If the legacy is solemn, the dramatis personae of faculty members need not be. Professor of Computer Science Rick Decker promotes his department to prospective students as "the most fun department on campus" and likens some aspects of a teacher's style to those of a stand-up comic. "You have to listen to yourself and gauge the reaction of your audience," he says. "It's a highly specialized performance." Associate Professor of Philosophy Todd Franklin likes "to think of teaching in the classroom as improvisational, along the lines of jazz." Associate Professor of English Naomi Guttman believes that "part of what makes a good teacher also makes a good performer: Come as prepared as you can be, but be willing to improvise and let that preparation go, depending on what gets thrown your way."
Others, however, resist the idea of teaching as a performance—or
at least the term itself —even as they acknowledge its spontaneous elements. "I am the same person inside and outside the classroom," says Assistant Professor of Chemistry Camille Jones. "The manner in which I relate to the students and convey the subject at hand relies on my ability to present myself and my own understanding and appreciation of the subject as they really are."Ambrose, too, leaves no room for artifice: "It's a sincere, genuine and in many ways extemporaneous expression of my understanding of the material….What I want them to see is that I'm thinking through this material with them."
But faculty members are in wide agreement that the contemporary
classroom is changing in some significant ways as students themselves change. Carol Drogus, professor of government, international student advisor and associate dean of students for off-campus study, has noted a clear evolution in her 19 years at Hamilton. "Students now are much more active participants in class and in their learning," she says. "They expect to have class discussions, and they're disappointed if they don't."
Bartle and Kino Ruth, director of the Maurice Horowitch Career Center, note that "incoming classes are just stronger academically," in Ruth's phrase, but they also point to wider changes in the student body: increasing diversity and women in the majority. "And I think the campus as a whole is more tolerant than it used to be," Ruth says. Bartle, in turn, links some changes at Hamilton to national trends in education— tutoring, exam preparation, "teaching to the task" and the long, competitive application process. The result, he says, is that "today's students tend to want very specific things when they come to a school, and that brings a different mentality altogether."
The strength of that mentality is an unprecedented degree of
preparation and focus among students at the College, and many
teachers have responded by adopting new content and classroom
methods. "I find myself adjusting syllabi, content in the course, recreating at least some part of my courses every year," says Cryer, an acclaimed playwright as well as teacher of theatre. Drogus sees a trend toward even smaller, more participatory classes — long a strength of the College — and "toward more creative, hands-on assignments such as role playing, using case studies, giving people 'thought' questions." She recalls an example from her own government class in which, rather than writing a conventional research paper, students had to design a constitution for a specific nation. In computer science, Decker notes that as more recent generations of students arrive on the Hill with broader knowledge of the field, he is able to devote more course time to collaborative work in small teams.
Says Susan Mason, director of the Education Studies Program and the Oral Communication Center as a well as a lecturer in communication: "This is an exceptional group of students, and they want to be challenged." But Mason also notes that this trend toward "active learning strategies" is part of a larger academic pattern. In the last 20 years or so, she says, "we have so much more information about how people learn and how the brain works, different learning styles and forms of retention."
Disciplines evolve as well, some more quickly than others. Decker notes that computer science has been recognized as a distinct academic field for only about half a century.When he arrived in 1985, there was no conventional curriculum. He and colleague Stuart Hirshfield, now the Stephen Harper Kirner Professor of Computer Science and chair of the Computer Science Department, wrote their own textbooks and engaged in "a lot of improvisation" in the classroom. "The teaching of computer science has been chasing after a moving target for the last 50 years," Decker says.
Many faculty members are quick to add that classroom changes
reflect their own evolving skills, too. Heather Buchman, conductor of
the College Orchestra and Chamber Music Program and assistant
professor of music, arrived at Hamilton in 2001 from a conservatory
background and with little conventional teaching experience. "It took me two or three years to take the temperature of the students here and find out where music really does fit into the life of a student who is committed to music performance but is majoring in geology, art history, whatever," she says. "What I've learned is how to respond to different individuals." Jones, too, says that in advanced classes, she has "become more attentive and responsive to the particular interests and dispositions of the individual students," even allowing them to "guide how I present the course." And Bartle recalls that he was "more nervous and tended to lecture a lot" early in his career. "Now, I tend to look for ways to get students to talk in some way, shape or form."
While better, more highly motivated students clearly make for
better teaching, some faculty members see an occasional downside. "The students now are generally more serious and studious than they were when I arrived" 11 years ago, says Guttman, who teaches creative writing as well as literature courses, "but they also seem a little too preoccupied with career." Cockburn feels a similar ambivalence in math. "It's good that the department is getting majors who are very focused and know what sort of courses they want to take," she says. "On the other hand, I sometimes find that students are not willing to explore as much as I'd like them to." Given the level of academic expectation at Hamilton, students can also obsess over grades. Franklin notes that after the first papers of the semester are returned in his philosophy classes, he invariably gets a visit from a student "very distraught about the grade that he or she has received."He offers reassurances that continued effort will pay off —and keeps a box of tissues handy, with more in his closet "so that I can replenish my stock."
The Career Center's Ruth believes a fixation on the future is inevitable. "Not that it hasn't always been there, but now, especially for $45,000 a year, parents and students are more interested in career possibilities," he says. Still, he adds, "I would argue that what we do well, which is classical liberal arts skill development, is as valid as it has ever been — even more valid in today's world."
