Associate Professor of Mathematics Katy Ott was the first teacher to introduce Nerea Barranco Aramburu ’25 to the experience of learning through small group collaboration. Ott also introduced Arumbu to the idea of learning by revising assignments — many times over, if necessary.

One result is constant feedback, Aramburu says, which helps students feel more included in the classroom, which makes learning math less stressful and more meaningful — even fun. “It was completely different. And it turns out it really works.” 

Ott’s inclusive approach to her craft, her embrace of innovations in teaching, and the positive response from students adds up to an equation for teaching success — and a big reason she earned the college’s 2023 Kroepsch Award for Excellence in Teaching, the college’s highest award for teaching. 

Students and alumni who nominated Ott for the award praise Ott’s teaching talents. “I learn more than ever before while remaining calm,” said one student. “She keeps stress low but learning at a high,” said another, adding a humorous note about Ott’s “baffling” ability to make math interesting in a low-stress environment, which “almost tricks you into understanding the subject.”

Ott is part of a cohort of willing �ֲ���ý faculty members who are shifting their pedagogy — in dramatic fashion, in some cases — to make their classrooms and the material they teach more accessible to students of all backgrounds. 

The shift means taking on, and disrupting, longstanding attitudes about teaching, including the “deficit mindset,” says Lindsey Hamilton ’05, director of the Center for Inclusive Teaching and Learning.

With a “deficit mindset,” an educator believes that a students’ lack of skill or knowledge needs to be fixed or filled in. It leads students very often to say, “I can’t do this,” Hamilton says. A more productive approach, which Ott uses, is to “coach them to say, ‘I’m still learning how to do this.’ It’s a minor thing. But it’s impactful.” 

Hamilton says Ott “really takes the time to get to know her students and talk to them about all the ways they are thinking mathematically, about how they are mathematicians. And we know from all sorts of literature that if students feel they belong in the classroom, if they are happier in the classroom, they do better, they learn better, their grades show gains in their knowledge.”

Small-group collaboration is standard for Ott, but it does not start with her saying to her students, “Find a partner.” A mountain of research, says Hamilton, shows that when the instructor places students into groups, it benefits introverted, neurodivergent, and those from minoritized groups by removing the stress of finding a group partner or navigating social circles. It keeps the focus on the learning.

“Almost everything I do now is revision without penalties. Learning math is not about memorizing or performing under pressure. It’s about deep thinking and being persistent, making space to understand things.”

Associate Professor of Mathematics Katy Ott

Another of Ott’s approaches that surprises Aramburu  as she arrived at �ֲ���ý from Spain is the idea of unlimited revisions of homework. “In Spain I would submit something, get a grade, and move on,” she says. Same goes for most math teaching the U.S., too.

In Ott’s classroom, “I either get it, or I’m not there yet and I do it again, or I almost get there, and I do it again. It makes you a better mathematician, and I actually enjoy math more because I learn from my mistakes now.”

“Almost everything I do now is revision without penalties,” Ott says. “Learning math is not about memorizing or performing under pressure. It’s about deep thinking and being persistent, making space to understand things. I’m trying to help them put their finger on where they’re struggling. Where are the boundaries of their understanding? Don’t hide because it’s a failure. Know what to work on.”

While allowing unlimited revisions might seem, to traditionalists, less rigorous, the advantages are irrefutable, Hamilton said. But it also involves an immense time commitment by the instructor. “Katy got a big laugh in her talk with faculty when she said, ‘Hey, I’m not going to lie. It’s also a ton of work,’” Hamilton said. “Katy is committed.”

Ott, who also credits support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute Inclusive Excellence Initiative for improving her teaching, says that when students make mistakes and are allowed to revise and revise, the process can illuminate parts of a student’s unique approach to problem solving.

When students get a clearer picture of what works for them personally, she said, they make progress. Educators should help students embrace their unique skill set, not punish them for it. 

Like many of her students, Ott said she came from a traditional math background where her high school instructors lectured at the board, then expected students to prove their comprehension by scoring well on timed exams. The final grade was the average score of all the exams. That approach was more or less repeated throughout her undergraduate and graduate math courses.

But when Ott began doing research in graduate school, en route to earning a Ph.D. in mathematics at the University of Virginia in 2008, she saw another way. She recognized that there was a lot to learn along the road to finding a correct answer.

Using that experience, she tries to mimic the process of mathematical discovery. Her grading is now focused on encouraging students to revise and reflect on their work, rather than on test scores. Her classes celebrate communal collaboration, rather than hierarchy or “star” students.

An infamous contributor to the deficient mindset in education is the timed exam because students who perform poorly are often seen as lacking what it takes. “I was very lucky in that I was predisposed to liking math. So none of that turned me off. And I did well on timed exams. But I don’t think that should be an entrance to mathematics because, in the end, it’s not a skill you need,” Ott said. 

“It’s unfortunate for so many who really enjoy math, but are left out, turned away, or lose interest because of these high-stakes exams. I think if a class has clear learning objectives and students can  show they’ve met those learning objectives, in my view, that deserves a good grade.”

Today, Ott watches carefully for a defeatist mindset among her students, especially those who didn’t benefit from a strong math background, or those who see themselves lacking problem-solving skills. It’s her undying quest to put equity at the forefront of teaching.

“Mathematics is dominated by men and the representation of Black and Hispanic Americans is very, very low,” Ott said. “I’ve gotten a lot of professional development at �ֲ���ý to help create an inclusive classroom. At the beginning it all felt really overwhelming. It’s this huge systematic problem. But I started making small, local-type changes, and then adding more and more.”

One class she teaches that focuses on the issue is “Mathematics for Social Justice,” in which students look at problems in society through the lens of math. It is a class Ott helped to co-created in 2021 with colleague Adriana Salerno, professor of mathematics. The ability to do math is a form of power, Ott said. “In our current society, everything is about data. Knowing math and not being afraid of it puts you in a position of power.”

For Christian Cabello ’25 of La Canada Flintridge, Calif., taking Ott’s social justice course drove home how important and valuable math is for navigating daily life. He’s been able to use the skills gained from the course to help with an ongoing project that seeks to give a Hispanic community in Providence, R.I., better access to online information on critical public issues in their community. 

Cabello got connected to the project through the project’s founder, Carrie Diaz Eaton, an associate professor of digital and computational studies at �ֲ���ý.

“My grandparents on my dad’s side are from a Latin American country, so I can relate to the older Latin-American community not knowing really how to use technology and not knowing what is accessible to them,” said Cabello, a math and Hispanic studies double major. “We’re trying to make them more aware of these resources, to provide really basic information that is easy to navigate.” 

Cabello calls Ott’s approach to teaching a winning formula, and he’s grateful to have benefited from Ott’s insights and guidance.

“She’s aware of what her students are capable of even if the student doesn’t know that,” he says. “She really wants us to be the best version of ourselves.”

Billions in box office sales tell a Hollywood tale: Movies about Black and white buddies teaming up to defeat bad guys have been a crowd favorite since the 1940s.

Whether it’s Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder foiling kidnappers in Silver Streak, or Eddie Murphy and Nick Nolte taking down a depraved killer in 48 Hrs., the experience of watching interracial buddy films — “good guys overturning the bad ones” — gives us pleasure, says Charles Nero, Benjamin E. Mays Professor of Rhetoric, Film, and Screen Studies.

Audiences expect to see, and man do they get, rousing displays of “manliness, cooperation, love, and affection between males,” however chaste and non-sexual. In these films, like In the Heat of the Night, Philadelphia, and Men in Black, eradicating evil, whether racism, homophobia, or aliens from outer space, is simple, Nero says. “As simple as black and white men becoming friends.”

Of course, that’s not just simplistic, but “a lie,” says Nero.

The recipient of the 2021 Kroepsch Award for Excellence in Teaching, Nero delivered his wide-ranging insights into the popularity and problems of interracial buddy films during a recent �ֲ���ý talk, culminating with an analysis of why Spike Lee’s 2018 BlacKkKlansman is an “awesome and subversive takedown” of the genre. 

