\u201cImagine a Nicholls student at Mozart\u2019s keyboard in Salzburg,\u201d he says, as if conjuring from a crystal ball, \u201cor a science student at the Tower of Pisa or an art major in the Sistine Chapel. That\u2019s what Nicholls Europe is all about.\u201d<\/p>\n
The crystal ball, of course, is a world globe, the conjurings are memories of traveling students, and the magic of it all is seeing the lives of those students change before his eyes. Barnidge\u2019s own life changes, too. Each year he returns from Nicholls Europe with \u201cinstant rejuvenation\u201d and new, firsthand experiences to share in his lectures. One year, he returned with a historical European tradition that has become iconic at Nicholls \u2014 bicycling to work.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s my forced exercise,\u201d says Barnidge, who has biked the streets of Amsterdam and Paris. Most mornings, however, he can be found on a red bicycle riding across Ardoyne Drive to campus from his home in the Thibodaux Country Club.<\/p>\n
Getting it under his fingernails<\/h3>\n
Early in life, Barnidge began to appreciate history and tradition. The red-haired boy was born and raised on the banks of the similarly colored Red River in Alexandria \u2014 not far from the site of Bailey\u2019s Dam, the infamous log and rock structure that raised the river and permitted the Union Navy\u2019s retreat in 1864. He remembers digging as a child, hoping to find bullets and other Civil War artifacts buried in the red soil.<\/p>\n
At colleges in the \u201960s, \u201cdigging history\u201d had multiple meanings. For Barnidge, it meant taking that childhood fascination into the archives at Louisiana State University, where the subject of his master\u2019s thesis was G. Mason Graham, father of that university. He completed the thesis alongside renowned professor T. Harry Williams, whose own research on Huey Long became a Pulitzer Prize-winning biography.<\/p>\n
How important was that mentorship? \u201cIf you\u2019d heard T. Harry Williams lecture, then you\u2019d know what I\u2019m talking about,\u201d Barnidge says. \u201cHe just moved an audience.\u201d Not ironically, those who have heard Barnidge lecture know exactly what he\u2019s talking about.<\/p>\n
A thing for red-bricked buildings<\/h3>\n![\"Barnidge\"](\"https:\/\/www.nicholls.edu\/magazine\/files\/2013\/02\/barnidge-office-001-540x360.jpg\")
<\/a>James Barnidge has led 39 Nicholls Europe trips and taught history to more than 36,000 Nicholls students.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nGrowing up just a stone\u2019s throw from the red brick facade of Louisiana College\u2019s Alexandria Hall in Pineville, Barnidge found himself facing the similarly colored red brick facade of Nicholls State College\u2019s Elkins Hall in September 1966.<\/p>\n
Over the next four decades, Barnidge taught many sessions of 16 different history, humanities and art courses, inventing six of them along the way. In addition, he served for several years as acting department head and assistant to the dean. Despite retirement in November 2005 after 39 years, he has remained a volunteer lecturer to classrooms filled to their brims.<\/p>\n
Why? Simply because he wants to. \u201cBeing a teacher is what I am, and I want to do it,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
Still? After four decades? \u201cYou know what the secret is? You gotta want it. It\u2019s gotta move you. It\u2019s not a job. It\u2019s something you\u2019re deeply interested in. And students can tell.\u201d<\/p>\n
One such student was Chef John Folse. During the fall 2011 commencement, Folse received an honorary doctorate. That evening, as Barnidge recalls, Folse called to thank him for stimulating his interest in Louisiana history and, consequently, the traditionalist aspect of his company and career.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt blew my mind,\u201d Barnidge says. \u201cThat he would think about me \u2014 driving back home in the dark after he got an honorary degree, thinking enough to call his teacher and say, \u2018Thank you\u2019 \u2014 that\u2019s what makes it all worthwhile.\u201d<\/p>\n
Crunching the numbers<\/h3>\n
Twelve to 18 credit hours per semester, up to 45 credits per year, as many as 80 individuals per three-credit class, 800 to 1,000 individuals per year, for 46 years. It sounds like financial analysis. But that wouldn\u2019t be odd to Barnidge, who earned his undergraduate degree in finance and economics from LSU. In fact, his first professional job was as a cost analyst for Kaiser Aluminum in Baton Rouge. He never intended to teach \u2014 much less history, which he studied for fun \u2014 but a kind boss at Kaiser encouraged him.<\/p>\n
