Short Term, a ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ “minimesterâ€� of three-and-a-half weeks during which students take only one course, is here. Course offerings run the gamut, touching on everything from pop culture, to business to test preparation, and give students the opportunity to deeply engage with a single topic.

During Short Term (which starts May 4 and ends May 27) students get the chance to extend their learning beyond what they usually find on campus. Through ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½â€™ practitioner-taught courses, which invite professionals across disciplines to share their work and career pathways with students as visiting instructors, students explore subjects outside of the core liberal arts curriculum. During off-campus Short Term courses, students conduct fieldwork, research, and culture in places like Arizona, Zambia, Hungary, Poland, Italy and more.

Below, explore 10 of the 100-plus Short Term courses offered this spring.

Visiting Assistant Professor of Biology Brecia Despard is teaching “Biological Skills: Field Ecology,� a course specifically designed for students interested in pursuing internships and careers in the biological sciences. This course will introduce ecological principles and research methods across major coastal marine biomes, and help students develop field skills specifically geared toward these kinds of ecosystems. Additionally, students will learn how to analyze and create visualizations using data they collect in the programming language R.

Professor of French and Francophone Studies Mary T. Rice-DeFosse will teach students about the representation of French culinary traditions in her course “Cooking Up French Culture.� By observing how French food is prepared and eaten in film and literature, students will come to understand how the French identity has changed in the modern era. Plus, students will get the opportunity to prepare and serve dishes of their own creation.

With her course “Feminist Political Theory (Taylor’s Version),â€� Assistant Professor of Politics Lucy Britt will merge pop culture with political theory. The course examines Taylor Swift, the moment’s most popular female musical artist, and her larger-than-life persona and cultural impact in terms of how they interact with or expand upon feminist theory. Covering everything from celebrity politics to intersectionality and queer counter-readings to norms of motherhood, this course dives beyond online discourse to offer students vocabulary and knowledge for discussing “Miss Americanaâ€� and pop culture feminism more broadly. Students will end the course with their very own — or, as Swift would say, “Taylor’s Versionâ€� — research product comprising original data collection.

Visiting Assistant Professor of History Frances Bell will be teaching “Lewiston: A History of a Place,â€� a course that combines in-class learning and site visits to gain a more comprehensive understanding of Lewiston — the beloved home of ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College — and its rich history. Through in-class learning, field trips, and creative projects, students will gain a holistic understanding of how the spatial history of Lewiston has changed from the times of Indigenous settlement to the post-industrial period. 

In “Maine’s Marine Resources,� Assistant Professor of Economics Amanda Lindsay will be teaching students about the health and management of marine resources in Maine. On day trips along the Maine coast, students will be able to see firsthand the challenges marine management systems face. This course is aimed at students who are interested in natural resource economics, a field that Lindsay specializes in.

While ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ ceramics students usually use a gas reduction kiln to fire their clay projects, this Short Term, Lecturer in Art and Visual Culture Susan Dewsnap is teaching “Pit Firing Ceramics: Contemporary Approaches to an Ancient Process of Firing Ceramic Objects.â€� Pit firing is an ancient approach to firing ceramic objects that uses an actual fire pit to transform raw clay pots into finished work. In this course, students will use organic materials that they gather to decorate their work and see how firing in a pit results in surprising outcomes. 

Faculty members and alumni from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College are coming to ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ this Short Term to teach “Practicum in Business Consulting: ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½-Tuck Business Consulting Essentialsâ€� — a course that teaches foundational business skills through a client-focused project management framework. Students will learn through a case study that simulates real-world business challenges and gain confidence in decision-making processes. This is the second year that ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ has offered a business course led by Tuck alumni and faculty as part of its Short Term practitioner-taught courses. Peter Friedman ’92, P ’24, P ’26, who earned an MBA from Tuck in 2003, and is a ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ trustee, will serve as practitioner-in-residence for this course, with additional Tuck-associated instructors Aram Donigian, Amy Florentino, Patroklos Karantinos, and Conwell Worthington III.

“Practicum in Mediation and Restorative Practices� is a practitioner-taught course that functions as a conflict resolution skills workshop. Through techniques used by restorative justice practitioners such as circle facilitation and restorative language and problem-solving approaches to resolving disputes used by meditators, students will acquire tools to improve communication and facilitate cooperation and collaboration. Practitioners-in-residence for this course are Margaret Micolichek, Jamar Williams, Karen Groat, and Leah Boyd.

“Practicum in Public Healthâ€� is a practitioner-taught course taught by Leah Elsmore ’12, a senior healthcare consultant with consultancy firm North Highland, that teaches students how to apply qualitative methods to public health challenges in a mix of traditional and experiential academic settings. In the classroom, students will learn about public health foundations and various qualitative research techniques. In the community, students will have a chance to apply what they learned in the classroom, working to solve a concrete health challenge in Lewiston. 

For juniors and seniors planning to attend law school, the course “Short Term 2026 LSAT Prepâ€� is an opportunity to get ready for a crucial part of the application process. Ben Paris, who holds a JD and has for 30 years worked in test prep and education design, will lead the three-week practitioner-taught course. This course is made possible by a generous ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ donor, meaning there is no cost to ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ students.

Reporting by Charlotte Comrack ’27 of Washington, D.C., and Ramona McNish ’28 of Palo Alto, Calif.

For ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ students curious about the business world, this year’s slate of Short Term courses includes a compelling new option: “Tuck Business Essentials,” taught by faculty from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth and led by Peter Friedman ’92, a Tuck graduate who will serve as the course’s practitioner-in-residence.

The course is one of five “Practitioner-Taught Courses, ” innovative and immersive offerings that bring ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ alumni and other industry leaders to campus to teach practical knowledge and industry-specific skills.

“Through PTCs, ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ students benefit from the expertise of accomplished professionals, many of whom are ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ alumni,â€� says Allen Delong, senior associate dean for the Center for Purposeful Work, which sponsors the PTC program.

“We are especially excited about the addition of Tuck Business Essentials, which will equip students with foundational business skills and real-world problem-solving experience.�

ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ students continue to express high interest in developing business-related skills, says Delong. According to recent Senior Survey results, 20 percent of graduating ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ students intend to pursue a business graduate degree at some point after graduation. 

Applying a Liberal Arts Education

Peter Friedman decided to help lead Tuck Business Essentials, which has been funded anonymously by a family foundation, for one essential reason: “To increase the range of opportunities for ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ies and to expose them to new and different things.â€�

He explains that the goal of the course is to teach students how to use the skills they’re learning through their academic coursework — critical thinking, problem-solving, and interdisciplinary learning — in a business environment.

