Soul-Forming Education and the Liberal Arts

By Rob Kugler
Paul S. Wright Professor of Christian Studies, Lewis and Clark College

A recent column by Cornel West in the Washington Post regretting Howard University’s decision to dissolve its Classics Department stirred some thoughts on the importance not only of that discipline for the liberal arts (but see now also a column in the New York Times that serves as a useful rejoinder to West and food for yet more thought.), but also on what it is to teach in a liberal arts college and at Lewis & Clark in particular.

A colleague noted in view of West’s handwringing essay, even if with a certain edge in his tone, that Lewis & Clark is to be commended for having no plans to end Classics. To which I replied, “And in times of concern for return-on-investment, why would we?”

Our 100-level Classics course fills annually, our Classics 200- and 300-level courses likewise fill or nearly so, and courses offered by ancillary departments (Art, English, History, Philosophy, Religious Studies) also enroll well. Staffed at the bare minimum, we serve a significant number of students. There’s some bang-for-the buck.

And notably, the students in these courses are majors in a wide range of departments in the college—in fact the minority are Classics majors.

It was in answering the question, “Why do these courses enroll so well?” that I came to my thoughts on West’s column as it relates more broadly to liberal arts education and teaching, and particularly the shape of and those endeavors at Lewis & Clark.

These courses enroll well at least in part because the College still attracts students who value what West refers to as “soul-forming education” (aka “the liberal arts”). They appreciate that to be liberally educated is, in West’s words, more than mere “schooling.” As West goes on to say, it is, “more than the acquisition of skills, the acquisition of labels and the acquisition of jargon. Schooling is not education. Education draws out the uniqueness of people to be all that they can be in the light of their irreducible singularity. It is the maturation and cultivation of spiritually intact and morally equipped human beings.”

In view of this, West writes: “[W]e, as a culture, have embraced from the youngest age utilitarian schooling at the expense of soul-forming education. To end this spiritual catastrophe, we must restore true education, mobilizing all of the intellectual and moral resources we can to create human beings of courage, vision and civic virtue.”

While I have little hope that some of our peers who have turned away from soul-forming education to mere schooling will “restore true education” as West wishes, I do believe Lewis & Clark can easily preserve it.

And again, why not?

Indeed, we have a faculty that is uniquely well positioned to deliver better than virtually all of our peers the soul-forming education West yearns for.

How is that true? Think of it this way.

A soul-forming education—the liberal arts—is the art of cultivating in people an appreciation of multiple, critically-examined frames of reference, ways of seeing the world. In times of enormous social, political, economic, cultural, and environmental challenges this appreciation is essential to personal and communal flourishing; it is when we have the capacity to see the world through our neighbors’ eyes and the challenges which we face from a variety of perspectives that we can be the “human beings of courage, vision and civic virtue” today’s world needs.

Here at Lewis & Clark we are unusually well equipped to provide this kind of education for our students. We have a faculty which ensures in a manner many of our peers cannot student access to a super-charged diversity of critically examined ways of seeing, explaining, and interpreting the world.

Not only do we offer the range of departments and disciplines that make that sort of education possible; we also have, by happenstance and historical circumstance, remarkable intellectual diversity within the disciplines represented in the College’s departments.

As a consequence, students who have the wisdom to resist hitching their wagon to any one of our perspectives and to delve instead as deeply as possible into the many frames of reference available here—those students can leave Lewis & Clark with an abnormally rich breadth of vision, a bag stuffed full of different glasses through which to see the world and its problems critically and constructively, and in empathy with their neighbors and peers. That’s a soul well formed.

And yes, to come full circle, that, I think, explains the abiding appeal of Classics—and of English, History, Religious Studies, Sociology, Biology, Physics, and all the rest. Many students come here because they know they can get that increasingly rare soul-forming education; a few of them even understand before arriving that this place is especially strong in providing that; and the best who leave here degree in hand appreciate that they have had a rare privilege in getting that education from such a richly diverse faculty as the one at Lewis & Clark. That’s a soul formed well for courage, vision, and civic virtue in a time sorely in need of all three qualities.

