Hobart and William Smith Colleges

4 September 2009 First Steps into a College Career

The First-Year experience would not be complete without its quintessential Seminar. Without regard for future major or minor choices, seminars were constructed around different faculty interests from peace movements to ancient warfare, Mozart and rock-and-roll. Each seminar is designed to hone writing, speaking, critical thinking and other academic skills that students will draw upon throughout their careers at HWS. On Friday morning, discussions and assignments from these groups filled the academic buildings on campus.

Classes in First-Year Seminars are small, between 13 and 15 students, to allow for discussion and debate in an intimate group. Some are Linked Course-Learning Communities, in which students live in the same residence hall, forming a community; others are Learning Community Pods, two seminars of related subject matter with students living in the same residence hall. As a group, the Seminar classes will enjoy field trips, lectures and other special events throughout the academic year. A peek at some of the first-year experiences that began on Friday follows:

Arts Smarts

Inspired by Assistant Professor of English Rob Carsons interest in what he deems the -isms classism, existentialism and magic realism to name just three the seminar gives students, a vocabulary and context on which to base their experiences, says Carson. Students dont need to be English majors or painters or philosophers to study artistic movements. My seminar is about fostering a new way of thinking about the world. The course syllabus includes a number of plays, novels and poems, including Ubu the King, which he calls a parody of Macbeth with a touch of punk rock, Blakes The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, and Kushners Angels in America read against a backdrop of art, music, film and architecture. Its exciting to get to introduce students to these works and to steer them along an academic path they find interesting.

Africa: Myths and Realities and Face to Face: Interrogating Race in the U.S. and South Africa

By examining the societies that produced segregation and apartheid, well address issues of race, class, gender and the multiplicity of cultures, explains Assistant Professor James McCorkle 76, a seasoned veteran of the First-Year Seminar program. The movie Blood Diamond piqued first-year Alexander Fabians interest in South Africa. For classmate Chloe Renee Jensen 13, her interest came from high school history courses. I want to get a deeper understanding of segregation in the United States and its connections to apartheid in South Africa, she says.

Drawn to Nature

Budding architect Matthew Bianco-Splann 13 signed up for this class because it brings together science and art. Those were always my strong suits as a child, he says. The First-Year Seminar taught by Professor of Biology James Ryan explores the natural history of the Finger Lakes region using both scientific and artistic expression, helping students develop observational skills that will allow them to better describe the natural world in prose and art.

Code Making and Code Breaking

It may sound strange that code-breaking and literature could be intertwined, but cryptology can be used to detect language patterns, decipher hieroglyphics and even determine authorship of various literary works, says Assistant Professor of Mathematics and Computer Science Stina Bridgeman, who is teaching the course. By studying a mixture of popular novels, modular arithmetic, technical literature, and number theory, she hopes that students will use cryptology as a way to improve their logical thinking and writing.

The Reality Effect

Taught by Instructor and Writing Specialist Susan Hess, the course addresses how we use stories, and how stories use.The seminar includes readings like the 9/11 Commission Report, the Iraq War blogs ofrebelcoyote, NY Times Lives columns, and students own writing, as well as theory like Le Guins It Was a Dark and Stormy Night and excerpts from Aristotles Poetics.

I like to write, and I think the seminar will sharpen my skills, says Amanda Glatthorn 13 of New Canann, Conn.

Facets of Islam

Taught by Professor of History Susanne McNally, Facets of Islam critically explores the appeal of Islam, constructs a narrative of Islam in history, samples Islamic architecture, science, gardens and poetry, and confronts some problematic and troubling issues that divide the Muslim world view from the American. Already on his way to becoming a global citizen, William Weldon 13 explains that hes taking the course because, I want to learn more about whats happening in the Middle East. As an American, I cant be ignorant of other cultures.

Going Home

Students investigate the issue of returning home, all the while living and studying together as part of a Learning Community. Under the tutelage of Associate Professor of Religious Studies Richard Salter 86, students will study The Odyssey and its re-takes and re-makes, including The Penelopiad. As part of their Learning Community, students will also take The Once and Future King with Associate Professor of English Laurence Erussard, studying The parallels between The Odyssey and Arthurian legends. Going Home will end with a policy discussion regarding veterans in the U.S. based on Jonathan Shays Odysseus in America, a psychoanalytic exploration of what it meant for Vietnam Veterans to return home after the War.

Click here for a complete list of First-Year seminars, or here for more information about Learning Communities.

Associate Professor of Religious Studies Richard Salter 86 is pictured above speaking with a student.