“A liberal arts education gives you the power to solve a problem using the tools in front of you, or to create new tools to solve a problem — across any discipline. Ultimately that’s what business is,â€� says Friedman, who earned an M.B.A from Tuck in 2003 and served on the school’s advisory board.

“Four years of ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ and 30-plus years since have taught me that business is just about using information, communication, the ability to work with individuals, and the right tools to solve problems.â€�

Joined by Tuck faculty, the new course will include a skill-building component, as students will learn key elements of marketing, finance, accounting, spreadsheet modeling, business communications, organizational behavior, and negotiations. The course will culminate in a dynamic business case study to simulate real-world decision-making.

Learning through case studies, Friedman explains, simply means “to problem-solve in a realistic environmentâ€� — while thinking on your feet, making strategic decisions under uncertainty, and engaging in dynamic discussions.

“You have a realistic problem that’s happened historically: this company, these people made these decisions. Given that information, what would be the next decision you would make? It’s very similar to what life and business is. You have incomplete information and an unknown situation, and you have to make the best decisions based on what you have at that time and move on.â€�

He has no doubt that his students will be up to the challenge: “The power of the liberal arts education is to solve a problem across any discipline. I’ve hired some ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ies in the past, and their ability to use their brains and think through problems and learn is second to none.â€� 

The course is open to students in all majors; the only prerequisite is a drive to learn something new and connect their academic interests to opportunities for purposeful work, including the business world. 

“I want to find the art history major or biology major or someone who has an appetite to learn,â€� Friedman says. “Their major is what they are engaged in at the moment because it has captured their interest. But that doesn’t mean that that’s the end of or the only field they will address.â€�

Friedman graduated from ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ with honors in geology, then entered the aviation industry as an airline pilot before pivoting into a business career. He is a managing partner and founder of Five by Five Capital, a private equity firm investing in a wide range of industries. 

Friedman and his wife, Kitty Northrop Friedman ’95, a ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ trustee emerita, are longtime active contributors to the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ community. Their son, Ned ’24, graduated with a politics degree and was a co-chief of ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ Emergency Medical Services; their daughter, Lindley ’26, is a biology major.

A Growing Slate of Practitioner-Taught Courses

Since 2014, PTCs have introduced students to 18 career fields and nearly 70 specializations, from arts administration to virtual reality design. Delong says that they are a great fit for the college’s four-week Short Term, which runs April 28 to May 21 this year.

Short Term, which follows the regular fall and winter semesters, “has always been a defining part of the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ experience,” says Delong, “an opportunity for a deep dive into a single course, experiential learning, and exploring new academic and career interests.â€�

In addition to Tuck Business Essentials, the 2025 Practitioner-Taught Courses also include:

• Practicum in Planetary Health with Jennifer Rasmussen ’07, a registered nurse and education fellow with the Planetary Health Alliance, introduces students to the field that explores the connections between human health and the natural systems that sustain it.
• Is That True? Practicum in Media Literacy with Elizabeth Hartfield ’08, a CNN vice president, to give students the skills to navigate and report the proliferation of both misinformation and disinformation.
• Practicum in Music & Health with Kate Beever, a Portland-based music psychotherapist, exploring the therapeutic uses of music within healthcare settings for clients of all ages. 
• Spies, Secret Agents, and the Presidency with Elly Rostoum ’07, a former U.S. intelligence analyst, examines the role of the intelligence community within the U.S. national establishment.

In Hathorn Hall in 2019, Elly Rostoum ’07 (third from left) teaches her Practitioner-Taught Course that explores, from her expert perspective, the role of the intelligence community within the U.S. national establishment.

ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ debuted the first Practitioner-Taught Courses in 2014 as part of the college’s Purposeful Work initiative, whose groundbreaking, developmental approach to career support helps students explore, test, and deepen their potential career interests throughout their four years. 

Typically, PTCs include guest experts, case studies, and fieldwork, plus ready access to a new network of professionals and solid experiences for students to add to their career exploration portfolios. 

Beyond skill development, “students also gain hands-on insights into professional expectations — fast-paced work, deadlines, and team responsibilities,� says Marianne Nolan Cowan ’92, senior associate director for exploration and curricular design with the Center for Purposeful Work.

The courses provide students with opportunities to explore fields that align with career pathways, engage in hands-on learning, and develop professional networks that will support them after graduation.

Short Term 2025: And There’s More!

This year’s Short Term presents a menu of more than 90 courses, many reflecting the unique proposition of ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½â€™ popular spring semester: time and space to explore a wide range of topics.

Four courses involve extensive travel abroad, led by ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ professors, to the Dominican Republic, Hungary and Poland, Rome, and China, where students will engage in hands-on ethnographic research, analyze theater and film’s role in political change, explore ancient civilizations through art and architecture, and study traditional medicine through clinical practice. 

On campus, like the PTCs, a set of innovative “Biological Skillsâ€� courses are designed to give students specific, marketable training that they can highlight in applications for internships or jobs. 

This year’s Biological Skills courses teach skills in observing, counting, and analyzing ecological populations and communities; data acquisition and image analysis using the college’s laser scanning confocal microscope; herbarium and digital taxonomy skills through extensive fieldwork near campus; and modern ornithology techniques.

Most Short Term courses are within academic programs and departments, while some are extracurricular but still provide academic credit. For example, the annual Emergency Medical Technician course, which includes donor-supported funding to defray costs to students, teaches the skills needed to become a certified EMT and be part of the valuable and successful ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ EMS program. 

Another set of innovative Short Term courses, under the “Innovative Pedagogyâ€� umbrella, gives ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ students a rare opportunity in U.S. higher education: the chance to shape the curriculum by working directly with faculty to rework an existing course or create a new one.

Students and faculty in this year’s seven Innovative Pedagogy courses will build or rework courses in disciplines like digital history, including ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½â€™ own history, plus historical revolutions, sociolinguistics, philosophy, teacher education, and feminist studies.

“Race on!� someone yelled from the shore. But that was a lot to ask of 14 students making their maiden voyage on the Puddle in long, narrow flat-bottomed boats.

Eight in one boat and six in the other, the students used paddles and poles to meander around the pond for a few minutes before heading back to shore. It was late afternoon on May 22.

About 100 people looked on, as did wary blackbirds perched on the reeds. A skilled canoeist steered curlicues around the student boats to give his video-shooting passenger the good angles. But no pressure, kids!

 A video clip of the boat launch by Theophil Syslo/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College

Now, if someone had yelled, “Chiseling on!� or “Planing on!� those same students would have been all over it — for they had built the wooden Japanese-style boats during the previous five weeks of Short Term.

And they had just launched them in a ceremony that culminated “Apprentice Learning: Building the Japanese Boat,� one of the practitioner-taught courses arranged by the Center for Purposeful Work.

