Hart Speech: Unrepentent Professor
Thank you very much. I appreciate this honor.
I didn't get to know George Hart very well. My only story about him has to do with some events related to the women's movement on campus, and I won't tell it right now, because it might give you the impression that we women didn't all get along with each other great all the time and needed help from a man! He was very helpful to us, a kind and principled friend, a problem-solver.
In fact, I want to talk to you about a problem. Problems occur on the way to excellence, so I think I'm on topic here. This has to do with teaching evaluations, you know, the form we have students fill out at the end of a course. In its current incarnation, which we've been using in the department, it contains a lot of questions about how well the course was organized, was the instructor enthusiastic, whether the assignments related to the material, and so on. There are questions toward the end about interest in the subject matter at the beginning of the quarter and at the end. Anthropology 102, Introduction to Cultural Anthropology, is one of our most important courses. It's required for majors and minors, fulfills a general education requirement in the social sciences, and is considered a support course in all sorts of other majors. It should be a powerful recruiting tool for us, as well, and sometimes is. Students doing poorly in engineering or accounting, or bored by a major their parents thought would be suitable, are sometimes intrigued and switch. I teach this course nearly every quarter, and I look at that "interest in subject matter" question closely when I get my scores back. The last few years have seen an increase in the number of students who start out with high interest and finish with something lower. This breaks my heart, and I don't understand it. My ratings are generally very high. Some of the students who respond in this way are among those who are giving me the highest marks in knowledge, caring, availability, fairness, relevance, open-mindedness, etc. On the back of the form, a few of them are telling me my teaching ability is someplace between Socrates and Lao Tzu, but on this question they are saying I disappointed them somehow. I, or anthropology, or both, are not up to their expectations.
Perhaps I am turning into some of my own college teachers. You know how you seem to turn into your parents when you have kids, especially all the things your parents did that you hated? Maybe this happens in teaching. I had some good teachers in college, but also a cornucopia of characters. There was Mr. Ben Reid (never just Mr. Reid - at Mt. Holyoke, we didn't use the professors' doctoral titles, and they were supposed to call us Miss Wills, but it didn't stop them from wielding their mighty power). Mr. Ben Reid was so full of himself from winning the Pulitzer for Biography that he affected a beret so as to look less like a nerdy bookworm and got too big for students to reach. His achievement seemed to rob him of any interest in the doings of lesser mortals. Then there was Peter Viereck, another prize-winner, who showed up consistently late for class, with his breakfast in hand - a box of Sugar Crisp, his favorite - then in mouth. He was teaching us Modern European Political History, but he liked the Nazis best, so we did Nazis all semester. The most interesting thing about the course was how far the Sugar Crisp got sprayed when he was talking, which was all the time. Then there was Joseph Bottkol, who read us Ulysses rather than try to explain it. I hope I'm not turning into these guys, or into my advisor, whose obsession with my social life clouded all of his judgements of what I should be doing in school.
I am an unrepentent professor, proud to be a college teacher. I am doing what I want to do with my life. So if I'm not a bad problem as a person or teacher, the problem with ANT 102 students' loss of interest may be with anthropology. The pre-assessments I have been doing the last two years reveal little or no knowledge of the field. Most of the students think Indiana Jones is a typical anthropologist, or, lately, Dr. Grant, Sam Neill's character in Jurassic Park, and velociraptors are our subjects. We can't compete with velociraptors, even if I talk about witchcraft, marriage by capture, infanticide, or ritual scarification every class. Actually, you'd think we should have the most fascinating field of all, and the most in demand: the whole of human activity, anywhere, anywhen, whatever we do, and wherever we came from. Evidently, what I want students to know, what I think they should know to be initiated in the discipline - things I find fascinating like kinship systems or syllabaries - doesn't match with what they think they should know or want to learn. Who should decide, the "customer"?
We have taken seriously in our department the imperative to operationalize what we teach, to become more applied, more technical, more market-oriented. In fact, anthropology has long had an applied dimension, not just in the days of imperialism when our predecessors were in the service of the colonial masters (or, more recently, the CIA). The modern version of applied anthropology deals with exactly the kinds of problems we are all so distressed about in these last few days. How can people kill, when all of their religions and ethical systems tell them not to do so? Why do these beliefs then go on to define some people as not human, or as expendable or legitimate targets for some other reason? Where do leaders get their ideas of what their followers want or what's good for them? How can the different dynamic and experience of life for the have-nots and the haves be bridged, if not by learning and compassion?
The importance of education, and the compelling need for it, are distressingly clear in recent events and reactions to them. If we can teach problem-solving, critical thinking, culture and human relations, if we know anything about these matters, we have an obligation to, greater than the obligation to pass on job skills, data, and the content of particular specialties. If we can do both, good. In my view, the burden of scholarship is social responsibility. Our commitment to the world of ideas and history and technology and beauty and words is a commitment to the human community, and our work within it is to inspire a continuing dialogue among all parties using all the tools we are able to use, to infuse that dialogue with the collective wisdom of the species. If people are limited to velociraptors in their thinking, they will shoot first, and ask questions later. We won't get to solve the environmental problems, the population issue, the scientific questions, if we don't solve the human, cultural, political problems, if we can't achieve a universal, permanent peace, with justice. Nothing could be more relevant than anthropology and the other human studies - relevant to living responsibly on the planet and contributing to the growth of community consciousness. This is a daunting task. No wonder students retreat from it.
Two things I want to alert you to: CFA is sponsoring a Teach-In on Oct. 16th on faculty and educational issues. It is an opportunity for us to exchange information and ideas. The Campus Climate survey analysis will be disseminated this quarter. The student perceptions report is available, faculty coming out soon, staff and administrators a little later. These results are very significant and will help us plan our actions to improve the campus climate for everyone.
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That's all. My department and college are funny, stimulating places to work, and I am grateful to be associated with them. Cal Poly has given me lots of opportunities to learn and grow, for which I am also grateful. Thank you all.