So, for my money, the College should aggressively market the promise of that education as we raise friends, funds, and enrollment for the college. Such a strategy won’t solve all of the challenges the College faces today and in coming years, but it will certainly go a long way toward meeting many of them. Cornel West might even think to point in our direction for an example of what he so eloquently yearns for in American education today.

And one last word. I hope my colleagues at Lewis & Clark understand what this means for them: If I’m right about our appeal and how we can use it to draw students to the College even as enrollment challenges intensify, what we are asked to do to ensure the College flourishes into the future is essentially what we have all trained and prepared ourselves to do—share our passion for the ideas we live and breathe day by day, engage our students with them in our teaching, conversations, and mentoring, and find ways to bring them to bear in new ways that meet our students’ needs as they face their challenging and complex futures.

How To Teach The Day After Election Day?

As we sit at home, awaiting election results, those of us who teach may be wondering with some trepidation how we will teach our classes tomorrow. As I begin writing this post at 7:30pm, the outcome of the election is anything but certain, as is the timeline for certainty. We do not know whether we and our students will be elated, despondent, or still caught in the anxiety of waiting tomorrow. How then to approach the task of stepping into our classes? How to take on the role of leader when both we and our students are in the grip of powerful emotion?

I can’t claim to have great answers to these questions. But here are some guiding principles to keep in mind as you look to your teaching tomorrow:

- No one expects you to make things all right.

- It’s OK to show your students that you are human too, with your own feelings and reactions.

- What you can do is show up, and simply be there. We can do what we’ve been doing all throughout this unruly year of 2020: we can show up for each other. We can get through it together, better than we could get through it alone.

- Make space for what happened, for what is happening, whatever it is. Don’t pretend it didn’t happen. If you don’t know how, consider saying just that: “I want to make space for this, and I’m not sure how. What would be helpful to you?”

- Make space for silence and be OK with it. Ask your students, how are you doing? And then wait for a response. Let the response be silence for a while without rushing in to fill it. Make eye contact. Rest in your connection. There is nothing wrong with sitting in silence together.  

- Make space for the appreciation of being together, being there for and with each other. Give voice to your appreciation of this simple reality.

- Remember you are modeling. Always. Tomorrow, you will be modeling grace in victory, resilience in defeat, or calm in uncertainty. Get ready for it. You can do it.

- Consider bringing a poem or photo of a favorite work of art to share.

- If your class seems to feel up to it, consider some hopeful questions oriented to future positive action, such as: Among the many challenges our country faces, what issues matter most to you? What role do you think colleges and universities play in solving these challenges? How can organizations help solve these challenges with or without the help of the federal government?

- If your class doesn’t seem to feel up to constructive discussion, that’s OK. After you’ve made space, and let the silence be silence for a little while, feel free to move on to your content of the day.

- Plan to rely less on your students’ participation than you normally would. As a literature teacher, I’m telling myself, it’s OK for you to ramble on longer than usual about that particular passage of Flaubert tomorrow, or about why literature is important, or how art will save us in the end. I suspect it may be very comforting to your students to listen to you ramble on enthusiastically about your interests tomorrow, so if you’re up to it, go for it. A little or a lot of lecture will take the pressure off of them, and even you, and remind everyone that there are still many other things in this world to wonder at.   

Teaching during COVID-19: What Matters?

By Molly Robinson, Director of Lewis & Clark College Teaching Excellence Program

In a recent blog post in Chronicle Vitae, Rob Jenkins argued that as we reluctantly adapt to the new, temporary “COVID-19 normal” of conducting our courses online, we must not let the perfect be the enemy of the good, or indeed, the good be the enemy of the good enough. Most of all, he writes, we must aim for teaching that is “good enough that when we look back on this crisis three months or six months or a year from now, we’ll be able to say that we did the best we could for our students, under the circumstances.”

Jenkins’ words, and recent listserv conversations about how we are to evaluate our teaching during this strange semester, have me asking this question: what is good enough? What really matters, as we adjust within a matter of weeks to a mode of teaching and learning many faculty and students have never attempted before?

I am still very much discovering my answers to these questions, but here are some things I do know.

- It matters that we know our role. In any classroom, in-person or online, as teachers we are the authority in the room. We are in charge of what happens and doesn’t happen there. Students will hope for guidance, leadership, and reassurance from us. They will look to us to know what attitude to take about all this. Now more than ever, we must remember that we are modeling for them how one can be confronted with great change and disturbance and move through it with courage, openness, and humor.