A boat builder and writer from Vergennes, Vt., Douglas Brooks taught the course and presided over the highly ritualized boat launch. The Buddhist and Shinto spiritual traditions co-exist in Japan, Brooks told his audience. But Shinto, whose rituals honor the spirit kami that reside in all creation, rules all things boaty.

“Conducting the rituals brings us closer to nature and closer to something divine,� Brooks explained. “And that’s it. That’s it.�

“I’m doing a purification ritual over the students, who badly need that,� Brooks kidded, “and over the boats.�

A shrine had been set up on a table between the boats. It contained offerings to the kami in the form of fruit, green tea, and sake, and there was a stick to which streamers of accordion-folded paper were attached. To begin the launch ceremony, Brooks shook the streamers over the boats and students, placed a handful of rhododendron leaves on the shrine, clapped twice, and offered a silent prayer.

Douglas Brooks shakes the streamers over the boats. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)

One by one, the 14 students from Brooks’ course continued the purifying ritual, anointing the boats with salt and sake, and striking a few sparks over them, which protects travelers when they leave home.

Then each followed Brooks’ example with the rhododendron leaves (offered in place of a Japanese plant unavailable here), claps, and prayers. A few onlookers took part, too. (One observer was Ralph Sylvester ’50, a frequent visitor to the boat-building sessions.)

Next came an a cappella song that amped up the mood. It was a traditional Japanese song led by En Sawyer Lee, who had met Brooks when both were studying folkways on the same institute on an island in Japan. It was a big rousing song in a sea chantey vein and a smiling Lee got the crowd to join him in a staccato call-and-response of the word “Yoisa!�

En Sawyer Lee leads the “Yoisa” chant. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)

And then, to applause from the viewers, the students carried their boats to the shores of Lake Andrews, slipped them in, and set out across the water. A safe distance across the pond, students in two inflatable vessels looked on. Yoisa!

Varsity rower Grace Murnaghan ’20 of Lexington, Mass., was on her feet poling the six-person boat. The boat handled “surprisingly well,” she said later. “It didn’t exactly turn on a dime, but we were able to get the hang of maneuvering it pretty quickly.

“From what I heard from Mr. Brooks, it sounds like Japanese farmers and fishermen who owned these boats could use the pole to travel with speed in a perfectly straight line, a feat we certainly didn’t conquer in our short trip around the Puddle!”

Japanese tradition informed the boat-building course from the start. Held in a back room off the Chase Hall loading dock, course sessions were mostly silent, with just brief instructions and demonstrations to begin each gathering. The idea was to elevate observation and mindfulness as ways of learning.

Students carry one of the boats to the water. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)

“It’s kind of cool, because you’re focused on what you’re doing and it’s repetitive motion,� Nathaniel Badger ’22 of Edwards, Colo., explained during an open house for the course a week prior to the launch. “You kind of get into this trance where you’re meditating through your work.�

Each of the students learned each of the woodworking techniques that Brooks taught, and learned to flow from task to task according to need, whether the need pertained to the process or to a particular set of aching muscles.

A ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ rower, Grace Murnaghan ’20 handles the pole as her boat executes a turn before the eyes of the crowd on the Lake Andrews shore. Alex Platt ’22 is paddling. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)

“One of the first things we were told was, even if you’ve built a boat before, when you walk into the class, assume you know nothing,� Badger said. “You need that fresh start, because if your ego is in the way, you’re not going to get out of the class what you want to get.�

Since 1996, Brooks has apprenticed with Japanese boat builders and written several books on the practice. Just prior to the launch, he described his ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ experience as “fantastic,â€� drawing the syllables out for emphasis.

“From the organization of this course, working with the Center for Purposeful Work, to the collegiality of faculty who contacted me with an interest in my course, to the students, who really were wonderful and worked very hard,� he said, “it’s been amazing.�

Scenario:

You’re agents of MI6, the British foreign intelligence service. You recently caught a Russian spy who tells you there’s a “mole� among your ranks, leaking secret information to another government.

Your task, Elly Rostoum ’07 told the students in her Short Term course on intelligence and national security, is to root out the mole.

“Spies, Special Agents, and the Presidency,� one of five practitioner-taught courses offered this term through the Center for Purposeful Work, is designed to “mimic a day in an intelligence officer’s life,� Rostoum said.

In her Short Term course on intelligence and national security, Elly Rostoum ’07 walks students through a “find the moleâ€� simulation, in which they have to find out which fictional MI6 agent is leaking information to a foreign government. (Theophil Syslo/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)

Rostoum, currently a doctoral candidate at the University of Massachusetts Boston, majored in politics at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ and worked in management consulting in the oil and gas sector before serving on the National Security Council at the White House.

The Short Term course includes learning about world geography, transforming disparate data into insights you can act on, and a series of simulations ranging from a doomsday planning scenario to today’s mole hunt.

It’s all very hands-on, said Arianna Fano ’19 of Lincolnshire, Ill., a politics major. “We get to do lots of different things we wouldn’t normally get to do during the school year,â€� she said.

Fano was perhaps the best able to think like a mole, having been one herself. At the beginning of the term, she found a note in her bag telling her to figure out the hometown of one of her classmates; as a sort of pre-simulation mole hunt, her classmates had to guess who was the spy among them.

(Because Fano could simply look up her classmate’s hometown on a student directory and act natural otherwise, she stayed well-hidden.)

The instructional note was anonymous, so Fano had to verify that it was indeed from Rostoum. “I had to match the handwriting on the note to the handwriting she was writing on the board,� she said. “So I got to embody at least a little bit of what a spy does just in this small exercise.�

Now, she and her classmates had a much bigger exercise ahead of them. Rostoum handed out pictures and biographical profiles of (entirely fictional) MI6 agents and their spouses, the suspects’ phone records and purchase receipts, and financial irregularities that the agency flagged.

In addition to identifying the mole, the students had to discern how the mole gathered information and use the documents to construct a narrative. Rostoum divided the students into three groups — such separations are common in intelligence work in order to avoid mutually reinforcing similar ideas, she said.

Settled in different rooms in Hathorn Hall, the students got to work.

One group quickly zeroed in on “Zubida,� a British-born schoolteacher pictured wearing a niqab. She was married to “John,� the head of the MI6 Syria desk. Every few weeks, she’d get a call from an unknown number; the next day, she would go to a particular London hotel.

Elly Rostoum ‘07 helps a group of students think through their mole hunt. What patterns could they see in phone records? In purchase receipts? (Theophil Syslo/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)

The husband, John, had recently been flagged for opening lines of credit without reporting them to MI6. The purchases? Thousands of dollars of lingerie, jewelry, vintage cars, and expensive boarding schools. Had Zubida opened credit cards in John’s name without telling him?