Established in 1985, the Kroepsch Award honors faculty for their performance in teaching. A member of the �ֲ���ý faculty since 1991, Nero specializes in film, literary, and cultural studies. He is the longtime chair of the college’s Martin Luther King, Jr. Day Committee and a member of the Africana program.

Held in Keck classroom and streamed live via Zoom on Sept. 27, Nero’s Kroepsch Lecture drew Zoom questions from several of Nero’s alumni students, including one from Nero’s earliest years as a �ֲ���ý professor.

The interracial buddy film dates to the Cold War after World War II. Hollywood had joined the fight against the perceived Red peril, in the film lot through blacklists and on the screen, producing movies with anti-Communist themes. 

The first few, such as 1949’s Home of the Brave and 1951’s The Steel Helmet and Bright Victory introduced a familiar trope, the “multiracial, multifaith, and multi-ethnic troupe of American soldiers who bond with each other to combat and defeat a Communist enemy.” 

A pivotal moment occurs in Steel Helmet when a Communist North Korean army officer (Harold Fong) asks the Black soldier (James Edward) why he’s loyal to racist, Jim Crow America.

“The response Edwards gives is one about patience,” Nero explains. “The African American soldier professes loyalty to an American exceptionalism. America as a nation will eventually abandon its white supremacy and become a welcoming place for him. The African American man just has to be patient because America is destined to become better.”

With interracial buddy films, Hollywood discovered a way to “secure Black American loyalty in the fight against Communist appeals to people of color in the U.S. and abroad,” explains Nero. Forget the “fierce urgency of now”: Hollywood was telling Black Americans to just wait.

With that message, Hollywood had laid the groundwork for a new genre.

In Stanley Kramer’s The Defiant Ones, Sidney Poitier and Tony Curtis received Academy Award nominations for their roles as convicts on the lam, chained together. “Initially they hate each other — Curtis’ character was a working-class racist,” Nero explains. “But since the two were chained together, they have to work together to evade capture, as the movie endlessly shows us.”

The messages sent by The Defiant Ones and subsequent interracial buddy films are both simplistic and untrue because they reduce racism and white supremacy to something “one-dimensional, an internal state,” explains Nero, when we know that racism and white supremacy are institutional and systemic, not internal.

Which brings us to Spike Lee’s BlacKkKlansman, based on the true story of a Black police officer in Colorado Springs, Colo., who sets out to infiltrate the Ku Klux Klan in the 1970s, helped out by a white undercover officer.

“It has the appearance of an interracial buddy film,” says Nero, but instead, Lee delivers an “awesome takedown” of the genre. One tipoff that this isn’t your father’s interracial buddy film is a scene showing KKK members watching and cheering D.W. Griffith’s Birth of a Nation.

Birth of a Nation suggests that interracial friendship (between a Northern abolitionist and his mixed-race protege) will create a national catastrophe that only the Ku Klux Klan can solve. 

By including the scene, Lee is “exposing the lie about interracial friendship in the national narrative. Birth of a Nation’s message about interracial friendship — that it will create catastrophe — is a lie just as the buddy film’s message, that interracial friendship is a “godsend that will end racism and white supremacy,” is a lie.

Though Lee forewarns viewers that lies are afoot and that he’s out to disrupt a familiar genre, BlacKkKlansman seems to “end” in the familiar way. “Black and white men as friends. They can all sit down as friends and enjoy a beer. All is right in the world. The wicked have been punished. Order is restored.”

But no, it’s not over. 

Using one of his cinematic trademarks, the double-dolly shot, Lee creates a “surreal moment,” in which two Black characters, Ron Stallworth and Patrice Dumas, with guns drawn, seem to float down a hallway and into the future. They see a cross is burning. The KKK is still around. There’s a rally, real scenes of the 2017 Unite the Right white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va., reminding us of the endless cycle of racism.

Their passage down the hallway “evokes the , from which enslaved Black people left the European fortresses of West Africa for America,” Nero says.

It’s an “exhilarating moment of cinematic realism” as director Lee “stamps the Black experience onto the interracial buddy film. In this Black experience, Lee evokes capture and Middle Passage, enslavement and white supremacy in America, as a never-ending cycle.”

During the post-talk Q&A, one question came from Adam Gaynor ’96, a student of Nero’s from, as he said with a chuckle, “the last century.”

“Oh gosh! Adam!” Nero exclaimed, clearly pleased, after hearing that Gaynor had asked a question. “That’s great.”

Gaynor asked Nero his thoughts about why the film would have the character Flip Zimmerman be Jewish when in real life the white cop was not Jewish.

Without going into Spike Lee’s motivations, Nero noted that Zimmerman being a Jew makes his entry into the KKK more interesting. Zimmerman “is passing,” Nero said. “He and Ron have a conversation about what it means to be Jewish. Ron has to think about his own identity.”

Asked about his interest in watching Nero’s talk, Gaynor said, “I wouldn’t miss an opportunity to listen to Charles lecture — he’s one of a kind.”

Gaynor has spent most of his career in education, and is now a founding partner of Plan A Advisors, a consulting firm for nonprofits. He earned his doctorate from New York University in education and Jewish studies. Speaking from that breadth of experience, Gaynor calls Nero “an educator, scholar, and mentor par excellence.”

At �ֲ���ý, Gaynor was deeply involved in confronting anti-Semitism, homophobia, and white supremacy. “�ֲ���ý and Maine were anything but welcoming to students of color and Jewish and LGBTQ students,” he recalls.

“A core group of faculty of color, including Charles, invested time and energy in mentoring vulnerable students, ultimately helping �ֲ���ý to retain many of us.”

Gaynor recalls taking Nero’s course “Sexuality in the Era of AIDS.” The course’s “extremely challenging material” demanded that students step “far outside of our comfort zones,” Gaynor recalls. 

Nero was there every step of the way, including taking students on an overnight, off-campus retreat, where he facilitated exercises and discussions, “punctuated by family-style meals and activities.”

The experience “enabled students to know one another more deeply and to feel more comfortable engaging with the material through trust and vulnerability. It completely transformed the class dynamic for the remainder of the semester.” 

And when it comes to engaging with a film, Nero says it’s possible to watch our favorite films, whether BlacKkKlansman or a more typical interracial film like Shawshank Redemption, with a critical eye and without having to push aside feelings of pleasure. 

Watching with a critical eye means asking ourselves questions about our pleasures: Why do we enjoy the things we do? Why do interracial buddy films perfectly scratch that itch for so many of us?

“Film is a solicitor of pleasure,” Nero says. “One of my jobs, as an educator, and I take it very seriously, is I want to encourage us, not to reject pleasure, because, you know, I’m a queer person, and I was told that that was just wrong. So, I don’t want you to reject pleasure, I want you to ask questions about your pleasures.”

And one of the questions we can ask is about the racial implications and dynamics of the movies we enjoy so much.

“I think the question is, do we ask ourselves, ‘How does something like race play out in what I find pleasurable in what I’m going to enjoy?’” Nero said. “Too often, we don’t have those moments to interrogate.”

Two �ֲ���ý professors share the 2020 Ruth M. and Robert H. Kroepsch Award for Excellence in Teaching. Those professors’ students make it easy to see why both received the college’s highest teaching honor. 

“He is the professor who has had the single largest impact on the way I view the world,” Morgan Baxter ’20 of Irvine, Calif., says of Joshua Rubin, lecturer in anthropology. 

“Jen is exactly what I came to �ֲ���ý for,” says Cara Starnbach ’19, describing Jennifer ���DZ���������-��ô��é, associate professor of chemistry and biochemistry.

���DZ���������-��ô��é, an expert in carbohydrate chemistry who works on synthesizing molecules related to muscular dystrophy and to fighting a virus that causes illness in infants, has long taught the sequence of organic chemistry courses that most �ֲ���ý natural science majors take, as well as upper-level courses. 

Lecturer in Anthropology Joshua Rubin is a winner of the 2020 Kroepsch Award for Excellence in Teaching. (Samuel Mironko ’21/�ֲ���ý College)

Rubin studies the often-very-serious effects of sport and play in society: What happens when one person frames an action, perhaps a violent one, as part of a sport, but their opponent does not? What if each has a different political affiliation, and there’s a power imbalance? Rubin teaches courses across the academic levels, including the popular “Art, Power, and Politics.” 

