Dr. Frances Titchener believes education is all about collaboration.

"It's a partnership in which I make students do most of the work," she said.

"Being part of the discovery, seeing the light bulb go on -- that's a wonderful moment."

A professor of history and the classics at USU, Titchener gets "fired up" about teaching students. History, she said, can teach us a lot about ourselves, and starting with Chapter 1 in the history books makes perfect sense.

"People and their motivations, craving glory, the way governments behave . . . very little changes," she said.

A scholar of Plutarch, Titchener said his biography is the "best of all worlds."

"It's basic history in vivid color," she said. "Art, drama -- it allows me to study anything in the world I want to or work on any aspect of the ancient world."

Plutarch's writings on Nicias, who Titchener said was the wrong guy in the wrong place at the wrong time, are among her favorites.

"His name is synonymous with 'big dumb loser,'" she said. "In history it's always fun to side with the winners."

In a field with many thousands of years of human experience, the fun of history is learning how to solve a puzzle, she said. Taking bits and pieces of art, language and literature, historians are able to find a whole out of a collection with missing pieces.

Teaching at USU since 1987, Titchener said the role of a good teacher is to act as a motivator.

"When everybody's tired and there's still a long way to go, the leader is there to provide energy and an impetus for everyone," she said.

And while teaching means the day is "never, ever" over, it isn't something she'll be giving up anytime soon.

"I come out of classes always seeing different things," she said. "It's rare you find the perfect job the very first time. This is the ideal life."

-- PHOTO BY JOSH J. RUSSELL; TEXT BY BROOKE NELSON