A student scanned the taxi receipts of “Archie,� John’s boss at MI6. He, it appeared, was going to the same hotel as Zubida on the same days. An affair?

Archie’s movements were unusual in other ways. One day he took a cab ride to a district of government buildings that, based on the distance traveled, shouldn’t have cost the $50 he paid for it. Then, according to GIS data, he went to another hotel that Zubida also frequented and bought two Scotches there.

Suspicious, all. But why, the group wondered, would Zubida pass along state secrets? How would she even know them? Was she a conservative Muslim, since she wore a niqab?

And what about information they hadn’t yet considered: several hours-long phone calls to Zubida from Syria, other calls from European and Middle Eastern countries, a police report that suggested spousal abuse?

As theories swirled, Rostoum circulated among the groups, dropping hints. Think about why Zubida’s “unknown� phone calls lasted less than a minute, she told the first group. And focus on the receipts: taxi rides, expensive Scotch.

Though the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ students’ mole hunt was a pared-down version of similar simulations in graduate-level courses, they still had to sift through a mountain of phone records, pictures, bios, receipts, and satellite images. (Theophil Syslo/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)

The records the students were given might seem overwhelming, Rostoum said, but it was a pared-down version of what you might find in a graduate-school simulation: months of phone records, reams of receipts, sifted through over the course of a semester.

The class period wound down; the group had a possible narrative but not a good idea of who the mole was. They got their information together just as their classmates reentered.

“Was it hard?� Rostoum asked the class. They nodded. “Was it confusing? Do you have a greater appreciation for the work intelligence officers do?� They did.

“Don’t fall too much into the stereotypes.â€�

The first group’s best guess: John was the mole, using Zubida to pump information from his boss, Archie, through an affair, and passing on the information to — Syria? Russia?

The second group inferred that Archie was the mole. John was clearly abusing Zubida, so out of revenge she passed information to Archie from John; Archie and Zubida were possibly planning to frame John.

The third group said Zubida and Archie were having an affair, but not of the heart. Zubida, the niqab-wearing schoolteacher wife of a secret agent, was moonlighting as a high-end escort without her husband’s knowledge. Archie was one of her clients.

Each mole-hunting group zeroed in on Zubida, the wife of an MI6 agent. Why was this schoolteacher meeting her husband’s boss in a hotel every month? (Theophil Syslo/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)

But the mole? They didn’t know.

Rostoum said the third group was close. Zubida was in fact an escort. Her work necessitated the purchase of expensive lingerie, which she financed by opening lines of credit in her husband’s name — and John, oblivious, didn’t report the new credit cards and got in trouble with MI6 for it. Zubida’s clientele was international, hence the many calls from other countries.

Sordid, to be sure. But completely irrelevant.

Rostoum brought the class back to the beginning of the exercise: A Russian agent told them they had a mole. Where in Zubida’s story was Russia?

Archie was the mole, Rostoum said. Every few weeks, he’d meet his Russian handler at one hotel or another, at least once over glasses of Scotch.

The ³ó²¹²Ô»å±ô±ð°ù,Ìýnot Archie, was the one who used Zubida’s services — usually right before the handler met Archie for the leaked information. That explained why Zubida and Archie would end up at the same place on the same day; Zubida had nothing to do with the espionage.

Case closed.

One mole-hunting group made use of the blackboard, plotting out dates, times, and locations. (Theophil Syslo/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)

Rostoum urged her students to question their own assumptions, and to remember that, since intelligence is a human discipline, it’s important not to dehumanize the characters in the mole hunt.

“Too often there’s a Hollywood-ization of intelligence,� Rostoum said. “One thing to keep in mind is that even the target and the spies are both human. There is a human component that includes topics that are in our everyday life.

“The other thing is not to fall too much into the stereotypes, of a woman who’s covered, which might or might not suggest religiosity or modesty.�

In a Coram computer lab on May 3, a dozen or more students are evaluating long lists of keywords — words that they might or might not use as they craft copy for a digital ad campaign using Google AdWords.

AdWords enable businesses to place those ads that appear at the top of Google search results. In seriously oversimplified terms, advertisers pay for keywords in their ads. So on this day in Coram, the students are learning how to choose the keywords that will give them the biggest bang from a limited budget.

Ashley Hart ’91 reacts to the work of three students in her digital marketing practicum: from left, seniors Tara Khanmalek and Alexandra Fisher, and first-year Abel Ramirez. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)

Michelle E. Ashley Hart ’91, a digital marketing consultant, is guiding the students through their first foray into online advertising. Hart is teaching a Practitioner Taught Course on digital marketing, offered under the auspices of the college’s Purposeful Work initiative.

Doing business as , this Manhattan-based consultant has more than 25 years of marketing and branding experience, specializing in the digital realm. Hart has strategized for companies ranging from startups all the way up to Fortune 500s listees like Morgan Stanley and Infor, and for nine years has been the marketing advisor to the private equity firm Insight Venture Partners and 45 of its portfolio companies.

Hart’s students at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ have formed fictional agencies that specialize in digital marketing segments such as product marketing, social media, branding, and millennial audience targeting. They’ve published websites for fictional businesses, and the ad campaigns they’re now creating are meant to drive traffic to those businesses, creating metrics they will then learn to assess.

Hart talks with newswriter Doug Hubley about her time as a ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ student, her return to teach for Short Term, her dedication to marketing — and how she discovered that passion as a member of the Chase Hall Committee.

What do you love about marketing?

I love everything about marketing. To me, marketing is both the left and the right sides of the brain: You’re doing the creative side with writing and design, but then you’re also evaluating the success of campaigns through analyzing data, which uses the other part of the brain. I’m a big proof-of-concept person, and metrics really give me that advantage that I did not have prior to Google’s being able to provide customer data.

When I first started in marketing, we didn’t have data to analyze. Most people viewed marketing as being the soft side of business. If I launched a commercial for Macy’s One Day Sale, I’d have to judge its

Christian Zavala ’17 and Jennie Chen ’20 are two members of a digital marketing team in a Short Term course taught by Ashley Hart ’91. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)

effectiveness based on how many people shopped at the store the day after the commercial. Now I launch an ad in a digital channel, and when somebody clicks on that ad and takes action at my website, I can track that user and analyze whether the ad’s successful.

What led you into marketing?

I worked on the Chase Hall Committee, which brings entertainment to the school. And I loved it. I loved doing the events, and making the posters and all those things. And then I realized that was marketing!