Thus, his second professional job, begun only a year later, was teaching history at Nicholls, a job he\u2019s held for 46 consecutive years. Based on the numbers, Barnidge has taught more than 36,000 Nicholls students, many more than any other teacher ever at this university. And if these numbers were indeed financial analysis, they would represent a pretty good return on investment \u2014 one with a balance most certainly not \u201cin the red.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Barnidge, it\u2019s not a job. Although no crystal ball could have predicted the grand celestial coincidence of red hair, red river, red dirt, red bricks, red bicycle and red mascot, his Nicholls career has certainly been in harmony with the music of the spheres.<\/p>\n
And like clockwork, Barnidge has now returned home from Europe for the 39th time. It seems appropriate that the man who presented so much of the world to so many in the Nicholls community has created his own world: When he next bicycles to campus, he\u2019ll be departing his home in the Country Club, a community he helped grow, in a parish under a Home Rule Charter he helped author and in a state under a constitution he helped draft.<\/p>\n
How could we ever believe that he\u2019d leave for good?<\/p>\n
<\/a>Growing up just a stone\u2019s throw from the red brick facade of Louisiana College\u2019s Alexandria Hall in Pineville, Barnidge found himself facing the similarly colored red brick facade of Nicholls State College\u2019s Elkins Hall in September 1966.<\/p>\n
Over the next four decades, Barnidge taught many sessions of 16 different history, humanities and art courses, inventing six of them along the way. In addition, he served for several years as acting department head and assistant to the dean. Despite retirement in November 2005 after 39 years, he has remained a volunteer lecturer to classrooms filled to their brims.<\/p>\n
Why? Simply because he wants to. \u201cBeing a teacher is what I am, and I want to do it,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
Still? After four decades? \u201cYou know what the secret is? You gotta want it. It\u2019s gotta move you. It\u2019s not a job. It\u2019s something you\u2019re deeply interested in. And students can tell.\u201d<\/p>\n
One such student was Chef John Folse. During the fall 2011 commencement, Folse received an honorary doctorate. That evening, as Barnidge recalls, Folse called to thank him for stimulating his interest in Louisiana history and, consequently, the traditionalist aspect of his company and career.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt blew my mind,\u201d Barnidge says. \u201cThat he would think about me \u2014 driving back home in the dark after he got an honorary degree, thinking enough to call his teacher and say, \u2018Thank you\u2019 \u2014 that\u2019s what makes it all worthwhile.\u201d<\/p>\n
Crunching the numbers<\/h3>\n
Twelve to 18 credit hours per semester, up to 45 credits per year, as many as 80 individuals per three-credit class, 800 to 1,000 individuals per year, for 46 years. It sounds like financial analysis. But that wouldn\u2019t be odd to Barnidge, who earned his undergraduate degree in finance and economics from LSU. In fact, his first professional job was as a cost analyst for Kaiser Aluminum in Baton Rouge. He never intended to teach \u2014 much less history, which he studied for fun \u2014 but a kind boss at Kaiser encouraged him.<\/p>\n
Thus, his second professional job, begun only a year later, was teaching history at Nicholls, a job he\u2019s held for 46 consecutive years. Based on the numbers, Barnidge has taught more than 36,000 Nicholls students, many more than any other teacher ever at this university. And if these numbers were indeed financial analysis, they would represent a pretty good return on investment \u2014 one with a balance most certainly not \u201cin the red.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Barnidge, it\u2019s not a job. Although no crystal ball could have predicted the grand celestial coincidence of red hair, red river, red dirt, red bricks, red bicycle and red mascot, his Nicholls career has certainly been in harmony with the music of the spheres.<\/p>\n
And like clockwork, Barnidge has now returned home from Europe for the 39th time. It seems appropriate that the man who presented so much of the world to so many in the Nicholls community has created his own world: When he next bicycles to campus, he\u2019ll be departing his home in the Country Club, a community he helped grow, in a parish under a Home Rule Charter he helped author and in a state under a constitution he helped draft.<\/p>\n
How could we ever believe that he\u2019d leave for good?<\/p>\n