Ky Jenkins ’22 of Potomac, Md., is currently taking that class. He says Rubin has a talent for making students question the roles and values they assign to objects and each other, while validating students’ own ideas. 

“He’s created a classroom environment where I am not afraid to share my ideas and what I think about the reading or the things he’s saying,” Jenkins says. 

Starnbach says that through ���DZ���������-��ô��é, she developed a strong foundation in chemistry and the confidence to make it her career. She now works at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, developing cancer-fighting drugs. 

Associate Professor Chemistry and Biochemistry Jennifer ���DZ���������-��ô��é is a winner of the 2020 Kroepsch Award for Excellence in Teaching. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

���DZ���������-��ô��é — who persuaded Starnbach to become a chemistry major — exemplifies the strong teaching that made her experience at �ֲ���ý exceptional, Starnbach says. 

“I’ve seen her give talks and the relationships she has in the field,” she says. “She is respected, and then she takes such pride in teaching undergraduates. She has made it her life’s work to nurture learning at that level and give us good research experiences. I’ve benefited from all of those things.” 

We talked with ���DZ���������-��ô��é and Rubin about their roles as teachers, how they’re making things work remotely, and the most rewarding aspects of teaching at �ֲ���ý. 

What, to you, is teaching? Is it just what happens in the classroom, or is it more than that?

Rubin: Teaching is helping someone to see the world just a little bit differently and providing them with the tools to understand what they’re seeing. It’s about encouraging students to recognize that there are other ways of thinking and other ways of acting in the world beyond the ones they encounter most often. 

Teaching is getting students to that realization and then showing them what they can do once they’ve reached it — the possibilities for critique, social action, and emancipation that open up with new perspectives. One lecture won’t do that, nor one discussion. 

���DZ���������-��ô��é: Teaching is not simply the transfer of information. For me, it involves getting to know students on a personal level — understanding the way they think, understanding the way they approach problems, helping them to think about problems from a different perspective, using a method they may not have thought about before. 

Mara Stolzenbach ’20 of Los Angeles talks about her honors thesis adviser, Joshua Rubin, lecturer in anthropology and co-winner of the 2020 Kroepsch Award for Excellence in Teaching.

I often tell students they’re a lot smarter than I am. They argue with me, and I say I know a lot more things, but oftentimes, they are able to pull in information and think about things I wouldn’t have thought about. 

Especially with organic chemistry, students are afraid of the topic, and historically chemistry has not done a good job of highlighting research by women and underrepresented minorities. Another goal of mine is to help my students be able to see themselves doing this work and being a part of this topic, and I really try to help students gain confidence in themselves. 

What is your teaching style?

Rubin: My teaching style is based on a few things. One is humility. I don’t claim to know everything, I haven’t read everything, and I don’t claim to know how my students experience the world. 

The second is confusion. The world is extremely complex — confusion is a sign that you’re venturing into unfamiliar territory and you don’t know quite what to think. The third is personalization. I need to get to know my students and learn how they think. I need them to trust me if we’re going to venture away from comfortable patterns of thought. 

Then there’s encouragement. Students are way, way smarter than they think. I see it as my job to take the ideas that students already have, often really great and transformative ideas, and to show them how good they are. 

Associate Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry Jennifer ���DZ���������-��ô��é displays glass wool in a laboratory for students during a 2018 organic chemistry course. Behind her is teaching assistant Cara Starnbach ’19, who now works at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

���DZ���������-��ô��é: My teaching style is very interactive, very problem-based. I like to use a lot of hands-on exercises. We use a lot of molecular models, especially in the fall semester. 

I like to have a personal interaction with students — I’m realizing how important that is, not having it in the last few weeks. 

I also like to tie the material into other applications, so students can see this is something that is important in a biological system, or this is something that is used to synthesize an antibiotic, rather than just, “Here’s a reaction.” 

I like to get students up at the chalkboard, which goes back to giving students confidence. I like for students to feel like they are in charge of their learning. 

What’s been the most rewarding part of teaching at �ֲ���ý? 

Rubin: I’m continually impressed by the willingness of students to join me on intellectual journeys. They will think about things that are tricky, they will read complex material, and they will talk to you and to each other, even if they’re not 100% sure where they stand. 

Mitchell Willsey ’20 of Glastonbury, Conn., talks about his honors thesis adviser, Jennifer ���DZ���������-��ô��é, associate professor of chemistry and biochemistry and co-winner of the 2020 Kroepsch Award for Excellence in Teaching.

There’s a joy in a student getting it, if just for an instant. There’s also the joy of a group of students just riffing off each other, thinking together and going places that I could never have taken them by myself. I find those moments hard to replicate outside of a learning environment, and I really treasure them.

���DZ���������-��ô��é: I love it when the same students who come to me on the first day of class to express their anxiety come back six weeks later and say, “I can do this. I can learn this. I did well. I got an A on an exam.” 

The other thing I find rewarding is watching these young people grow to become scientists, to see them presenting their research. I love going around the Mount David Summit and seeing students I might not have seen for two years and hearing what they did for their senior thesis.

I also like taking my own students to national meetings and interacting with people in the field, or having students come back three or four years later, finally having found their niche in science, or gotten into medical school. I find it very rewarding to see the accomplishments of my students. 

What is it like to work remotely? 

���DZ���������-��ô��é: Students are amazing. They’re not complaining about things, they’re just taking it in stride, and we’re all doing what we can. 

Joshua Rubin speaks at a 2018 Martin Luther King Jr. Day Observance panel on athlete protest. With him is Ellijah McLean ’20 of Providence, R.I., center; and Erica Rand, Whitehouse Professor Art and Visual Culture. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

I’m doing shortened video Zoom lectures with worksheets — “OK, pause the video, do this question, then come back and we’ll go through the answers.” Then I have four hours of Zoom office hours a week and get to see some of them face to face. 

We’re hanging in there.

Rubin: One moment of joy that I’ve been experiencing is just how accommodating students have been. Their whole social environment got completely scrambled over the course of a couple of weeks. I’m getting these emails from students that are incredibly thoughtful and kind: “I won’t be able to join our conversation. Is there still some way I can participate?”

“He’s created a classroom environment where I am not afraid to share my ideas and what I think about the reading or the things he’s saying.”

It’s been a real challenge to figure out how to do this technically but also in terms of the material, because for some students other concerns are taking precedence over the readings right now. Others want to talk about how the readings apply to our present moment. I try to make a vibe in a room that can accommodate all these different points of view and respect them. 

It’s been really heartwarming and really satisfying to see students try to rise to that challenge. 

How do you feel about winning the Kroepsch award?

���DZ���������-��ô��é: It sounds trite, but you can’t be a good teacher without good students. I’m grateful to have worked with some outstanding undergraduates. It’s also very humbling — �ֲ���ý is full of excellent teachers. 

Rubin: I feel like there are tons of very talented teachers at this institution so it’s hard for me to feel particularly deserving. To get this kind of recognition at a place like �ֲ���ý, one that places such value on teaching, is really incredible. 

I’m astonished that teaching works. I plan a lesson, students read, they talk to me, I talk to them, and something about how they experience the world is a little bit different, and often the way I experience the world is a little bit different too. The fact that it works at all keeps me fascinated by teaching, and committed to it, and always striving to be a little bit better. 

One class session with rhetoric professor Stephanie Kelley-Romano in 2015 was enough to turn Claire Sullivan ’19 into a rhetoric major.

Sullivan’s first-ever class at �ֲ���ý, it was the opening session in the course “What Is Rhetoric?”

Kelley-Romano showed music videos by female country artists, including RaeLynn’s “God Made Girls” — which features lyrics like, “Somebody’s gotta be the one to cry / Somebody’s gotta let him drive … So God made girls.”

