Two BYU professors top ‘hottest’ teacher ranking
Jeff Hill, left, and Jim Brau pose for a portrait with their financial calculators Tuesday, Sept. 27, 2016, outside the N. Eldon Tanner Building on the campus of Brigham Young University in Provo. Hill is a professor in the School of Family Life, and Brau, also a former Army Ranger, is the Joel C. Peterson Professor of Finance. ISAAC HALE, Daily Herald
Jeff Hill, left, and Jim Brau pose for a portrait with their financial calculators Tuesday, Sept. 27, 2016, outside the N. Eldon Tanner Building on the campus of Brigham Young University in Provo. Hill is a professor in the School of Family Life, and Brau, also a former Army Ranger, is the Joel C. Peterson Professor of Finance. ISAAC HALE, Daily Herald
Jeff Hill, left, and Jim Brau pose for a portrait with their financial calculators Tuesday, Sept. 27, 2016, outside the N. Eldon Tanner Building on the campus of Brigham Young University in Provo. Hill is a professor in the School of Family Life, and Brau, also a former Army Ranger, is the Joel C. Peterson Professor of Finance. ISAAC HALE, Daily Herald
Jeff Hill, left, and Jim Brau pose for a portrait with their financial calculators Tuesday, Sept. 27, 2016, outside the N. Eldon Tanner Building on the campus of Brigham Young University in Provo. Hill is a professor in the School of Family Life, and Brau, also a former Army Ranger, is the Joel C. Peterson Professor of Finance. ISAAC HALE, Daily Herald
Jeff Hill, left, and Jim Brau pose for a portrait with their financial calculators Tuesday, Sept. 27, 2016, outside the N. Eldon Tanner Building on the campus of Brigham Young University in Provo. Hill is a professor in the School of Family Life, and Brau, also a former Army Ranger, is the Joel C. Peterson Professor of Finance. ISAAC HALE, Daily Herald
Jeff Hill, left, and Jim Brau pose for a portrait with their financial calculators Tuesday, Sept. 27, 2016, outside the N. Eldon Tanner Building on the campus of Brigham Young University in Provo. Hill is a professor in the School of Family Life, and Brau, also a former Army Ranger, is the Joel C. Peterson Professor of Finance. ISAAC HALE, Daily Herald
Jeff Hill, left, and Jim Brau pose for a portrait with their financial calculators Tuesday, Sept. 27, 2016, outside the N. Eldon Tanner Building on the campus of Brigham Young University in Provo. Hill is a professor in the School of Family Life, and Brau, also a former Army Ranger, is the Joel C. Peterson Professor of Finance. ISAAC HALE, Daily Herald
Brigham Young University professors Jim Brau and Jeff Hill are more than just a pair of pretty faces.
For this year, they’re also award winners.
Brau, a finance professor, and Hill, a professor in the School of Family Life who teaches Fundamentals of Family Finance, top this year’s ratemyprofessors.com national “Hottest Professors” list, with Brau taking the top spot and Hill taking second.
Ratemyprofessors.com allows students to anonymously rate their professors. When students rate a professor, they have the option to give them a chili pepper if they find them attractive. The chili pepper “hotness” awards are calculated taking the sum of the positive and negative ratings.
“I’ve thought very carefully about this, and clearly, the driving factor of hotness in the country is financial calculator skills. It’s clear,” Brau said. “My own wife took Jeff Hill’s class and gave him a pepper because of his financial calculator skills.”
The ranking came as a surprise to 47-year-old Brau, a former Army Ranger who hits the gym twice daily, once in the morning for weightlifting, and usually once in the evening for cardio. A package of Hot Tamales is tacked outside his door, and inside his office, he has an exercise bike, a dumbbell, a hand squeezer and an exercise ball to keep in shape when reading through research. He works out at a local gym, and pays for a guest pass so he can have office hours there for students that want mentoring. Last semester, his schedule was completely booked.
While some professors are wary of the ranking website, Brau said it’s invaluable when students are picking their classes. In the past few years, he’s encouraged students to rate him online and has used it for feedback to see if his tests are too difficult, or if he teaches too slow or fast.
“It can be painful to go on it, to be brutally honest, because students who are mad can vent anonymously,” he said.
He’s been reviewed nearly 3,000 times on the site and has a rating of 4.1 in overall quality out of 5. He offers a small amount of extra credit for students who rate him, and said it gives better feedback than on the official university evaluations.
Brau’s a busy guy outside of class, too. He serves as the faculty sponsor for the Veteran’s Club, the Boxing Club, the Handball Club and the Armenian Student Association and has previously been the faculty sponsor for the Waffle Club and the Tuxedo Club.
As a veteran who comes from a family of military service, he said he’s loosened up over the years, but is still a champion for the honor code.
“I stress the honor code very, very heavily in my class,” Brau said. “Don’t cheat. Maintain your integrity.”
For Hill, who has 23 grandchildren, the ranking also came as a surprise. When he found out about the rating, he said he laughed out loud, and then kept on laughing.
“I am obviously not hot,” Hill said. “The only explanation I have is that maybe, spiritually I’m hot.”
Last year, his teacher’s assistant sent an email out to students that said Hill had always wanted a chili pepper with his rating. After students flooded the website with reviews, she told him to pull up his rating in class. When he saw the chili pepper with his name, he said it brought tears to his eyes.
Hill learned from students that they’ll check out a professor’s ratings before taking a class to see if it will be a good fit for them. He offers an extra credit point, on the honor system, if they rate him, so he can get feedback.
“They have a lot of good ideas and they’ve helped me improve my class a lot,” Hill said.
In Fundamentals of Family Finance, which teaches students concepts such as how to create a budget, he uses real world scenarios for his assignments and challenges his students to have a budget every month. It’s a second career for him after he realized he wanted to influence young people to do good and be financially responsible. His research is on finding harmony in work and family and on the financial capability and independence of emerging adults.
To keep that chili pepper rating, he works out every day, which includes walking and going to the gym.
“I say my prayers every morning walking up to the Bonneville Shoreline Trail,” Hill said.
While he wouldn’t reveal his real age, he’s “re-aged” himself after reading an article that said people who pretend to be younger have improved cognitive and physical abilities. His re-evaluated age is 52.
“According to my false birth certificate, I’m older,” Hill said.
They’re both skeptical if they’ll be able to hold on to their top hotness rankings, but for now, are embracing it.
“I am honored to carry the torch,” Brau said. “I’m sure next year someone who is younger and hotter will take it from me. Maybe Jeff Hill, who is older and hotter, will take it from me.”
