At the first Faculty Meeting of the spring semester, Edgerley Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences Hopi Hoekstra oversaw substantive discussion of the FAS’ Classroom Social Compact Committee’s newly released report.
Before taking up the topic, Hoekstra opened the meeting by acknowledging the questions many in the FAS community have about federal funding and its impact on research and teaching. “(W)e’re in a period of uncomfortable uncertainty,” she said. “I would encourage us to have as much patience as we all can muster – recognizing that is a hard ask.”
“It’s important to remember that while the environment we are operating in is quite fluid, our commitment to our mission of excellence in teaching and research remains unchanged. And our values as an institution endure,” she said. “We need to be supportive of those in our community who may be anxious about potential changes. We may not have answers for them – as I said there are still a lot of questions about how policy changes will be implemented. But we can let them know that the University is working to understand their implications, that we will share information when we have it, that we support each other as a community, and that we remain focused on our mission of excellence in teaching, learning, and research.”
Hoekstra then introduced Maya Jasanoff , X.D. and Nancy Yang Professor and Coolidge Professor of History, and David Laibson, Robert I. Goldman Professor of Economics, whom she charged one year ago with studying the FAS classroom. Hoekstra called the Classroom Social Compact Committee’s report “a nuanced and comprehensive portrait of where we are today, including some hard truths about our learning culture.”
“But they also provide practical, achievable recommendations for how we can engender a vibrant learning environment in our classrooms,” Hoekstra said, by way of introducing the work of the committee.
Jasanoff and Laibson then presented a summary of their efforts, which consisted of 30 listening sessions, data from more than 10 surveys of students, faculty, and alums, and hundreds of one-on-one conversations. The committee’s most compelling findings included: that many students don’t prioritize academics for several reasons; students are sometimes afraid to speak up for fear that a controversial opinion will elicit negative reactions from classmates; and graduate student teaching fellows are concerned about their teaching evaluations being affected by the grades they give students.
The committee offered revisions to language in the Handbook for Students related to foregrounding academic excellence, and rules preventing external attribution of ideas expressed by students in classroom discussions. If approved by a faculty vote at next month’s Faculty Meeting, the Handbook updates will go into effect July 1. Jasanoff and Laibson then opened the floor to discussion, taking questions from an engaged faculty for more than an hour on topics ranging from language and ethics to the climate threatening academic freedom.
Philip J. Deloria, Leverett Saltonstall Professor of History, concluded Faculty Meeting with a presentation about his scholarship, which sits at the intersection of American Studies and Indigenous history. He reflected on past research projects, including a book about how Native Americans have challenged 20th century ideas about sports, film and music in “Indians in Unexpected Places” and an art-history-slash-family-memoir about his eccentric aunt Dakota Sioux artist Mary Sully.