Kelley-Romano then struck up a discussion encompassing heteronormativity, gender roles, and who’s excluded from a worldview like RaeLynn’s. “She just went off on the absurdity of the rhetorical implications of this ,” says Sullivan of Montville, N.J. The class “made me want to be a rhetoric major because she just had so much passion and enthusiasm for it.

Stephanie Kelley-Romano leads a “Television Criticism” class on March 6, 2019. (Theophil Syslo/�ֲ���ý College)

“She emphasized the way we look at certain cultural texts. When you critically analyze them, you get so much more out of them and see their cultural and sociological implications in a really different way.”

Praised as a teacher who’s exacting, empathetic, authentic — and passionate about her field — Kelley-Romano has received the college’s 2019 Ruth M. and Robert H. Kroepsch Award for Excellence in Teaching.

Associate professor and chair of the rhetoric, film, and screen studies department, Kelley-Romano is known at �ֲ���ý and beyond for her professional focus on topics in the popular consciousness — the rhetoric of television, conspiracy theories, and abductions by space aliens, to name a few. Her biennial course on presidential campaign rhetoric is built around a mock campaign that affords an intensely hands-on, multidisciplinary experience for students.

She has led public workshops on spotting fake news, analyzed for the local newspaper a debate between candidates for Maine’s 2nd District congressional seat (including Jared Golden ‘11, who ultimately won), and, with math professor Meredith Greer, she is modeling how conspiracy theories spread.

“It’s infectious to be in a classroom with somebody who is excited about what they’re teaching.”

“Rhetoric allows us to understand how realities are created,” says Kelley-Romano. “Why we call someone a survivor, as opposed to a victim, matters. It matters who we define as terrorists. The way we criminalize drug use by some but construct it as a health crisis when it affects other people, matters.

“So it’s important to allow students to see that just because something is in a history book or in a newspaper,” that doesn’t necessarily make it true, she says. “Objectivity is a little looser than they may have been led to believe.”

Like Sullivan, it was in her first class at �ֲ���ý that Molly Chisholm ’17 of Boston first encountered Kelley-Romano. As with Sullivan, the professor’s enthusiasm made a big impression. “It’s infectious to be in a classroom with somebody who is excited about what they’re teaching,” Chisholm says. “You’re automatically engaged because �����’s so engaged and so happy to be there.”

Stephanie Kelley-Romano talks with Molly Chisholm ’17, who portrayed a Republican candidate for U.S. president in a fall 2016 campaign rhetoric course. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

“I love watching students gain confidence and skills,” Kelley-Romano says.

“When I’m trying to teach a critical-thinking skill or to get them to understand the logical organization for a paper — when I see it actually happen, that’s a great feeling. And then to see it again and again, and see the change in them from the beginning to the end, is just so satisfying.”

She adds, “If I honor and respect their process of coming into knowledge and coming into themselves, and just try to help that along, then it gives them so much agency. And they’re so much more invested in doing well.”

In Kelley-Romano “there’s an element of genuineness” that’s uncommon, says Sullivan. “She lets us see who she is as a person.” For example, ����������-��dz����Դ�’s sons, 16-year-old George and 14-year-old Richie, are no strangers to Pettigrew Hall (and they also help keep their mother in tune with pop-culture trends).

“In return, she expects us to show her who we are as people,” Sullivan says. “She just cares so much about understanding where her students are coming from and what makes them people, more than just students.”

Kelley-Romano listens to a remark by a fellow faculty panelist during a viewing and discussion of the televised inauguration of President Donald Trump in January 2017. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

“She has a great degree of empathy, and I think that’s always present in her pedagogy,” says ����������-��dz����Դ�’s colleague Charles Nero, Benjamin E. Mays ’20 Distinguished Professor of Rhetoric, Film, and Screen Studies. “If you talk about the importance of care in the process of teaching, Stephanie exemplifies that.”

Some of that empathy may be traceable to ����������-��dz����Դ�’s undergraduate experience. A first-generation-to-college student at Emerson University, she took away a certain understanding of the uncertainties, insecurities, and feelings of isolation that can come with being a first-gen. She’s not shy about putting that understanding to work.

Openness about her own experience is a way to help put students at ease with their situations. “To articulate those fears or seeming insecurities and make them laughable, and to own them,” Kelley-Romano says, “makes students feel a lot more comfortable” — helps them “see that on the inside everybody can be silly, or insecure, or uncertain, and that it’s okay.”

None of which is to suggest that she is a pushover. “She wants, probably demands, that her students excel,” Nero says. “She sees her role as giving them the tools to excel, and she thinks a lot about that.

“And I think that when students leave her class, they’re aware that whatever happened — the good, the bad, the ugly — it’s on them. She encourages responsibility.” Nero adds, “I would daresay that she is brilliant as a pedagogue.”

A 2017 graduate, Gabe Nott experienced those high expectations as he honed his senior thesis under ����������-��dz����Դ�’s guidance. Now a New York City resident, Nott was writing about the TV program Last Week Tonight, hosted by comedian John Oliver, and the implications of news-focused comedy for civic discourse.

“It took me a while to figure out my argument for my thesis,” says Nott. “Every time I thought knew what angle I was going to take, she’d come back with a question I wasn’t able to answer. Honestly, it was pretty frustrating.

“But, when I finally got there, I realized that all that prodding and pushing helped me craft a more incisive analysis” that even transcended Oliver to shed light on how, Nott says, “we as a country talk about politics.”

Michaela Britt ’17, Molly Chisholm ’17, and Brennen Malone ’17 confer with Kelley-Romano during the 2016 campaign rhetoric course. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

He adds, “When I finally figured it out, she was as excited as I was. All that just made me feel like she was really invested in helping me become the best scholar I could be.”

Sullivan took the fall 2018 edition of ����������-��dz����Դ�’s campaign rhetoric course. The mock campaign involves students in just about every aspect of a campaign that involves communications — which is pretty much all of it, from developing a platform to writing ads and speeches to holding debates to mounting a crisis response.

“The mock campaign felt so practical,” says Sullivan, who played the role of the Democratic vice presidential candidate. She plans to work for a real campaign after graduation as a prelude to a career in law or politics. “She expected a professional quality of us, and so it felt like we were running a real campaign.”

She adds, “It allowed us to really think about how political campaigns craft narratives, which is obviously a huge part of the study of rhetoric.”

The fictional presidential candidate for the Democrats was a military veteran, as was his wife. “He was Jewish, and so we talked about his Jewish identity a lot. We made my character queer and married to a woman.”

Rhetoric professor Stephanie Kelley-Romano meets in her office with Kathryn Carew ’17 of Falmouth, Maine, in 2016. Carew and Kelley-Romano published her senior thesis, a study of Donald Trump and the “birther” movement, in the Journal of Hate Studies. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

Sullivan says, “It got us thinking about how we talk about identities, and how those identities are perceived and portrayed to a greater public.” Developing candidate personas — their backgrounds, beliefs, relationships — reflected an important emphasis in the �ֲ���ý approach to teaching rhetoric: an understanding of intersectionality, how different aspects of identity relate to one another and how they are treated in communications.

“Our focuses on gender, race, sexuality, and ethnicity are crucial organizing principles to our major,” Nero says. “Stephanie has been fundamental in the creation of that.”

Four years after the RaeLynn revelation, Kelley-Romano advised Sullivan on her senior thesis, which looks at the role of conspiracy rhetoric in the Fox News coverage of the Brett Kavanaugh hearings — a research project they hope to publish together.

The relationship has meant a lot to her, Sullivan says. “To have somebody who has known me throughout the entire four years, academically and a little bit outside the academics, has been a very comforting experience.” Even after �ֲ���ý, “I know that she’ll really be there for me.”

A fall 2018 session of her course “What is Rhetoric?” features Kelley-Romano using a Halloween costume to riff on her research into alien abduction stories. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

Allen Sumrall ’16 says that professor Stephen Engel made him stop caring about what, for some, is a defining point of academe: the grade.

“I became more concerned about the material and writing a well-organized, interesting, thought-provoking paper than about the grade it would get,” says Sumrall, who took four courses with Engel and enlisted that associate professor of politics as his honors thesis adviser.

