encouraged her to complete her doctorate. She wrote another dissertation, which centered on the Jewish exile writer-physician Martin Gumpert, a contemporary of Thomas Mann.

She currently has a book-in-progress that explores the writings of the Brigitte Kronauer. Kronauer's work has led Ittner to her third major project—an exploration of how humans depict animals in literature.

In the fall, she will teach her first English-speaking class, which will be a University seminar in the SAGES program that will examine Berlin as a place of private and collective memories.

This spring semester's Munich-Berlin class, which was conducted totally in German, was a pilot of the seminar class that was developed with a Glennan Fellowship.

Since coming to CWRU, she said the department has been extremely supportive of her efforts to integrate new offerings for students interested in German classes.

She has developed a three-week summer study Munich Program and has established the Max-Kade Workshop, which brings visiting scholars or artists to CWRU for two-week seminars.

In September, Ittner has invited filmmaker and author Harald Friedl from Salzburg to campus for a German cinema course, "Reconstructing Reality," about German, Austrian and Swiss documentaries and historical films.

This year was the third time that Ittner was nominated for the excellence in undergraduate teaching award.

Created in 1964, the Carl F. Wittke Award is named for Carl F. Wittke, who from 1948-1963 was a professor of history, chairman of that department and a vice president of Western Reserve University. He was a leader in the intellectual life of the University.

All faculty members who teach undergraduates are eligible for the annual award. A committee of students interviews faculty members whom undergraduates nominate for the award and recommends winners.

The awards, which carry a cash prize, are presented in the spring at CWRU's annual undergraduate diploma ceremony.

 

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