When I graduated from ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½, I couldn’t get a marketing job in New York City since I was competing against New York college graduates with marketing degrees. Luckily, I’d had experience from a ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½

A lot of my students have good potential to succeed in this field, which is why I’ve arranged paid summer internships for four of them with my clients and partners.

internship at Lehman Brothers in Boston, so I could get a job as an assistant in sales at a Wall Street investment banking firm, Kidder, Peabody & Co. Then a new position came up at headquarters in marketing. In a way, that set my career direction, because it was a new position and it was entrepreneurial — a marketing coordinator to work with analysts covering the burgeoning high-tech field.

It was great. It was the beginning of the digital revolution, and I was able to learn a lot about that, along with the entrepreneurial skills of the new position. And it allowed me to expand on what I had learned in the Chase Hall Committee in a real business setting, managing events for the tech analysts.

What’s the scope of your Short Term course?

I can’t get into the deep levels of digital marketing in the course because there’s so much of it. But what I can do is prepare students to understand how companies use digital marketing, what tools digital marketers use, what buyers want, and how we measure success. They’re learning everything that a typical marketer would know in creating a digital marketing campaign.

Students in Ashley Hart’s digital marketing practicum built websites to use for testing ad campaigns that they created. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)

I’m also helping the students build a digital marketing portfolio, so that when they walk out the door — whatever business they want to go into — they’ll be able to show their portfolio as proof of their abilities. That alone is a big deal, since it’s a collection of all of the marketing work that they’ve produced in the class.

Instead of just showing case studies, I wanted this class to be interactive. That’s where these Practitioner Taught Courses are great. My students are all really acting as digital marketers and learning. And I think a lot of them have good potential to succeed in this field, which is why I’ve arranged paid summer internships for four of the students with my clients and partners.

What have you learned from teaching this course?

There’s something about seeing somebody “get it” — you can tell from thoughtful answers that they’re coming up with that, maybe, I’ve helped them in some small way to figure out what they want to do. I’ve learned that I really enjoy passing along my experience to my students and that hopefully, they will surpass me in their success.

How was your ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ experience?

Honestly, it was culturally shocking, coming from the New York City area. It took, I would say, my freshman year to get adjusted.

But I had great friends, I learned a lot, and ultimately, I would have never chosen any other place to be.

In addition to arranging internships for several of her digital marketing students, Ashley Hart ’91 is helping all the students compile portfolios of their work in the course to help with the post-graduation job hunt. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)

ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ made me who I am today and gave me the critical thinking that I needed to go into marketing. So, ultimately, it was the best choice for me.

I went to Columbia University for a summer, just to compare, and I didn’t like the experience of going to such a large school, even though I was from that area. I liked that I was in the heart of New York City and having all this great cultural experience, but I wound up missing the intimacy of ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½.

Why did you want to teach this course at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½?

I owed ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½, to be quite honest. ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ gave me a scholarship. Marianne Cowan, who graduated a year after me, reached out and said, “Hey, I know that you’ve specialized in digital marketing, have you thought about maybe coming to teach at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½?” And I thought, “This is my way of giving back — to come back and do this for a school that gave me everything.”

As an immigrant from Jamaica, and coming from a working class background, I got the opportunity to achieve the American dream from ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½.

What are some impressions of today’s ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½?

I am very happy to see how diverse the school has become. Like I said, the hard part my first year here was the lack of cultural diversity, and to literally see it everywhere around me now — it’s really refreshingly nice. I was very happy to see this evolution.

I ran into Dean James Reese, who was my dean when I was a student here, and probably one of the surprisingly nice things was the consistency of being able to see over the generations that Dean Reese is still here!

A marketing consultant with 25 years in the field, Ashley Hart ’91 returned to ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ to teach a hands-on Short Term course on digital marketing. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)

Held in Perry Atrium, the event brought together Short Term’s five practitioner-taught courses and four redesign courses.

The former, often taught by accomplished ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ alumni, expose students to practical and applied areas of study typically not available within the curriculum. The latter courses give faculty time and resources (in the form of student partners) either to create a new academic course or rework an existing one.

Here’s a look at a few instances from this year’s showcase, held May 25.

Short Term Practicum: “Music Production, Recording, and Mixing”

Listening to mixes by students in a music recording and production course taught by Jonathan Wyman ’97. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)

A list of learning objectives that starts with “signal flow analysis” might stop some people, but 16 ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ students nevertheless gravitated straight to “Music Production, Recording, and Mixing.”

A practitioner-taught course in its second year at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½, the course was again led by Jonathan Wyman ’97, one of Maine’s most highly regarded producers and engineers.

The class this year attracted students with widely varying experience that included, in one case, some time in a Nashville studio.

The more experienced students, Wyman noted, helped keep discussions engaging: “When a question came up, I’d be able to volley it back to the class rather than talk at the students.”

“I threw them in the deep end” mixing-wise, Wyman said. “I had one big standing rule: You can omit anything, you can mute anything, but not add anything — not your own back-up vocals, not tambourine or drum loops.”

And students who wanted to do otherwise got a valuable insight into creative dynamics between recording engineers and musicians.

At the showcase, Wyman and his students set out a battery of laptops and headphones with which visitors could hear, within the course of a single song, the students’ different approaches to the complex art of mixing a sound recording.

Short Term Practicum: “Consulting for Strategy Development�

Yutong Li ’18 of Shanghai, China, signed up for the Short Term practicum “Consulting for Strategy Development� figuring it would be a five-week foray into conceptual thinking.

“But it was a whole different experience,� she says.

Students in Fisher Qua’s strategy course learned about concepts that stifle organizational change, such as the “rigidity trap,” where “results aren’t being produced but there’s no change happening,” says Yutong Li ’18 of Shanghai, China. (Jay Burns/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)

Taught by the class worked with Student Affairs on a hands-on exercise about student health.

They used a set of methods, called , looking to “build a foundation for a peer-to-peer health and wellness model for diverse populations,” says Erin Foster-Zsiga, associate dean of students for residence life and health education.

“You have to ask questions and listen. You can’t assume anything.â€�

From that experience, Li learned that working with groups and organizations to create strategies demands very basic, yet finely tuned, human skills.

Yutong Li ’18 (right) of Shanghai, China, listens during “Consulting for Strategy Development,” taught by Fisher Qua ’06, standing, second from left. At left is class guest Henri Lipmanowicz, former president of Merck Intercontinental. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)

“You have to talk to people. You have to ask questions and listen. You can’t assume anything,� Li said about the groundwork that her class did. “You bring as many people as you can into the discussion because the strategy will affect everyone.�

When an organization works on strategy, breaking down hierarchy is key to achieving buy-in. “It’s something we often state as a value but rarely have the tools to do so effectively,” says Qua.

Li says that a big takeaway from the class was learning various. practical ways to achieve this goal of “bringing equal weight to everyone’s voice.”

