The country knows Barack Obama: the presidential candidate.
 

But what about Barack Obama: the professor?
 

Before he was a political rockstar, Obama taught law at the University of Chicago, but he was no ordinary professor.

The New York Times paints a picture of Professor Obama:

The young law professor stood apart in too many ways to count. At a school where economic analysis was all the rage, he taught rights, race and gender. Other faculty members dreamed of tenured positions; he turned them down. While most colleagues published by the pound, he never completed a single work of legal scholarship.

Obama came to the school in 1991 and eventually became a senior lecturer, teaching three classes. His courses were on due process and equal protection areas of constitutional law, voting rights and the evolution of election law, and an original class on racism and law.
 

If these sound like the concerns of a politician, it’s because they are.

“He tested his ideas in classrooms,” said Dennis Hutchinson, a colleague. Every seminar hour brought a new round of, “Is affirmative action justified? Under what circumstances?” as Hutchinson put it.

But though Obama’s classes were popular and he was well-liked, he certainly had his detractors.
Some felt he cared more about his own political career than the school. And as we all know, he eventually did choose politics over teaching.
 

After Obama suffered an embarrassing loss during a campaign for Congress, the University of Chicago offered him every professor’s dream: tenure. It would be stability, more money and a job for Michelle.

Your political career is dead, Daniel Fischel, then the dean, said he told Obama, gently.

Daniel Fischel must be kicking himself now. But Obama didn’t listen to him anyway. In fact, two years later he quit, and headed for the Senate.
 

Gone was Obama the professor. And now we may just see Obama the president.

PHOTO CREDIT: Obama for America