“That’s probably the single best lesson I learned in college,” Sumrall says. “He inspired my own thinking. I became truly interested in the material for its own sake.” In other words, he discovered what’s known around �ֲ���ý as purposeful work: the kind of work that aligns interests, abilities, and a sense of higher meaning.

In a video by �ֲ���ý director of photography Phyllis Graber Jensen, Stephen Engel explains what the Kroepsch Award for Excellence in Teaching means to him.

“It’s only because of his courses that I’m doing a Ph.D. in government,” adds Sumrall, who’s building on his �ֲ���ý honors thesis to earn that doctorate, combined with a law degree, at the University of Texas at Austin. Engel’s “willingness to nurture and promote that enthusiasm in students allowed me to discover what I wanted to do with my life.”

It’s not surprising that students of Engel would undergo such conversion experiences. Engel’s teaching, says politics department colleague James Richter, “is characterized by encyclopedic knowledge of his subject, clarity in its presentation, extraordinary preparation — you should see the outlines on the board when you walk into one of his 200-level classes — and an overriding concern for his students’ progress.”

Engel recently received a different kind of acknowledgement of his work with students: the 2018 edition of �ֲ���ý’ pre-eminent faculty honor, the Ruth M. and Robert H. Kroepsch Award for Excellence in Teaching.

Charlotte Karlsen ’20 of Portland, Ore., sits with Associate Professor of Politics Stephen Engel in his Pettengill Hall office. She is taking Constitutional Law II with Engel as an independent study. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

On April 30, to mark the award, Engel presents a talk suggesting that conservatives may come to accept Supreme Court decisions that advance gay rights, because such decisions could ultimately serve the right’s legal objectives.

Engel joined the faculty in politics, one of �ֲ���ý’ most popular majors, in 2011. The author of three books, he teaches constitutional law and development, American political development, and courses that focus on LGBT social and political mobilization.

For him, part of the appeal of a small school like �ֲ���ý is that “there is both the expectation and the excitement of being in the classroom on a regular basis with undergraduates. The classroom is where I get to test ideas, challenge students, have students challenge me about those ideas,” Engel says.

In March, Timothy Lyle of Iona College and Stephen Engel (at the far end of the table) packed a Commons seminar room with their research presentation “F***ing with Dignity.” The talk was presented in coordination with �ֲ���ý’ production of “Angels in America: Millennium Approaches.” (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

“And it’s where I can really think through, in the context of politics, how contemporary policy disputes can be understood both in the moment and in the historical context.”

Now in her second semester of studying constitutional law with Engel, politics major Charlotte Karlsen ’20 of Portland, Ore., seconds Sumrall’s assessment of the professor’s ability to engage students. Where “Con Law I” could have been a dry and arcane exposition of relationships among the three federal branches and between D.C. and the states, Engel instead made it captivating.

“I think a lot of us were like, ‘We’re going to go through this kind of taxation or interstate highway conversation,’” Karlsen says, but instead, “we walked out with a really funny story or a life that had been changed by a federal decision. He really is excellent at balancing the personal and the academic in a way that makes constitutional law feel alive.”

Associate Professor of Politics Stephen Engel is the 2018 recipient of �ֲ���ý’ Kroepsch Award for Excellence in Teaching. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

She adds, “Everything he says is so specific, so direct, and so comprehensible. I think that’s critical, because he reaches every member of the class.”

“One of the things that I’ve come to learn at �ֲ���ý,” says Engel, “is how I value my students so much, and how important it is to me that we create environments which are nurturing and challenging.” It’s an approach that Karlsen especially appreciated during Con Law I — which Engel taught during the emotional roller-coaster ride of the 2016 election season. He provided the tools to understand the new status quo, along with some implicit reassurance about the ultimate solidity of the U.S. political system.

“To feel like there’s a structure to our country and there’s a way that things are supposed to go,” Karlsen says, “helps us have hope for the future. And also to know what expectations we should hold for our current government. It gives students agency in discovering what responsibilities they have toward our country and how the country should be responsible to us.”

2018 Kroepsch Award recipient Stephen Engel, associate professor of politics, teaches in Pettengill Hall on April 6. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

To Allen Sumrall, who came in thinking that political science was pretty much all campaign tactics and dull institutional studies, Engel introduced intriguing dimensions of the field: specifically, the sub-discipline of American political development, which studies the causes and effects of major shifts in political history.

It was a game-changer. “APD scholars always press for historical context,” Sumrall says. “Something a political actor does at Point A may not have the same effect as if they had done it at Point B. That point alone made my brain explode.”

Engel also wins praise for his ability to challenge students while equipping them to meet the challenges. “He asks a lot of his students, but gives them all the tools to succeed,” says Bennett Saltzman ’18 of Dobbs Ferry, N.Y.

“He gives great feedback — often writing a full page of notes on every student’s paper. This feedback shaped my senior year, as the paper proposal that I wrote in ‘Politics of Judicial Power’ last semester turned into my thesis this semester.”

Politics professor Stephen Engel is known for his ability to engage students with challenging material. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

The rewards are mutual, says Engel. “One of the fun things for me, especially when it comes time to advise a senior thesis, is to watch a student take responsibility and ownership over what they’re doing,” he explains. “And also the idea that they come to recognize that they are a bit of an expert — and often more of an expert — on a particular question than I am.”

On a recent weekend, Engel read “a senior thesis that was using some quantitative and statistical modeling techniques that were extraordinarily impressive.” Engel was struck by the intellectual maturity of the student’s argument: “He walked the reader through to understand not just what his methodology was, but why it was this, and why it was an improvement over existing attempts to answer the question that he was answering.”

It was a great moment, he continues. “I was like, ‘I’m learning!’” For Engel, that experience is part of a dynamic wired into the �ֲ���ý education. “In the first year, you really are the professor and they really are the student.

“And by the point of the thesis, the roles can reverse in a way where the professor can be actively learning and the student can take responsibility for how to teach — that exciting moment where they realize what they actually have accomplished.

“You really do, as a professor, get to see the arc of a student’s academic progress.”

The decor in Stephen Engel’s Pettengill Hall office speaks volumes. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

For �ֲ���ý College, 2016–17 was a year of never-befores and how-about-thats, with a few way-to-goes along the way.

Here are the highlights:

�ֲ���ý Campaign launch energized by announcement of Bonneys’ $50 million gift

Believed to be the largest single monetary donation ever to a Maine college, the $50 million gift from Michael ’80 and Alison Grott Bonney ’80, announced on May 16 with the launch of the �ֲ���ý Campaign, will fund new and modernized science facilities at �ֲ���ý.

“We have never been more optimistic about the future of �ֲ���ý,” said Michael.

Kicked off with events in Boston, New York City, San Francisco, and on campus, The �ֲ���ý Campaign has a goal of $300 million, making it the largest fundraising effort in college history.

President Clayton Spencer reveals the $300 million goal of The �ֲ���ý Campaign during the Boston launch event on May 16. “We have gotten pretty far on high intention, good ideas, and great design. But I think we could get even farther if we combine those good ideas and great design with strong resources.” (Jared Charney Photography for �ֲ���ý College)

Women win second NCAA rowing championship

The team championship, �ֲ���ý rowing’s second in three years, came thanks to gutsy performances by both �ֲ���ý boats at the NCAA regatta, held May 26–27 on Mercer Lake in West Windsor, N.J.

“It was really the epitome of what I love about this sport,” said Julia Mason ’17 of Niskayuna, N.Y.

�ֲ���ý seniors Julia Mason of Niskayuna, N.Y., Molly Pritz of Ithaca, N.Y., Katherine Traquina of Wayland, Mass., Abigail Bierman of Bethlehem, N.Y., and Jessica Vocaturo of Columbus, N.J., celebrate the college’s second team national championship. (Aaron Morse/�ֲ���ý College)

Record Fulbright awards to �ֲ���ý seniors and young alums

Through late June, the Fulbright U.S. Student program has offered grants to 22 seniors and young alumni for 2017–18 — the college’s highest number of offers ever.