Short Term Course Redesign: “Atomic and Molecular Structure”

A trio of chemistry majors teamed up with Associate Professor of Chemistry Matt Côté to shake up the gateway intro course, Chemistry 107, “Atomic and Molecular Structure.�

The challenge: “Students come to any college with conceptions and misconceptions about chemistry,” says Sarah Tobin ’17 of Medfield, Mass., a member of the redesign team.

Once a student develops a misconception, the brain won’t let go, she says. “You can give students accurate informationâ€� to try to banish the misconception, “but then if you ask a higher-level question, or allow time to go by, they will revert to the wrong concept.â€�

The answer, says Côté, isn’t more “sage on the stage” teaching.

While lectures can work, Côté explains, “recent research makes it clear that engaging students more actively in the classroom is often much more effective.” In fact, so-called active learning helps “level the playing field for students who may lack strong preparation for a science course.”

For example, Côté and his team, which also featured Kacey Wood ’18 of Hastings-on-Hudson, N.Y., and Amelia Wilhelm ’18 of Charlotte, N.C., know from experience that atomic orbitals (stable patterns of electron density around a nucleus) are confusing, as is the fact that electrons display wave-like behavior.

So they created a variety of demonstrations, including ones that show various wave properties.

Côté and his team created videos, like this one, that demonstrate wave properties and terms like “node� and “antinode.�

By seeing an accurate, accessible demonstration, a student will then have “reliable intuition� when learning about what they can’t see: atomic orbitals.

“We purposely begin with one-dimensional systems — the vibrating string — then move up to two dimensions,â€� Côté says. The real thing, atomic and molecular orbitals, “are the extension into three dimensions.â€�

Take the wave term “node.” You have know what a node is in order to under stand atomic orbitals,â€� explains Tobin. “But it’s a word that students can repeat without every really understanding what it is or what it means.â€�

The visual representations, Tobin and the team hope, will “really drive home the idea that ‘this is the way it is.’ They can see, touch it, and know it exists.�

Short Term Course Redesign: “Global Health”

By next winter, global health will be much-improved, predicts Megumi Milla ’16, a sociology major from Roslindale, Mass.

In this instance, “global health” is a course, Sociology 235, one that uses sociological methods and theories to explore health and illness around the globe.

During the Short Term showcase, Taylor’s students handed out a take-away bundle of items including sunscreen, condoms, and face masks, symbolizing, respectively, global health topics of skin cancer; reproductive health and STIs; and pollution. (Josh Kuckens/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)

After teaching the course eight times over 13 years (including twice in South Korea), Associate Professor of Sociology Heidi Taylor figured it was time for a makeover, so she and her team of six students changed everything from readings to the course’s basic approach.

“The course used to be organized by country,” explains Milla, so a review of health care in China might look at air pollution, among other topics.

When offered next winter, the course “will be organized by topic,” Milla says, so air pollution would be a topic without borders. “And that will help students make more connections.”

The comparative approach, says Taylor, will be a boon to students by highlighting “how social, cultural, economic, and historical factors shape a nation’s response to health crises.”

The new format will also give students a stronger context for understanding certain non-Western health practices that are prone to snap judgement, such as female infanticide or genital cutting.

“We all are so quick to judge the practices of other cultures,” Taylor says. As researchers, “before we can blame a person or a culture for a health crisis, we must take the time to observe.”

Short Term Practicum: “Journalism in an Age of Media Explosion”

The course “Journalism in an Age of Media Explosion,� was a Short Term practicum on journalism taught by Peter Moore ’78, a veteran editor of Men’s Health magazine.

Hearing a student talk, you’d think the course was an exit exam for the liberal arts:

This was very new: the idea of finding stories and going out and investigating them. In a way, we all do it anyway. We see something that makes us think, and we try to puzzle through why that is. But formalizing it in a craft was very interesting and very new to me.

When you see something that makes you think, “Wait…what?â€� you don’t just let that slide. You go out there and figure out what it is, what that thing was that made you take a pause. And it’s usually worth a second thought, an investigation, to go deeper.

Students in physics professor Travis Gould’s microcontroller laboratory give ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ President Clayton Spencer a chance to test technology they adapted for a lab project. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)

Was it déjà vu all over again?

The easels in Perry Atrium with eager students standing by, ready to discuss what they learned in class projects. The crowd of faculty, friends, and fellow students avid to hear those presentations. The breakout session ready to go in a nearby Pettengill classroom.

Not to mention the hustle and bustle around the buffet. But if a visitor was reminded of another academic bonanza, the signature Mount David Summit nearly two months ago, this end-of-Short Term gathering was its own kind of happening: The second annual Curricular Innovation Showcase.

Introduced by a droll President Clayton Spencer as a “wild rumpus,” the May 27 showcase was a window into two academic programs that debuted last year in pursuit of major ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ goals — and that have taken Short Term to the next level as an incubator for curricular development.

Involving students as integral partners, the Course (Re)design program speaks to a comprehensive effort to make the curriculum more current and relevant than ever. Meanwhile, as part of the Purposeful Work initiative, the Practitioner-taught Courses give students a chance to learn about real-world work from non-faculty teachers, mostly alumni, who have built robust careers in disparate occupations.

Both programs generated a slate of Short Term courses distinguished by bold thinking and deep student involvement. And the outcomes of those courses, exploring topics from music production to environmental geochemistry, were on ebullient display at the Curricular Innovation Showcase.

Shannon Griffin ’16 of Philadelphia describes her work in a practitioner-taught Short Term course on mediation and conflict resolution. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)

Shannon Griffin ’16, a double major in Chinese and psychology from Philadelphia, took the “Practicum in Restorative Justice and Mediation,” one of the five practitioner-taught courses. Griffin was attracted by the theme of restorative justice, but ended up intrigued by the mediation piece, taught by Elaine Bourne of the Community Mediation Services Program, Volunteers of America.

The class envisioned scenarios that could bring ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ students into conflict — with each other, with local residents, even with the college administration — and worked with Bourne to understand how formal mediation could alleviate the conflict.

“It’s about being nonjudgmental, not taking sides, not making decisions, but basically being there to facilitate the conversation, have ground rules about respect and make sure both sides feel they are being represented equally,” Griffin explained.

Her particular interest lay in a topic current in Lewiston: the impact of student voters on local elections, with some residents feeling that people who aren’t in town for the long haul shouldn’t have a say in major issues.

Mike Lydon ’04, principal at The Street Plans Collaborative, led the “Practicum in Urban Planning,” which included the creation of a bike lane in downtown Lewiston. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)

An important role for a meditator would be to propose steps, Griffin said, that would “change the optics” — that is, public perceptions. “Instead of, ‘We’re doing stuff for Lewiston,’ it would be, ‘We’re doing stuff with Lewiston.'”

The course “just gave me skills for daily life,” she added.

