Academic cowboy
Philosophy professor to pass the reins after 38 years in teaching

By Melissa Christensen
Staff Reporter

In Ted Klein’s home office, a sculpture of an aged, overworked cowboy boot rests atop a bookcase bulging with German philosophy books, a tangible symbol of his contradictory interests.

A seasoned rancher in Bosque County, Klein holds a doctorate from Rice University with an emphasis in the complicated modern continental philosophies of Germans like Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger.

Colleagues describe Klein, who will retire from TCU as a professor of philosophy on May 31, as a philosopher cowboy.

Honors Program Director Kathryne McDorman said the two sides of Klein are an unexpected combination.

“You don’t find many people who teach Heidegger in cowboy boots,” McDorman said.

A reception in Klein’s honor will be at 4 p.m. Tuesday in the Faculty Center on the second floor of Reed Hall.

Klein has worn his boots and bolo since 1963 to teach courses like critical reasoning, continental thought, ethics in health care and cowboy metaphysics.

“I hardly ever wear a suit and tie: only to church, weddings and funerals,” Klein said.

He said his cowboy persona naturally developed from living in Fort Worth all his life. After attending local public schools and graduating from TCU in 1955, only nine years of his life were spent outside of Cowtown. Three were at Yale Divinity School and six in Houston, first as a minister and then as a graduate student at Rice.

Gregg Franzwa, chairman of the philosophy department, said Klein is a Texas gentleman.

“He has always stood as the ideal Texas individualist,” Franzwa said. “He is a steady force for rationality and goodness and is, of course, tremendously polite and extraordinarily gentle with people.”

During his TCU career, Klein has served as Honors Program director, philosophy department chairman, Faculty Senate chairman and member of the Health Professions Advisory Committee.

Franzwa said Klein has provided a tremendous amount of service to the university and the community.

“It’s hard for (Klein) to say no to people when they want to put him on a committee,” he said.

Klein has served on several hospital ethics committees, most recently at Plaza Medical Center. He said he will continue that post because he enjoys reviewing individual cases to assist hospitals in making policies.

Klein’s commitment to the university was recognized in 1973 when he received the Honors Faculty Recognition Award, an award McDorman describes as the student’s recognition of a professor’s commitment to the intellectual life of the university.

McDorman said the Divisional Honors Sequence in Humanities that Klein established during his term as the program’s director from 1968 to 1972 was an important precedent to the current interdisciplinary courses offered.

“It was one of the most imaginative classes TCU had seen at that point,” she said. “He set the standard that continues to this day.”

After Klein left his honors post to serve as department chair for the next nine years, he continued to support the program by providing philosophy faculty for honors courses and advising succeeding directors, McDorman said.

“The bottom line is that Ted Klein has always stood for building a tradition of excellence,” she said.

Klein said he plans to continue teaching courses at TCU, including the cowboy metaphysics course. He said although he originally suggested the course as a joke, it was well-received by the students and the department.

He also said Brite Divinity School associate dean David Gouwens asked him to teach a religious philosophy course, but details are tentative.

Franzwa expects Klein to teach indefinitely at TCU and surrounding universities.

“(Klein’s) main focus has always been teaching,” he said. “He is a born teacher. He will always be doing it.”

Franzwa said Klein’s retirement was a moralistic stand rather than a necessary decision.

“I think (Klein) is leaving primarily to give some younger philosopher a chance at the job,” he said.

Franzwa said Klein’s legacy to the philosophy department is the personification of the model chairman and the appreciation of the best part of the TCU tradition.

“(Klein) has just always been here,” he said. “He is the philosophy department. It’s hard to imagine the department without him.”

Klein and his wife, Wini, live in Fort Worth. They have three children and four grandchildren. He said he plans to write several articles and to devote more time to raising Angus cattle on his ranch.

Melissa Christensen
m.s.christense@student.tcu.edu