Prospector

Issue date: 4/17/06 Section: Campus Life

Professor Kay Sims

Many students find Kay Sims to be one of the most interesting professors at Yuba College. Lately, Sims is doing something to make herself even more interesting, if that's possible. Sims sent an application along with a funny tape of one day in her life to the producers of "The Biggest Loser," a reality-based television show on NBC. She hopes to be considered as a contestant on the weight loss program.

Sims teaches nutrition, along with early childhood education and parenting, and says the producers of the show will pick her "if they want a college professor, in her late fifties, who teaches nutrition and doesn't take her own advice." She says that her downfall to losing weight is portable sweets like cookies and brownies, and she enjoys gourmet food and deserts.

Sims is one of the two professors who have the most seniority at Yuba College, having been employed by the district since 1970. Her teaching techniques may seem odd to some, but there is a method to all the madness, and with the crazy life she has led, there is no wonder why she may seem a bit quirky.

"I was a hippy when I was younger," said Sims. When she first applied to work at Yuba she had long hair that she describes as "hippy hair," and in those days an applicant could not get hired with hair like that, so she wore a wig to her interview.

When the staff saw her after she was hired without her wig on, they thought that her long hair was the wig. She does not have long hair anymore, but students can still see some hippy remnants in how she dresses and her unusual teaching techniques.

At the beginning of every semester Sims hands out little pieces of paper to all her students, each with squares with the meeting dates of the class in them. At the beginning of every class she uses a hole punch to punch out the date on the card, but students only get a punch if they are early or on time. Her students may get a grade at the end of the semester that reflects the number of punches their cards received. Also, if they do not miss more than one day of class, they don't have to take the final.

Sims manages her classes how she would want a class to be if she were a student. Because she does not like to grade papers, Sims grades most of the homework in class, and doesn't assign many papers. She doesn't like to take tests herself, so she has little quizzes in class as an alternative to big cumulative tests. Her classes include movies, guest speakers, and group discussions because she doesn't think that students learn as much from lectures.

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