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By Phil Williams
On a rainy Thursday afternoon, Julie Checkoway, head of the creative writing program, is sitting at a conference table in Park Hall, arguing with her students about Walt Whitman. Several students in her freshman seminar think Whitman is overrated.
“I think Whitman is the greatest American poet who ever lived,” says a published writer visiting the class.
“But you haven’t read my stuff yet,” says Patrick Kunes, a freshman from Tifton.
Sometimes a great notion takes a while to become established. That hasn’t been the case with the freshman seminar program, which has doubled in size since last year and shows no signs of slowing. From modest beginnings in the fall of 1997, the program, sponsored by the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences and the Honors Program, involves some 60 faculty members and nearly 900 students this fall.
Several seminars are now being taught in residence halls. Students seem to love the casual atmosphere of the one-hour-credit courses and the wide variety of teachers and subjects.
“It’s been very comfortable and inspiring,” says former Georgia Gov. Zell Miller, now Distinguished Professor of Higher Education and first holder of the Philip H. Alston Chair. “I had not taught in the classroom since 1979 at Emory, and I was anxious to see what these new students today are like. They are extremely bright and inquisitive, and they know what they want to do in life far more than I did at their age.”
Miller’s class, “Essentials of Leadership,” has 15 students--12 of them women--and they meet each Friday afternoon in Meigs Hall. He has assigned five books for classroom study and keeps up with students through e-mail and in lunches with groups of three students for more in-depth conversations on issues of leadership.
Students in the Franklin College normally enroll for five classes per semester, but this is the second year the college and the Honors Program are offering an additional one-credit freshman seminar. Faculty members use pass-fail designations for seminars at the 1010 level and traditional A-F grading for classes at the 1020 level. Most freshman seminars meet for one hour each week, and they are being taught by some of the most distinguished members of the faculty.
Wyatt Anderson, dean of the Franklin College and a professor of genetics, says that students were immediately engaged by the themes in his seminar, “Biology and Human Affairs,” being taught in the Brumby Hall conference room late on Monday afternoons.
“I’ve enjoyed the location, because it’s part of the university’s effort to bring academics to student life in the residence halls,” Anderson says. “We are largely talking about social and ethical issues in science and how different cultures see these problems. For instance, genetically engineered foods are not a major problem in the United States, but they are a huge problem in Europe.”
Thomas Dyer, interim vice president for instruction and associate provost, teaches a course called “Understanding the Modern University,” a subject about which freshmen are often uninformed. His class also meets in the Brumby Hall conference room.
“It’s an entirely different atmosphere from teaching in one of the big classroom buildings,” Dyers says. “It seems much more collegial, even though we’re teaching in a high-rise.”
Jere Morehead, associate provost and director of the Honors Program, which co-sponsors the seminars, emphasizes the general educational value of freshman seminars.
“From the time new students begin their journey at UGA, we must remind them of the importance of curiosity and learning as lifelong pursuits,” he says. “The freshman seminar program promotes such values and creates an important link between the faculty and the student body in a personal and meaningful way. I believe the program has generated great enthusiasm for learning and has helped develop positive relationships between students and our very best faculty.”
Hugh Ruppersburg, associate dean of the Franklin College and a professor of English, teaches a seminar on Georgia poets.
“What is probably most significant is how the students feel about the seminar location in Brumby Hall, especially those who live there,” he says. “The atmosphere is much more relaxed, which may well be a result of the late-afternoon time.”
The seminars are, in fact, taught all over campus. “Science as a Human Activity” is taught in the chemistry building by James Anderson of the chemistry department; a class called “Klansmen, Neo-Nazis and Today’s White Supremacy Movement,” taught by E.M. Beck, head of the department of sociology, is in Baldwin Hall.
“The title of my seminar is ‘Black, White and Southern: Variations on a Theme,’” says John Inscoe, an associate professor of history and editor of the Georgia Historical Quarterly. “It has been very interesting and revealing to me to feel these students out on issues of race--their experiences, their perceptions, their knowledge.”
“Politicians always looked at me as a teacher, and teachers always looked at me as a politician,” says former Gov. Miller, laughing. “But I’ve always thought of myself as a teacher.”
Maybe some day Patrick Kunes will be teaching his poetry to freshmen, too.
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