Retired professor reflects on student-oriented profession

By Jamie Teibel
Summer Editor

In 1953, Paul Simms earned a graduate degree from Purdue and returned to campus in 1964 to teach. "I loved being a Purdue professor," he said. "Students are great fun to work with." From 1972 to 1995 he was the director of the Purdue nuclear accelerator laboratory, doing a lot of research and working with students. "I loved going to class to teach," he said. "I love giving people something useful and they loved getting it."

Although Paul Simms is now a retired physics professor, he plans to continue teaching through ministry. As his wife said, he just stopped getting a salary, he didn’t stop teaching.

Simms said there are many opportunities in ministry. For example, he wants to teach people about the creation of the world by looking at scientific evidence that suggests the work didn't happen by accident; it had to have a creator. While at Purdue, Simms taught what he calls "practical electronics." He wants to teach it to those who are going overseas as missionaries.

Besides having time for ministry, Simms is happy he retired because he can focus on the things he didn’t have time for while he was a professor, such as spending more time with his children and grandchildren. He describes himself as healthy, with lots of energy. He goes hiking with his grandchildren, takes them to the zoo, the Children's Museum and Tropicanoe Cove as often a he can.

As much as he loves being a grandpa, Simms also loved being part of Purdue's faculty. He and his wife worked with student organizations and were faculty fellows. "We did a lot of fun things to be with the students outside of the classroom," he said. "The amazing thing is, even though we loved being at Purdue, we now have the chance to do other things we never had time for."

Simms wants his students and colleagues to remember him as someone who enjoyed them. He said he is thankful for the students and the things they have gone on to do. "I'd like them to know that I really enjoyed them. I really liked them and I'm very thankful for them," he said. He even gets calls from them asking for guidance about personal and professional issues. He appreciates the chance he got to get to know them and contribute to their lives.

He attributes a lot of those contributions to the nuclear physics lab where he and his students performed research. He said that a lot of students worked there, providing them with income as well as experience. "I wanted the students to have the experience of working with real science, not just in the classroom." Simms said several hundred graduate and undergraduate students worked at that lab.

Bob Santini, a professor in the chemistry department, said he sent many students and staff members to take Simms' course. He said the course made it possible for students to design and build everything they use. He said that he can see the results of Simms' course in the their work today. "Paul is an example of a first rate teacher," he said. "I think he was one of those people who had a sense of communication. His course expresses that."

Andrew Hirsch, head of the department of physics, said Simms was an outstanding professor, excellent researcher and dedicated teacher who truly cared about students. "He developed a course in electronics that will be greatly missed and will never be reproduced with the kind of care and attention that he was willing to devote to students."

Santini said, "I really have a lot of respect for anyone who can take a course like that and essentially teach them (students) to be independent. They will use those concepts their entire professional careers."

Simms said his fondest memory of Purdue is meeting his wife while in graduate school. He considers earning the Spira Award for Excellence in Teaching, his greatest accomplishment. Simms won the award in 1990 for his excellence in teaching undergraduate physics.