- It matters that we show up. Even though the tools at our disposal seem more limited than before, there are still many ways to carry on with our teaching. I’ve been amazed at the variety of creative ways we have found as a community to continue to show up for each other and our students. We may feel successful at times, and like dismal failures at others. Among all the different methods we are using to deliver our content and connect with our students, there is a common thread: we’re still here. We’re adjusting, we’re trying, learning new skills, and so are our students. We don’t have to be polished or perfect. We don’t have to be brilliant or inspiring, we just have to stay connected. We just have to be good enough, and good enough means, we show up with our knowledge and humanity, and we do our best.   

- It matters that we put our best effort into figuring out what’s essential, and what’s not. I know we began the semester wanting to read certain texts, discuss certain ideas, achieve certain goals. Some of those are essential. Some are being replaced by the other things we and our students are learning through all this. We don’t know yet what they are, but they will be deep, momentous, and lasting. Essential means: my students will need to know this by the time they finish this class or they absolutely will not be able to manage the next class in the sequence. That is all. Everything else – the texts, the concepts, the terms, the assignments – is non-essential. Everything else can happen later. Let’s think carefully about which non-essentials could be trimmed or adapted in order to make this semester’s ending less of a strain for them and for us.

- It matters that we show up. Oh, did I say that already? Good. Because that is what I know matters more than anything else. Students have told me over and over: their classes matter to them, now more than ever. As awkward and green and insecure as it may make us feel to teach live classes on Zoom, they want to see us. They want to see their classmates. They want the sense of normality, structure, and social connectedness classes bring. So, if the constraints of your discipline or life circumstances have kept you from holding classes live over Zoom, I encourage you to considering connecting with your classes synchronously once or twice before the semester ends, even if just to say hello.  

Because in five years, ten years, fifty years, most of our students will not remember the detailed content of what we taught them during this or any other semester. Here is what they will remember when they look back on these extraordinary times: they will remember us, disoriented and perhaps disgruntled, showing up anyway, doing our best. They will remember our novice fumbling with the Zoom controls, our squinting into the screen and saying “How do you do this again?”, our kids and pets walking around behind us, our distraction and our carrying on anyway.

With every passing year, as they build lives with jobs and pets and homes and children, they will understand with increasing depth the enormity and the difficulty of our showing up during this time. They will remember our smiles, our faces peering back at them from the screen, our discouragement, our encouragement. They will remember that we walked this path with them, offering our presence and humanity.

And to me at least, that seems good enough.

Remembering Equity in Online Instruction

By Daena Goldsmith, Associate Dean of the College and Molly Robinson, Director of Teaching Excellence Program

Over the past few weeks, faculty at Lewis and Clark have been called upon to make radical changes to their teaching. Nearly all of us have designed our courses for in-person, traditional classroom meetings; but now, we must move them to an entirely online format, and fast. For some of us, including some students, these changes may feel uncomfortable, and even disturbing. Even those who feel comfortable with online tools have had to adjust to using those tools exclusively. We are all learning together what technologies can serve our learning objectives and match our teaching style and we are trying to become versant with them. This is all good, and necessary.

However, as many of us have begun to realize, the use of technology for teaching and learning requires that we and our students have access to technology in the first place. Our campus is set up to offer that access to all of our students and faculty, but when teaching is removed from campus and dispersed to locations far and wide, we no longer know what kind of access our students, or even our faculty, have to technology. Some may live in households without wifi. The public places where free wifi is available (libraries, coffee houses, restaurants) are for the most part closed. Some may have cellular plans with limited data; some may have no data at all and limit their phone use to locations with wifi. In addition, some students and faculty alike may be working in environments where interruptions and distractions (from children, pets, ambient noise, etc.) are unavoidable.

As we move forward with our planning, therefore, we need to remember this fundamental reality: the use of technology is premised on access to technology, and that access should not be assumed or taken for granted. We have included below some ideas and recommendations that we hope will be useful. However, the first and most crucial element in addressing the potential problem of access is to be aware of it, and to communicate this awareness to your students. For reasons of equity, students need to hear from us that we don’t assume that everyone has the same access to technology in this situation, and that we stand ready to assist them in finding solutions to their challenges.