“The Fulbright mission is about young scholars taking the initiative for intercultural exchange in our global society,” says Robert Strong, who guides �ֲ���ý students in applying for Fulbrights.

“The �ֲ���ý experience, set in the international community of Lewiston, is an ideal incubator for such leaders.”

One of 22 seniors and young alumni to receive Fulbright offers for 2017–18, Deshun Peoples ’17 of Chicago, a double major in studio art and rhetoric, received a Fulbright Open Study/Research Award for a project in China. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

�ֲ���ý finished 20th in the 2016–17 Learfield Directors’ Cup, an annual ranking of the country’s most successful varsity sports programs based on their team performances at NCAA championships.

�ֲ���ý ranked 20th out of 325 institutions that scored points in 2016–17. In all, there are 451 NCAA Division III member schools.

The following �ֲ���ý teams earned Directors’ Cup points: women’s rowing (NCAA champs), men’s lacrosse (5th-place tie), women’s outdoor track and field (11th), women’s indoor track and field (11th tie), women’s swimming (13th), alpine and Nordic skiing (17th), women’s cross country (19th), men’s swimming (24th), and men’s indoor track and field (42nd).

Head coach Peter Lasagna and the men’s lacrosse team celebrate after defeating Middlebury at Garcelon Field in April. �ֲ���ý (16-2) advanced to the quarterfinals of the NCAA tournament in 2017. (Brewster Burns for �ֲ���ý College)

Major U.S. higher education access initiative selects �ֲ���ý for membership

In December 2016, the American Talent Initiative selected �ֲ���ý on the basis of the college’s commitment to access, affordability, and post-graduation success.

“We are proud to join the American Talent Initiative and look forward to offering our energy, experience, and creativity to the campaign,” said President Spencer.

“Education remains the great equalizer in our society.”

Supported by Bloomberg Philanthropies, the initiative seeks, over the next nine years, to expand by 50,000 the number of low- and moderate-income students attending 270 top U.S. schools.

“At a time when we’re too often reminded of issues that divide us, education remains the great equalizer in our society,” said Spencer.

Members of the Class of 2020 get acquainted during an academic-planning session in August 2016 as part of Bobcat First!, the college’s program for first-generation-to-college students. The college’s record of supporting student success garnered an invitation to the American Talent Initiative. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

Debaters advance to the globe’s upper echelons

In March, the team of Abby Westberry ’19 of Readfield, Maine, and Tessa Holtzman ’17 of Las Cruces, N.M., won the North American Women’s Debating Championship.

And in January, the team of Zoë Seaman-Grant ’17 of Charleston, S.C., and Matt Davis ’18 of Chicago made �ֲ���ý’ first-ever final-four appearance at the World Universities Debating Championships, held in The Hague, Netherlands.

The performances have once again “solidified �ֲ���ý as an elite program,” said Director of Debate Jan Hovden.

Debate partners Zoë Seaman-Grant ’17 and Matt Davis ’18 made it to the finals of the 2017 World Universities Debating Championships in The Hague, Netherlands. (Photograph courtesy Brooks Quimby Debate Council)

Economist Michael Murray wins 2017 Kroepsch Award for Excellence in Teaching

Murray received the college’s signature teaching award for, among other things, “making econometrics click for [students] in a way that other people don’t,” said his colleague James Hughes.

Students don’t just rave about Murray’s ability to communicate econometrics. They say he even makes it fun. “He made complex concepts enjoyable and interesting to learn,” said Sarah Centanni ’17 of Hingham, Mass.

Economics professor Michael Murray works with econometrics students during the final week of classes in April. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

Ali Rabideau’s social-enterprise pitch wins top prize in $15,000 competition

The �ֲ���ý senior’s winning pitch in the student-run Bobcat Ventures competition on April 1, 2016, grew from her summer job helping a Lewiston nonprofit, the Center for Wisdom’s Women, make some money by growing and selling products made from medicinal herbs and flowers.

Rabideau said that being able to knit together two strong strands of the �ֲ���ý experience — entrepreneurism and social awareness — “was my favorite part of the experience: Having the kind of work you value brought to life by an entrepreneurship competition.”

Bobcat Ventures judge Chris Barbin ’93 presents first-place winner Ali Rabideau ’17 with a first-place check of $9,000 on April 1, 2017. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

Campus weathers historic five-snowstorm week

February 2017 delivered a one-two-three-four-five punch of snowstorms totaling around 47 inches, which is more than double the height of your average bobcat.

Midway through the February blitz, with the temperature at about 13 degrees and the wind gusting to 25 mph, we caught up with Kinsey Moser ’18 of Florida, at left, who was walking with Emma Foss ’19 and Adam Poulin ’19 of Maine and Jade Donaldson ’18 of New Jersey.

�ֲ���ý takes national lead in sustainability with switch to Renewable Fuel Oil

�ֲ���ý is cutting emissions and saving money as the first U.S. college to heat with an innovative fuel oil made from wood scraps and other cellulosic biomass products.

�ֲ���ý sustainability manager Tom Twist estimates that burning RFO will cut the steam plant’s annual emission of carbon dioxide equivalents (CO2e) from about 3,080 metric tons to 532.

“It’s a huge drop, which is pretty cool,” said Twist.

Tanks a lot: With a Cote crane poised for action, a rigger unfastens the Renewable Fuel Oil tank from its trailer on Dec. 9, 2016. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ���ý College)

Attempt to suppress �ֲ���ý student vote gets swift college response

Denounced with vigor by President Clayton Spencer, the dastardly attempt to discourage �ֲ���ý students from participating in the 2016 national election on Nov. 8 captured national attention.

Two days before the election, orange fliers posted in Commons and residences by an unknown person implied that voting in Maine meant that a student must get a Maine driver’s license and, if they owned a car, register it with the state. Neither are requirements for students to vote in Maine.

In her statement to the community, President Spencer denounced the fliers as “clearly a deliberate attempt at voter suppression.”

Orange fliers with false voting information posted on campus on Nov. 6 were a deliberate attempt to discourage students from voting, said President Spencer. (Photograph by Sarah Frankie Sigman ’18)

Marcy Plavin, a singular force for dance and dancers at �ֲ���ý, dies at age 84

Plavin, who died Nov.  3, 2016, was the face and spirit of �ֲ���ý dance and, for her students, “a spirited defender and nurturer of their aspirations and dreams,” said President Spencer.

Dance critic and historian Suzanne Carbonneau ’76 said that Plavin provided an ��Գٰ�é�� “to the world of artistic creation” for her students. “We learned that passionate engagement, an appreciation of the sublime, and the cultivation of compassion are forms of knowledge that none of us can afford to be without.”

Rachel Segall ’91 and Michael Foley ’89 embrace Marcy Plavin on May 2, 2015, during rehearsals for the evening’s alumni dance concert to honor Plavin. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

$10 million gift from Elizabeth Kalperis Chu ’80 and Michael Chu ’80 names new residences

Dedicated on Oct. 2, 2016, in honor of the Chus’ gift, Kalperis Hall and Chu Hall, located at 65 and 55 Campus Ave. respectively, provide housing for 243 students. In addition, Kalperis Hall features street-level space for the relocated and reimagined �ֲ���ý College Store and Post & Print office.

The new buildings establish a new, dynamic area of college life on the south side of campus while offering a more defined and welcoming gateway to �ֲ���ý.

Elizabeth Kalperis Chu ’80 and Michael Chu ’80 pose outside Kalperis Hall on Oct. 28, 2016. (Josh Kuckens/�ֲ���ý College)

The project is part of the college’s strategic efforts to improve residential offerings on a broad scale while maintaining campus enrollment at approximately 1,750 students.

�ֲ���ý dedicates new rowing boathouse, ‘a place to call home’

The �ֲ���ý rowing program had a housewarming on Oct. 29, 2016, formally dedicating its new donor-funded boathouse on the Androscoggin River in Greene.

The new facility has what the old boathouse, a rustic unheated pole barn, did not have: locker rooms, workout space, and secure storage for boats.

Still, some things won’t change. “We take pride in being the tough, gritty team from Maine,” said captain Abbey Bierman ’17 of Bethlehem, N.Y. “And this boathouse will not change that.”