Also on the practitioner-taught side, students in “Entrepreneurship,” taught by Darrell Williams ’86 of HealthTech Maine, pitched business ideas in a nearby classroom. In the atrium, two practitioners communed as a headphone-wearing Craig Saddlemire ’05 (“Social Change Organizing and Advocacy”) grooved to sounds fine-tuned by students in “Music Production, Recording and Mixing” as engineer-producer Jonathan Wyman ’97 pointed out nuances.

When Matt Auer, dean of the faculty and vice-president for academic affairs, looks at the Course (Re)design program, which uses Short Term to develop courses that will live on for years as part of the fall-winter curriculum, “it’s hugely renewing and exciting,” he said in his showcase welcome.

Intriguing in and of themselves, each of the five course-design programs addressed a different curricular need. Recognizing the need for ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ to better address the looming role of Big Data in academe and beyond, for instance, economist Nathan Tefft met it head-on with “Big Data and Economics.”

Charles Kenyon ’15 of Buffalo, N.Y., discusses what he learned in the practitioner-taught course “Social Change,” taught by Craig Saddlemire ’05. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)

Physicist Travis Gould, meanwhile, worked with students to design new laboratory projects exploiting the Arduino line of open-source microcontrollers. His goal: updating the longstanding Short Term course “Electronics Laboratory” — which Gould happened to be teaching even as his (Re)design students were designing new projects for the next time around.

His early goal for the Short Term course was to create two new lab units, Gould said. “In the end, the (Re)design students produced six new labs in total. Considering that none of them had any previous experience with microcontrollers or the programming language we used, this is impressive.”

“This is enough material for about half of a full course based on modern electronics,” Gould explained, adding, “The students absolutely blew me away with the level of maturity, thoughtfulness, and hard work they put into this course.”

Sociologist Emily Kane, who played a central role in developing ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½’ recent Short Term programming, listens as Tynan Daly ’15 of Lake Forest, Ill., describes the “Big Data and Economics” course he took. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)

The student role in Course (Re)design is huge, said Kirk Read, professor of French and francophone studies and associate dean of the faculty. “The luxury of having students right there in the class to say, ‘Boring! Here’s why that’s not going to work, or here’s how it would work better’ — in real time as you redesign something, or build it from the bottom up — is an incredible benefit,” he said.

And the students gain as well as give. “Having small groups of students work with professors on designing or redesigning a course,” Read said, “teaches them so much about teaching and learning — not to mention the content of the course.

“I just think in terms of going back to the roots and principles of Short Term and what it was originally all about: experimentation, cooking up new ideas, intensive experience, a close-knit group of people. This is the total answer to that.”

In business, you’re lucky to get 30 seconds to interest someone in the product or service you’re selling.

Jeremy Fisher ’06 explains the art of the pitch as Ben Schippers ’04 looks on. Fisher was a guest speaker in Schipper’s Short Term course on digital innovation on May 6, 2014. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)

Students taking a course on digital innovation, one of four new practitioner-taught Short Term courses offered through the college’s Purposeful Work Initiative, have spent many hours thinking about those 30 seconds, whittling down their own pitches with the help of instructor Ben
Schippers ’04.

Schippers, co-founder of software development startup in Brooklyn, N.Y., co-teaches the course with Happy Fun colleague Will Schenk.

Schippers’ students develop fundamental coding and design skills while learning the finer points of entrepreneurship — including the all-important pitch, or “elevator speechâ€� — from professionals who have been on both sides of the negotiating table.

On May 6, Schippers invited his friend Jeremy Fisher ’06 to visit the class and help critique students’ pitches.

Fisher is something of an authority on digital innovation: His social media startup Wander was recently acquired by Yahoo! Inc. for more than $10 million.

Here are Fisher and Schipper’s tips for the perfect pitch:

Fisher says:

Jeremy Fisher ’06 is co-founder and CEO of Wander, developer of the Days app and recently sold to Yahoo. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)

Know your audience: “If someone in a bar asks what you do, you’re going to tell them about your startup in a different way than if you were in a boardroom.�

Keep it simple: “Don’t make your pitch do too much. It’s about finding the core that makes your idea intriguing or attractive to people.â€�

Leverage the absurd: “Sometimes having an idea that sounds really preposterous, or kind of ridiculous, is actually a huge asset,� because it gets people talking.

Always be on message: “The worst thing ever is not knowing what to say about your service. Having a clear value proposition — a really clear thing that you use it for — is effective. You need to be able to crystallize what you’re doing into a pitch that others can repeat for you.â€�

Find your hook: “Investors want to know how they’re going to pitch you as an entrepreneur. It’s understanding your personal narrative and how that fits into the story of your company.â€�

Schippers says:

Ben Schippers ’04 is co-founder of tech start-up Happy Fun Corp. He and Fisher became friends while students at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)

Get to the point: “When you say ‘like’ or ‘whatever’ or these really bogus vanilla words, it’s just noise.�

Avoid lazy comparisons: If you start comparing your product to an existing service — “‘It’s like Pinterest, but’ or ‘It’s like Facebook, but’ —  you’ve just lost.�

Bring the energy: “I like it when people come to my office and they’re really, really, really excited, and they figure out how to get me excited. Draw your audience in and figure out how to get them as excited as you are about your idea. Think of that as a No. 1 priority. That requires a huge amount of confidence and focus.â€�

Fisher adds a final bit of pitch wisdom for all career-minded students: “Realize that you’re always pitching, even to your classmates — even when you’re on campus going to parties, hanging out with friends.

“You never know which people are going to be in positions of power over you, under you, next to you.�

He shares a story from his time at Morgan Stanley when he learned his high school friend’s mother would be his new boss.

“Thank God I made a good impression on her when I was a kid.�

It’s not unusual for a guest speaker to visit one or two ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ classes.

But when author and entrepreneur came to campus on April 28, he visited five Short Term classes prior to his evening talk.

Speaking with students in ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½’ four new practitioner-taught courses (courses taught by experts outside the faculty), Goetz riffed on graphic design, healthcare administration, social activism and digital innovation. A kind of Renaissance man for the digital age, he also joined a biology class on emerging and reemerging infections.

On campus to join Short Term’s ambitious Purposeful Work programming, Goetz has scrutinized humanity’s dance with information technology since the early Internet Age, and that’s why he could move easily from classroom to classroom during his ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ visit, making varied and relevant contributions each step of the way.

In 1998, he founded one of the first Internet blogs, BubbleEconomy.com, publishing each post by hand-coding HTML at dawn.

Later, as executive editor of WIRED — a magazine dedicated, like Goetz himself, to helping us understand what technology means now and potentially will mean — he led the publication to more than a dozen National Magazine Awards.

