Professor of Law, Jurisprudence and Social Thought and Political Science Austin Sarat envisioned this pilot program as part of his role as Senior Advisor to the Dean of Faculty for Academic Life. Sarat’s new position puts him at the forefront of the College’s efforts to improve academic life at Amherst and, as he explained, “the Faculty Fellows initiative comes out … of this broader effort to look at intellectual life.”
Associate Professor of Political Science Javier Corrales will be responsible for designing programming for James Hall; Professor of LJST Lawrence Douglas, for Stearns Hall; Associate Professor of Psychology Catherine Sanderson, for Charles Pratt Dormitory; Assistant Professor of Asian Languages and Civilizations and History Monica Ringer, for Appleton Hall; Assistant Professor of Asian Languages and Civilizations Paola Zamperini, for South College; Professor of Economics Daniel Barbezat, for North College, and Assistant Professor of Biology Michael Hood, for Williston Hall.
The Faculty Fellows program gives these professors the freedom to determine their own programming in conjunction with their respective dorm’s Resident Counselors. Zamperini explained, “All we were told by Professor Sarat and … [Dean of Students] Ben Lieber was to think of ways to use this as an opportunity to expand the minds of the first-year students.” Each faculty fellow is planning three sessions for this semester. At this semester’s conclusion, the program will be evaluated to determine which changes should be made or whether or not the program should continue.
Many of the faculty fellows have already planned their first events that range from lectures and film screenings to book discussions and faculty research presentations. Corrales first plans to hold a discussion on the presidential primaries and the candidates’ positions on March 4, the day of primaries in Ohio, Texas, Rhode Island and Vermont. Zamperini will arrange for a local practitioner of Tibetan medicine to visit with her students in South and, for a later activity, hopes to communicate via Skype with the creators of a documentary on China that she is using in one of her classes. Barbezat will host author of “Girl from Zanzibar,” Roger King, for a book discussion with the students in North as his first program. Sanderson has organized a similar book discussion with the local author of a mystery novel in which an autistic boy is the lone witness to a murder. She plans to give out free copies of the book to the first 15 interested Pratt residents.
The goals of the program are to provide freshmen with a vehicle to challenge themselves intellectually outside of the classroom and to allow them to interact with faculty members in the most informal of settings—the dormitory. Zamperini commented, “The idea is not just to do in the dorm what we do in class.” Rather, the programs are designed to give the students a non-traditional academic experience. She also mentioned that she thinks both students and faculty will benefit from the chance to interact in a low pressure setting without the “power dynamics” that come when a student and teacher are in the classroom.
Sarat hopes that students will take advantage of this chance to meet with professors, mentioning that a lot of students come to Amherst because of the close relationships that are often formed between students and teachers. “It’s an opportunity to get to know these faculty and to take advantage of their ingenuity and expertise,” he said.
Susannah Ludwig ’09, an RC in James, thinks that it is a great idea to give professors the opportunity to meet with students in the dorms. She noted that an added benefit of the program is that it “enhances the community aspect of the school,” bringing dorm life and classroom life together.
Ludwig said that she would have gone to such events as a freshman to get the chance to meet professors. She mentioned that she would have been especially interested in relevant programs such as Corrales’ discussion on the presidential primaries.
The faculty fellows seem excited for the program to begin. Sanderson was attracted by the initiative because she saw it as “a fun way for faculty to be involved with student life without the pressures of grading.” Zamperini was drawn to the program by the chance to have a “different intellectual experience.” “It seemed like an interesting challenge,” she said. “I’ve never really had the chance to go to a dorm.”
The faculty fellows are optimistic that freshmen will want to attend the programs that they organize. Sanderson remarked that she has “done brief presentations of [her psychological] research on close relationships in many dorms over the last few years and those programs are always well attended.”
Though some faculty fellows could see the program being extended to upper-class dorms at some point in the future, they emphasized the importance of having a program like this directed at first-years. Barbezat explained that “this initiative is an opportunity for events to be aimed directly at a subset of first-year students, right in their dorms … [It] extends the interaction between student life and learning beyond the classroom and College-wide events, aimed primarily at other groups.”
Zamperini reiterated the importance of having a specific initiative to allow freshmen to interact directly with faculty. She pointed out that upper-class students take greater initiative to interact with faculty and that this program will serve as a good opportunity to show freshmen that professors are accessible. Zamperini expects that the college will invest more resources in similar projects if the Faculty Fellows Program proves successful. However, she mentioned that it might be difficult to find enough professors who would be interested in participating.
Sarat does not see the program as an end unto itself. Rather, he wants the program to set a “pattern of intellectual engagement” that freshmen will follow for years to come. “We’re offering something to first-year students in the hope that they will come to crave it,” he said.