Here are a few ideas about how to keep equity and inclusion in mind as we transition to delivering our curriculum online:

- If you do nothing else, ask your students if they have access to technology that will allow them to use video conferencing, check email and course websites, and anything else you will be asking them to do online. Several service providers are offering free or reduced subscriptions (see additional information about Learning Remotely compiled by our Office of Information Technology).
In your asking, strive to normalize the possibility that access may be challenging to some. If they do let you know of some challenges, get the details you need to help them find solutions. If you don’t know what the solutions are, call upon our many wonderful resource people on campus or consult the Digital Resilience resources that have been compiled by our Office of Information Technology. Chances are, we can find a solution.

- Now more than ever, think about transparency. Consider what you assume students know--about assignments, technology, expectations--and add clarification. This is especially important for big assignments that carry a lot of weight in the course grade. For those, it’s worth thinking through some of the issues in this template for transparent assignments.

- Identify the most important learning objective(s) for assignments and consider if you can accomplish your goal(s) by using a variety of modalities. For example, if you had planned to assign presentations, what is your main goal for the assignment (oral performance, conveying information, making an argument, incorporating audience perspectives)? Different goals will allow for different modalities: in addition to presenting by video conference, perhaps a video or audio recording, or even a written script could meet your objectives.

- Incorporate some asynchronous assignments to give students flexibility to adapt--to time zones, to shared internet, to limited access to a quiet work space. Likewise, think about how you might capture live interactions. If you decide to record class discussions, please be mindful of FERPA guidelines for ensuring that any recording that could identify a student as a member of your class is only available to other members of that class (you can find more details at the CAS FAQ under lnstruction/Faculty Resources). A “record” of class discussion can take many forms: for example, you could have students create a written summary that not only crystalizes key ideas for them, but also makes a record available to those who are in transit or have to miss something that happens in real time.

- When possible, give students options. This can give them a sense of control, which is especially important now. For those students for whom access or work environment are challenging, having various options to accomplish their work will help them feel included.

- Open up a line of communication with students and encourage them to let you know of limitations or problems they are experiencing with access. Be mindful of student privacy. Explicitly invite them to let you know privately of any issues, instead of, or in addition to, simply querying the large group verbally (i.e., “Is everyone OK with this?”). Reassure them that you care and want to know how they are coping.

- Review student accommodations. Students with disabilities and cognitive differences may have distinctive challenges in accessing online instruction. Now is a good time to retrieve the notifications of accommodations you received earlier in the semester (and Student Support Services can help you retrieve this information if you need assistance). For example, as you think about options for online exams, don’t forget to factor in students who get extra time or who take exams in a distraction free testing space.

- Consider using some low-tech solutions that can meet your learning objectives. Instead of holding all discussions in video-conferencing, mix it up. Some possibilities: 

• Hold some discussions live but hold some in a forum or chat space.
• Break students into small groups, ask them to decide on their best modality for interacting, give them a task, and ask them to post to a forum the results of their discussion.
• Create a written assignment that involves a pro-con paper or scripting a discussion that represents multiple points of view.

- We may discover that the principles of Universal Design for Learning apply here as well: we create low-tech solutions for reasons of equity, but then discover that there are many benefits to adding variability to our activities (for example, giving ourselves a break from video-conferencing!).

Finally, it may be comforting to remember that a move to online instruction affects access and equity in complex and multi-faceted ways. While the change may raise challenges for some students and faculty, it may actually help others with challenges that they experience in the traditional classroom. (For example, students who feel anxious about “on the spot” participation might benefit from the multifaceted ways of participating that technology brings.) In other words, this transition will change how equity plays out in our teaching, in ways both challenging and beneficial. Who knows? We may even learn some new skills that will serve us well -- students and faculty alike -- in our future classrooms.

Four Teaching Ideas for the Beginning of the Semester

Molly Robinson, Director of Lewis & Clark College Teaching Excellence Program

The other evening, I was having a conversation with two recent L&C alumni. I asked them to tell me what concrete things their professors had done in their classrooms that they most appreciated. Their answers were surprisingly consistent. I developed the following four recommendations based on what they shared.