A few years ago, when he wanted to make a contribution to the field of healthcare, he pursued a master’s in public health at UC–Berkeley to get specific training.

Co-founder of the startup , Goetz is now Entrepreneur in Residence at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, an appointment praised as

His current book, called a “beguiling real-life medical detective story” by Kirkus Reviews, explores the 19th-century origins of the germ theory of disease and the quest to identify and cure tuberculosis. In 2010, the Wall Street Journal named his debut book, The Decision Tree, a Best Health book.

Below is a look at his whirlwind day on April 28, and some of the ideas and insights he shared with ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ students and faculty (after which, by the way, he headed to Chicago to join President Clayton Spencer for a discussion about technology in higher education).

Reported by Tory Stanton. Photography by Phyllis Graber Jensen.

8:05 a.m.: A social encounter (sort of)

Loading up on oatmeal in Commons, Goetz speaks of his start-up, Iodine: “We are a lofty seven people.” Iodine is dedicated to improving patient health choices and outcomes through sophisticated information technology. Says Goetz:

Technology is good at two things: One, it’s good at scale, so it gets cheaper and cheaper and therefore gets easier and easier to reach larger numbers of people. The other thing that it does is make it possible to distribute things really cheaply on that network.

So you can create social connections that are not necessarily the same as a person-to-person social connection, but an approximation of a social connection that is potentially valuable. You can distribute something to millions of people because it’s a virtual encounter instead of a personal encounter.

9:02 a.m.: Enthusiastic welcome

Goetz listens to a glowing introduction by Professor of Sociology Emily Kane,  who has led the development of the new practitioner-taught Short Term courses this year. “The reason I’m here,” Goetz said, “is because of the enthusiasm of your emails.”

11:43 a.m.: Delivering a healthy emotional state

Goetz describes the importance of graphic design to healthcare delivery:

We want to give patients an experience that doesn’t just move them to adherence or compliance, but actually moves them to an emotional state where they feel calmer. Where they feel more confident about their health. Where they might even feel optimistic about their health.

That emotional shift is much more powerful than any clinical measure, and it is really only possible because of design. That’s what we should be demanding of our healthcare system — not just taking care of us by the numbers, but taking care of us as people. That’s the power, that’s the capacity of good design, to really give people a new emotional experience, a positive engagement with their lives.

11:56 a.m.: Down Alumni Walk

Goetz and Kane head to lunch with Matt Auer, dean of the faculty and vice president for academic affairs. Of his far-ranging work Goetz says, “I try to help people understand complicated things that are important to their lives.�

12:03 p.m.: Right story, right time

Goetz connects with Auer over lunch to talk about innovations in teaching and learning:

An idea — an innovation — moves from a science to a technology to an industrial or business application to a social application. So it’s this pathway from invention, to technology, to industry, to society. And that trajectory, that progression, offers a lot of opportunities for observing the impact of an invention or a discovery — depending on what phase it is in. The challenge is you want to be telling the right story at the right time.

1:46 p.m.: Some of what we know is wrong

While visiting Karen Palin’s biology course on emerging and reemerging infections, Goetz provides some historical context for the ever-growing scientific knowledge about infections and disease:

One of the most important things about science that I’ve learned is that science is constantly replacing one body of knowledge with a new body of knowledge. We have perfectly good explanations for how the world functions now that are wrong. We don’t know what those are, but they will be replaced.

3:57 p.m.: How Americans die

Americans’ risk of death from infectious disease has gone down but deaths from suicide and drug abuse have increased. If there is fundamental unhappiness in people’s lives, Goetz offers an answer:

One of the antidotes, I think, is community and feeling that people are a part of something. The traditional architecture of communities and relationships has dissipated in these last 25 years. Whatever you are engaged in — whether it’s the environment or mental health or immigration — to me, all of these are tasked with the greater responsibility of trying to provide something in people’s lives that makes them less unhappy and makes them feel more part of something and more connected to other people.

4:25 p.m.: Power of optimism

“True optimism,” says Goetz, “has more impact than any $2 million gift.” Here he speaks with Gideon Ikpekaogu ’17 of Abuja, Nigeria, after visiting with students in the practioner-taught course Social Change Organizing and Advocacy.

4:50 p.m.: Less static

Goetz meets with Pallavi Jayawant, associate professor of mathematics, and Matt Duvall of the college’s Digital Imaging Center. Goetz says:

A manifest misunderstanding of how technology works is the presumption that things are static, that the people who don’t have access to technology today will not have access to technology tomorrow. That has been proven wrong, year after year after year. When we were having this argument in 2006, 60 percent of Americans had access to the Internet. Today, 85 percent of Americans have access to the Internet. In the span of seven or eight years, that digital divide has been shrinking dramatically.

6:34 p.m.: Social technology as proxy

Enjoying a respite, Goetz dines with ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ faculty and staff.

Technology is a proxy for connections we all already otherwise want. So Facebook, social networking, Twitter — these technologies are not letting us do anything different from what we already were doing as a society. It just lets us do it more efficiently and without physical proximity. We have always wanted to have friends and always want to connect and have conversations.

But the technology gives us the capacity to do those in a distributed form. So now instead of having the network of six friends, we now have 600 friends. My point is, those technologies are not giving us something different, they’re serving the same social function.

7:26 p.m.: I was there

Goetz searches for himself in a photo from a 1989 event in which Edmund S. Muskie ’36 met with students before a meeting with other former secretaries of state. Though not pictured, Goetz remembers attending.

7:48 p.m.: A curious footnote

Goetz’s book, The Remedy, explores the origins of the germ theory while tracing the connection between microbiologist Dr. Robert Koch and country doctor Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes. Goetz says:

In the mid-19th century, the average lifespan was 36 years in the U.S. and Europe. Today it’s 80. But more than lifespan, the better metric to compare is the number of fatalities, just the sheer constancy of death.

At the time, the death rate was about 2 percent of the population. That’s a staggering amount of people dying every year, about five times the rate at which we die today. Death and disease were a constant and routine part of daily life that they’re not today — because it didn’t just happen at the end of life. It happened throughout life, and it happened for reasons that people couldn’t fathom.

8:41 p.m.: Signing off

Goetz signs a copy of his book for Lee Abrahamsen, associate professor of biology, following his talk. The next day, he was off to Chicago to join President Clayton Spencer for a discussion about technology in higher education.

* Purposeful work is a college-wide initiative built on the premise that preparing students for lives of meaningful work lies at the heart of the liberal arts mission. When fully developed it will include: (1) a co-curricular program involving cycles of exploration, reflection, and skill-building; (2) practitioner-taught courses during short term, and (3) a highly-structured ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½-specific network of internships, with the hope to guarantee every ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ student a paid internship that is either employer- or ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½-sponsored. back to article ^