The college’s new donor-funded boathouse was designed by Peterson Architects, based in Cambridge, Mass. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

Museum of Art’s ‘Phantom Punch’ exhibition is among first in U.S. to present contemporary Saudi artists

You didn’t see it coming: A groundbreaking exhibition of contemporary Saudi Arabian art at the �ֲ���ý College Museum of Art last fall and winter.

“We want to show that there are creative, interesting, critical people who are exploring the political and cultural issues in their society,” said co-curator Loring Danforth, Dana Professor of Anthropology.

“Tagged and Documented” (2013) by Hudu Bedoun appears in Phantom Punch.

Journalist and Black Lives Matter activist Shaun King speaks at �ֲ���ý

Punctuating his remarks with penetrating detail, Shaun King, senior social justice writer for the New York Daily News and a leading voice in the Black Lives Matter movement, spoke to a capacity audience in the Gomes Chapel on Oct. 11, 2016.

“Sometimes human beings are amazing, and sometimes they’re really terrible,” King said. “Sometimes the quality of humanity goes up, and sometimes it goes really far down.”

Black Lives Matter activist and New York Daily News justice writer Shaun King delivers remarks in the Gomes Chapel on Oct. 11, 2016. (Josh Kuckens/�ֲ���ý College)

Chemist Tom Wenzel shares $900,000 grant for curriculum development

The grant will support work by Dana Professor of Chemistry Tom Wenzel and a collaborator to advance active learning, where students take a hands-on approach to solving problems that have their roots in real-world situations.

“This is a way to help faculty meaningfully change the way they teach,” Wenzel said. “To move away from lectures to doing in-class group work, and away from ‘recipe-driven’ laboratories to more open-ended experiments.”

Charles A. Dana Professor of Chemistry Tom Wenzel. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

Robert Flynn, a three-sport coach with ‘iconic Bobcat zen’ who elevated �ֲ���ý skiing to national prominence, dies at age 83

Bob Flynn’s warmth and loyalty to his athletes embodied “the force, the spirit, and the iconic Bobcat zen” of �ֲ���ý athletics.

At his induction into the �ֲ���ý Scholar-Athlete Society in 2015, Flynn was honored for his many years of “encouraging �ֲ���ý athletes to participate in all �ֲ���ý had to offer. Most of all, he has assisted �ֲ���ý students in challenging themselves.”

Whatever the sport, “it just didn’t matter to him who you were. He was nice — period,” said Dave Irons, a longtime friend and Maine ski industry journalist.

Bob Flynn, photographed in September 2012 while coaching the �ֲ���ý golf team. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

The real-world power of economist Michael Murray’s teaching is on display everywhere his former students go.

Take, for example, Analysis Group in Boston, which has had an active alumni connection since its co-founding by trustee emeritus Bruce Stangle ’70 in 1981.

Jim Hughes, one of Murray’s �ֲ���ý colleagues, does consulting at Analysis Group. More than once, a former Murray student now working at Analysis has given Hughes “a lecture on the econometric techniques needed for a project that I’m working on. It blows me away.”

“Michael just makes econometrics click for them in a way that other people don’t.”

Making things click for generations of �ֲ���ý students is why Murray, the Phillips Professor of Economics and a member of the faculty since 1986, has won the 2017 Kroepsch Award for Excellence in Teaching, the college’s top teaching honor carrying a $5,000 prize.

As Hughes’ anecdote indicates, one of Murray’s courses (he’s taught 16 different ones at �ֲ���ý) is econometrics, a notoriously difficult course at any college because it asks students to use math and statistics to grasp the workings of economic systems.

Students don’t just rave about Murray’s ability to communicate econometrics. They say he even makes it fun. “He made complex concepts enjoyable and interesting to learn,” says Sarah Centanni ’17 of Hingham, Mass.

To his students, Michael Murray is “passionate, intelligent, funny, caring, and personable,” says a former student. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

Murray has written the book on understanding econometrics, literally. His textbook, Econometrics: A Modern Introduction, was published in 2005. “It’s quite different from other textbooks,” he says. “In that sense, I teach the subject in a very different manner.”

It’s a manner that studiously avoids what he calls “black boxes,” which symbolize memorizing. In his book and in his classroom, Murray instead tries to give his students an understanding of econometric theory, rather than simple proficiency in using the various tools of the field, including econometric software.

With that approach, he’s passing on a maxim from his own school days.

An amateur actor who’s been in many �ֲ���ý theater productions, Murray adopts the character of a beloved high school math teacher who spoke with a nasal twang and would draw out certain words. Time and again, the teacher would tell Murray and his classmates, “Don’t memorize. Understaaaannnd.”

And his students do. “Professor Murray lays out the base of the material in class and he pushes you, the student, to find the answers on your own,” says Dan Willsey ’18 of Glastonbury, Conn. “He holds his students to an incredibly high standard.”

“When I did not understand some material during the course, he talked with me for over an hour until I got it,” recalls Shelby Rader ’17 of Duxbury, Mass.

Here are some scenes of Murray in the classroom as he talks about teaching �ֲ���ý students:

In courses like econometrics or statistics, an array of software — STATA, Eviews, R, or SPSS — can crunch right through problems that Murray is trying to get his students to understand.

Leaning on those tools, “it’s easy to decide that you want to get your students to learn the mechanics of an analysis,” says Murray. “I figure our students are bright enough to figure out the mechanics. They’ll benefit most from the stuff they couldn’t learn for themselves. And that’s understanding.”

Hughes, the college’s Sowell Professor of Economics and Murray’s colleague since 1992, says the stakes are high when it comes to teaching topics like econometrics or statistics, which he teaches.

It’s a “dangerous thing,” he says, for teachers to succumb to the “temptation to teach econometrics and stats by saying, ‘Let the computer do it.’ Or just teaching students that ‘when faced with this, do that,’ figuring, ‘Who cares? You’re just going to be a research assistant.’”

Students can get by on that kind of teaching, he says, “but Michael’s talent is to get his students to want to go deeper.”

Understanding doesn’t come cheaply, in terms of Murray’s time investment. Students repeatedly mention long office hours, three-hour study sessions before exams, and the time he drove to �ֲ���ý from Portland after returning on an evening flight in order to hold a 10:30 p.m. study session.

Students and his colleagues also routinely praise Murray’s enthusiasm in the classroom. Actor that he is, he nevertheless disagrees that he’s playing a part — an econ version of Dead Poets Society — as he enthuses about this or that econometric model in a Pettengill Hall classroom.

Economics professor Michael Murray works with students in his econometrics course on April 3 during the final week of classes. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

Murray recalls teaching at the University of Virginia in the 1970s, where he had two sections of an economics course, each with 600 students. There, “the skills I use in theater are very valuable. I can project my voice. I can project my presence. I can move in ways that will hold people’s attention.” In those settings, “there’s a point at which teaching has become performance,” he says.

At �ֲ���ý, classes are much, much smaller. “I can be myself,” he says. For students, Murray being Murray means experiencing someone who’s “passionate, intelligent, funny, caring, and personable,” says Cosmin Bardan ’16. That authentic love of his work resonates with his students. Murray’s “pure love of the field,” Centanni adds, made her “more invested in my work.”

Still, Murray is an entertaining figure in class, which does serve the purpose, he says, of “infusing energy into the room.”

“Economics — love it though I do — is a subject that can easily put people to sleep and make them tune out,” Hughes says. “Whether you call it performance or you call it agitation, what Michael does is convey his excitement and his belief in the importance of what he is putting across in a way that makes students sit up and say, ‘I really need to know this.’”

“The way Michael’s mind works, he’s thinking, ‘Wow, so you didn’t understand it that way? OK, I just thought of another three ways, and if you still don’t get it, I’ll come up with six more ways to teach it, until I finally see the light bulb come on over your head.”

And the bulb usually blinks bright. “I have never had a professor who cared so much about making sure students understand,” says Alexander Stekler ’17 of Avon, Conn., while Centanni talks about the feeling of “joy and satisfaction when a complex problem finally clicked.” (And yes, we’re still talking about economics.)