1. Create a STRUCTURE and stick with it.

For most of us, the structure we create for our classes is contained in the syllabus. Ideally, a syllabus contains basic information about course objectives, readings, expectations, and the schedule. For the students I spoke with, the schedule / calendar was by far the most essential of these elements. They said that regardless of what actually happened in class, professors who provided a predictable, reliable schedule were highly appreciated.

I recommend focusing on the following key elements of course structure as you design or revise your syllabi and course plans:

Reading choice and length. Resist the temptation to assign overly long readings. A good rule of thumb: assign readings of a length you yourself would be willing and able to read in the time allotted to your students. If you want them to do the reading and do it well, make sure the reading length and difficulty level make this expectation realistic.

Evaluation points. After you’ve decided on the material you plan to cover, consider when and how you will assess your students’ learning of that material. Build a schedule for papers, tests, and other major assignments that makes sense to you. As you go through the semester, do your best to respect that schedule. If a test or paper day is coming and you haven’t covered all the material you had hoped to cover by that time, seriously consider whether you can omit some material from the assignment instead of changing the schedule.

Homework: predictable accountability. Make sure your students know their homework for next time by the end of class. Then, be sure to use that homework in class in some way. If you assign homework but fail to make students accountable for it, it will not be long before your students stop doing their homework. You can avoid a host of teaching problems by making homework important and useful IN CLASS.

Have a lesson plan. Your lesson plan can be as detailed or as open and flexible as suits you. As you make it, two questions are essential: what do I want my students to learn during this class? How will I help them learn it?

Begin and end class on time, and intentionally if possible. “When professors begin and end on time, it feels like they value our time and understand we have other things to do besides their class,” my former students reported. Remember, in the 10 minutes between classes, students often need to wait in lines to use the bathroom, grab a bite to eat, etc. They are rushed as it is. Don’t make it harder by ending late.

2. Manage your feedback.

Take the timeliness of your feedback to students seriously. Very, very seriously. Arguably, nothing will undermine your goals for your students’ learning more than asking them to do work on which they receive feedback very late or never.

Here is one method that has worked for me: after I’ve created my course calendar, I copy and paste it into a new document, and add to it my own grading deadlines. These are the dates by which I aim to return grades and feedback on assignments to my students. I print this document out and tape it to the wall alongside my computer, and check things off as I go. Find a system and timing that work for you. Make it happen.

3. Create belonging.

Consider your class a place in which belonging can happen for your students. They are at an age when social relations with their peers are still extremely important – perhaps even more formative and influential for them than their relationship with you. Plan for this. Reflect on what kind of environment you want to have in your class and how you want them to relate to you, to each other, and to their own learning. Then, think about how you and they can help make this happen.

But don’t just think about what you want for them – say it. Tell them you want them to feel like they belong here. Tell them they will learn better that way. Encourage them to tell you, in whatever way they feel able, if something in class is falling short of this goal. Tell them you always want to know if something isn’t right. We can’t always think of all the ways in which someone might feel like an outsider in our classes. But we can make sure they know we want them to feel like they belong, and that we always want to know if they don’t.

4. Aim to grow… just a little.

Sometimes, we can be too ambitious in how we think about “improving our teaching,” and forget that small changes can make a big difference. Why not aim to try one small, new thing in your teaching this semester, with the simple aim of experimenting and keeping it fresh? Maybe this means attending just one TEP event this semester, or trying a new kind of assignment, or choosing one of the ideas on the “TEP Active Learning Toolkit” handout I’ve attached here and trying it a few times.

Finally, remember this: just by showing up day by day for your teaching, as best you can on that given day, you are growing and learning as a teacher. Each day of teaching will bring new circumstances and challenges, some joyful and some unpleasant. As we rise to meet them, again and again, we are adding to our “bank” of teaching experiences and skills.

           

In other words: show up and be you. And don’t forget to notice and celebrate the ways you will grow as a teacher this semester, whether big or small.

Have a great semester.

