Magazine
Fall 1997

Notes From Center Hall

by President Andrew T. Ford
forda@wabash.edu

I took great pleasure in being invited to teach a section of Cultures and Traditions this fall, but because I have some sense of how much time it takes to teach well, I first inclined toward turning down this opportunity. Before doing so, I consulted various faculty about the course, and when several quickly offered to pinch-hit for me when I could not make a class, I decided to take the plunge. As I write this column, we are at mid-term and I have not once regretted my decision.

Cultures and Traditions succeeded Contemporary Civilization. Started about twenty-five years ago-long before similar courses elsewhere sparked divisive debates over political correctness-Cultures and Traditions is a year-long experience required of all sophomores. Each section of about fifteen students follows a common syllabus and meets three times a week for fifty minutes. The faculty determined that the student's grade depends one-third on active class participation, one-third on writing assignments, and one-third on a common final exam graded by at least two teachers. A detailed syllabus clearly states the purpose of the course in a three-ring binder that contains various readings that supplement assigned texts.

A course like this has become something of a rarity in higher education. A common syllabus, reading list, basis for grading, and the like, all reduce the freedom and flexibility a faculty member typically enjoys. Our faculty sacrifice these freedoms for the greater good of our students gaining a common base of information that facilities out-of-class discussions with each other as well as with other faculty. In subtle ways, this sacrifice helps create the sense of intellectual community so critical to a Wabash education.

The faculty have divided the first semester of the course into four parts: reading in depth; reading for themes; reading in cultural context: Classical Greece; and reading in cultural context: Classical China. Most parts are further divided into themes like those covered up to mid-semester break: "Does Human Suffering Have Meaning,?" "Humans and the Divine," and "Human Beings in the Natural World." So far our readings have included: a large part of The Odyssey; selections for the Epic of Gilgamesh, the Book of Job, the Bukkyo Dendo Kyokai, Augustine's Confessions, the Book of Samuel, the Popol Vuh, Genesis, and Darwin's Voyage of the Beagle, Origin of the Species, and Descent of Man; also included are the full texts of Tolstoy's Death of Ivan Ilyich and Elie Wiesel's Night. These and more by mid-semester. Any wonder that Wabash is still known as a college where students work hard!

Leading the discussions, I have been stuck by how tightly the faculty have structured this course so that classroom conversations keep looping back to readings assigned weeks previously. This structure all but forces students to remember what they have read for a long time, even as it helps them seek and find connections between and among the readings and themes.

Faculty teaching C&T meet weekly. At each session, a faculty member highlights the issues to be discussed during the next three class meetings. These sessions help faculty teaching outside their disciplines to gain greater confidence, while making sure there is substantial similarity in what is covered among the sections. (Students might otherwise believe they are disadvantaged going into the final exam.)

I have found these sessions remarkable. Senior faculty typically take the lead in describing with gusto those seminar techniques that worked well in the past-as well as those that really bombed. This openness and candor extend well beyond these regular meetings. As often as not, you will hear faculty at the round table in the Scarlet Inn talking about that day's C&T class. Wabash has long been known as a college that lives the rhetoric of valuing teaching most highly; these sessions are one of the many, largely invisible, ways that makes that true.

The class sessions themselves have been terrific. After years of not being in a formal classroom, I approached the first day with some anxiety. Especially given my title, I wondered whether students would actually join the conversation on the very first readings-readings from the poet Li Po, as well as Archilochos and Sappho. They startled me with how quickly they engaged in the conversation and at how high a level of sophistication. They came to the very first class of the fall semester already having read the assignment for that day, and they came ready to talk about it. They engaged in lively conversation with me, as well as with each other, just as they have done so every since. Some days are more lively than others; occasionally a student tries to get me to comment on campus events; but, by and large, they focus on the texts, trying to understand them and to put them in the context of this course. The students give me such great delight Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings that I have not missed a single class.

The class sessions themselves have been terrific. After years of not being in a formal classroom, I approached the first day with some anxiety. Especially given my title, I wondered whether students would actually join the conversation on the very first readings-readings from the poet Li Po, as well as Archilochos and Sappho. They startled me with how quickly they engaged in the conversation and at how high a level of sophistication. They came to the very first class of the fall semester already having read the assignment for that day, and they came ready to talk about it. They engaged in lively conversation with me, as well as with each other, just as they have done so every since. Some days are more lively than others; occasionally a student tries to get me to comment on campus events; but, by and large, they focus on the texts, trying to understand them and to put them in the context of this course. The students give me such great delight Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings that I have not missed a single class.

From at least one side of the desk, I have now been in a Wabash class. As a result, I speak ever more confidently about how extraordinarily well this College works and why it creates such fierce loyalty among Wabash men. It is a remarkable experience that lasts a lifetime.