In the end, Murray says his classroom style is all about “establishing relationships with the individual students.”

And that, he says, “is what makes it really pleasurable to teach at �ֲ���ý.”

Professor of Chemistry Paula Schlax helps AsiaLuna Patlis ’19 of Baltimore prepare for an exam in Schlax’s office in Dana Chemistry Hall. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

When Professor of Chemistry Paula Schlax first got into teaching, she brought with her a few assumptions about students, the nature of teaching, and the professor-student relationship.

And like any good scientist, Schlax was smart enough to realize that her hypothesis wasn’t quite right and needed revision. The result, she says, made her a better teacher and mentor to her students.

Her care for students has a goal: “to help them get to where they need to go.”

“My teaching really improved when I realized that not all students thought the way I did,” says Schlax, who came to �ֲ���ý in 1998. “I also thought that I could leave teaching and home separate, that students were students — they were just part of the job. It really can’t be that way.”

Over the years, Schlax has found that she “really cares about these students,” and that her care for students has a goal: “to help them get to where they need to go and where they want to go. If I don’t do that, I’m not sure I’m doing a good job.”

Schlax is doing more than a good job as evidenced by her winning the 2016 Kroepsch Award for Excellence in Teaching. The award, the college’s signature honor for great teaching, was established in 1985 by a gift from Robert Kroepsch ’33. Nominated by students and alumni, recipients are selected by a committee of previous winners.

A biological chemist, Schlax has studied the bacteria that causes Lyme disease, its genes, and the “switches” that control them — research that recently earned her a three-year, $345,750 grant from the National Institutes of Health that will also support research opportunities for �ֲ���ý students. It’s during those hours in the lab, Schlax says, that students undertake “real science.”

“�ֲ���ý is particularly well-poised — with our required thesis and our open-ended laboratories — for us to basically teach students to do research,” Schlax says.

“Students can collaborate with us on our research, and honestly everyone in our chemistry department feels that is some of the most important teaching that we do.”

Schlax doesn’t consider herself a standout teacher. She would rather share the spotlight with her chemistry department colleagues, who Schlax describes as an extremely congenial group of professional supporters, mentors, and teachers.

“We have such amazing teachers here in this department,” Schlax says, adding that she’s “learned so much” working with her chemistry colleagues Glen Lawson, Tom Wenzel, Matt Côté. and Jen ���DZ���������-��ô��é.

In fact, when Schlax was told that she won the Kroepsch Award, she didn’t believe it.

Paula Schlax is the 2016 winner of the Kroepsch Award for Excellence in Teaching. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

“It was a complete shock,” she says of the meeting in which Matt Auer, the college’s vice president for academic affairs and dean of the faculty, told her she was this year’s winner.

“I actually thought that the dean was joking, I really did. … We have amazing teachers in the department and I just didn’t believe him. I really was completely taken aback.”

As surprised as Schlax may have been, her students say she deserves every accolade.

“I have come to know and respect her both as a fabulous professor and a dedicated mentor who truly cares about her students,” says Anna Turner ’18 of Brunswick, Maine, who has taken three classes with Schlax so far.

“From meeting outside of normal office hours, to inviting the entire Short Term class to her house to see her beehives, to offering guidance and empathy to students dealing with nonacademic issues, Paula goes above and beyond to foster growth in her students.”

Schlax hails from a family of educators. Her mother taught special education, her aunt was an art teacher, and her younger brother is, in her words, a “phenomenal” and “superb” high school chemistry teacher. Her brother, in fact, was her first student — even if it was just pretend.

“We used to play in the woods and pretend we were scientists when we were kids, and we played school a lot, too, of course. And since I was older, I got to be the teacher.”

And now, as an adult, Schlax is both a “for real” scientist and a teacher — a dual role that fits perfectly with her passion for creating knowledge and shaping young minds.

“I love science, I love doing research, but ultimately there are very, very few scientists that make such an impact in the world that it’s going to be their lasting legacy,” she says. “As a teacher, you really can influence people, help them find what they’re good at, what they’re not good at, what they like and what they don’t like, and you can make a real difference in a lot of students’ lives.

“For me, that’s really important.”

Associate Professor of French and Francophone Studies Alexandre Dauge-Roth, recipient of the 2015 Kroepsch Award for Excellence in Teaching, discusses “The Transformative Power of Literary and Testimonial Encounters” at 4:30 p.m. March 18, 2015.

One thing professor Alexandre Dauge-Roth wants his students to take away from his teaching is a better understanding of how their worldview is shaped by their own position, and how understanding the limitations of that position is central to learning how to read and listen without immediately judging the experiences of others.

When students and scholars gain that awareness, they are able to learn with their subjects, instead of learning about them. When that shift occurs, powerful learning and understanding takes place not just in class, but across a person’s life, Dauge-Roth said.

“Sometimes it takes time for students and for me,” he said. “It’s great when, years later, when we are facing an unfamiliar situation, we are able to mobilize or revisit some of the discussions we had together but didn’t fully appreciate at the time.”

NOTE TO READERS: Alexandre Dauge-Roth’s Kroepsch Lecture, The Transformative Power of Literary and Testimonial Encounters, takes place at 4:30 p.m. Wednesday, March 18, in the Keck Classroom (G52) in Pettengill Hall.

Dauge-Roth’s ability to coach students in this way is one reason why �ֲ���ý has awarded him the 2015 Kroepsch Award for Excellence in Teaching, which was established in 1985 by a gift from Robert Kroepsch ’33. Nominated by students and alumni, recipients are selected by a committee of previous years’ winners.

Dauge-Roth, an associate professor of French and francophone studies, will give his Kroepsch Lecture on the “the transformative power of literary and testimonial encounters.” The lecture takes place at 4:30 p.m. Wednesday, March 18, in the Keck Classroom (G52) in Pettengill Hall.

“What we are learning here is, how do you establish communication or dialogue with people who are telling you their stories when you really cannot fully comprehend what their story is?” Dauge-Roth said. “The exchange of knowledge is not about acquisition but the genuine development of a self-critical understanding of the limits of your own ability to truly hear people with whom you share a common space but cannot identify.”

Dauge-Roth has taken students to Rwanda during Short Term to hear first-person accounts of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi and to create collaborative short documentaries with survivors. The fact that he is able to tackle such weighty issues through courses in French and francophone studies is not lost on his current and former students.

“He pushes me to places I didn’t know I could go, academically and emotionally,” said Brenna Callahan ’15 of Milton, Massachusetts. “He makes events from the last century that happened on the other side of the world affect my life on a daily basis … What’s most impressive is that he does all of this while studying and talking about genocide.”

Dauge-Roth was born in Switzerland and came to the United States in 1993 through an exchange program with the University of Michigan, where he earned his doctorate in French literature. He came to �ֲ���ý in 2005 after stints as a visiting professor at both Colby and Bowdoin.

Dauge-Roth said he is drawn to the study of social dynamics and polemical tensions between collective memory and personal trauma because doing so forces him to question and explore his personal role in redefining the cultural and social awareness of experiences and voices that are too often silenced.

‘He pushes me to places I didn’t know I could go’

“The more I began to work on this body of literature, the more I began to question, what is our role as people who have not gone through these experiences?” he said. “What is our ethical and social responsibility in relationship to people who have survived genocide or the AIDS pandemic?”

Winning the 2015 Kroepsch Award is humbling given the great faculty at �ֲ���ý, he said. It’s also validating to be nominated by former students.

“Teaching is a bit of a black box because you don’t know exactly how your teaching is received by students,” he said. Winning the Kroepsch Award reaffirms that “there is a long-term effect between what we talked about, the conversations we had in class and how former students are using the questions we discussed in their daily lives and development.”

In Dauge-Roth’s classroom, “listening, empathy and compassion become crucially academic in a way that is both intellectually stimulating and emotionally and personally awakening,” said Cody Tracey ’15 of Baltimore. “Tenderness and care are two of my most preferred attributes in a mentor or a professor, and I owe a lot of thanks to Alex for that realization.”