           

Teaching First-Year College Students

 

Molly Robinson Kelly, Associate Director of the Lewis & Clark College Teaching Excellence Program

For two semesters in a row, I have taught in Lewis and Clark’s first-year core course, Exploration and Discovery (which we L&C people refer to as E&D). Before that, I hadn’t taught E&D for many years. Faculty participation in E&D is voluntary, and the reasons for my long absence from this course, which is required of all first-year students, were many. Mainly, increased administrative duties had me administering more and teaching less, and I needed to devote the courses I did teach to my home department of French Studies. However, let’s face it: I didn’t mind too much, because E&D, as a writing-intensive course, involves a good deal more grading than other courses. Not to mention that the first time I taught E&D, my student course evaluations for it, although not terrible, were considerably less gratifying than I was used to in my French courses.

But last spring, I steeled my courage and stepped back into the first-year classroom with a course entitled “Insiders / Outsiders.” And discovered very quickly that I loved it. As in really, really loved it. I went to that class every day with a sense of… well, joy. So much did I enjoy teaching my first-years that I quickly rearranged my schedule for this fall to teach E&D again. And I’m loving it just as much. This has prompted me to ask myself: why do I love teaching first-year students so much? What is it about this experience that distinguishes it from my teaching in French Studies (which I enjoy very much too, just to be clear)?

I have realized that what I value so much about teaching first-year students falls into three basic categories: the kind of teacher it allows me to be, the kind of learners it allows my students to be, and the kinds of place it allows Lewis and Clark to be.

1. The Kind of Teacher it Allows me to be.

Freedom of content. I had near-total freedom to design this course to align with my interests of today. Not my expertise, not my scholarly background, but my interests. Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about (and, if I’m honest, bothered a lot by) the ways we humans create in-groups and out-groups, especially when it comes to who exercises power in society. Teaching a first-year seminar allowed me to read the books I’ve been wanting to read without ever finding the time, and talk with others about questions I’ve been grappling with. I was just as intellectually stimulated by the course as my students, and our mutual enthusiasm felt infectious and invigorating.

Freedom of form. Teaching first-years, especially first-semester first-years as I am now, I felt authorized to go “off script” in ways I had not before. The same reality that can be daunting (“Good heavens, they need everything from me!”) can be liberating (“But on the other hand… they need everything from me!”). When a student mentions with frustration or confusion something that came up for them on campus, it seems reasonable to me, knowing there are only first-years in the class, to dive right in and address it. In my classes, we’ve discussed a wide variety of useful things unrelated to our course content: what to do at an advising appointment; how to take a nap that doesn’t make you feel more tired; whether pre-requisites are really pre-requisites; whether to eat before or after a test; how to manage homesickness; how to address noise disturbances in the dorm; why we read / write / discuss so much in college. I can go off script spontaneously and still figure I’m doing my job, as a teacher of first-year students. I love the freedom this gives me to talk about what they need to talk about.

Influence. It is no secret that the first year of college can be instrumental in either setting students up for success or failure at college. I like knowing that I can make a real difference in my students’ college careers.

2. The Kind of Learner it Allows my Students to be.

Newbies. Taking class in a group made only of first-year peers and a teacher who volunteered to be there lets students relax and admit the things they don’t know more comfortably. No one needs to pretend they get it when they don’t.

Not-yet-belongers. Everyone arrives at college needing to find people and places where they can belong. It doesn’t happen overnight. Students in first-year-only classes can look around them and know that everyone else is in the same boat. And as teachers, we can know that the energy we put into creating a sense of belonging in the classroom really matters.

Students learning to be students. Most first-year students realize that they don’t yet know how to do college, and they are open to learning. They can invest time and effort now learning to read well, write well, and communicate effectively with their teachers, and know it will pay off for the next four years.

Excited about college. First-year students still feel the newness of being at college: the autonomy, the greater social openness and acceptance, the sense of wildly increased intellectual stimulation. Being able to witness all this up close reminds me over and over what is wonderful about my job.

3. The Kind of Place it Allows my Institution to be.

More than in any other year, it’s in the first year of college that the institution gets to show its students what it cares about, what it expects, what kind of people you can meet there, what kind of learning you can do there. In other words, it’s fertile ground for what we could call “institutional self care.” If institutions swing and miss in this endeavor (or never swing in the first place), they will never have quite such a golden opportunity again. But if they can hit the ball out of the park in the first year, they will reap benefits for years to come.