Class Note 1982
Issue
Sept - Oct 2016
Four ’82 professors agree that students are one of the best things about the job. Eric Cline, professor of classics and anthropology at George Washington University, advises undergraduate archaeology majors. He tells them, as his advisor told him, not to follow in his footsteps because there won’t be a job. Eric spent 10 years as an adjunct before returning home—he was born at GWU hospital!
Teaching “Introduction to Archeology” to about 140 students is Eric’s favorite part of the job. For the first summer in 20 years Eric isn’t taking students on an archeological dig. Instead, he is completing two books, Digging Up Armageddon and Three Stones Make a Wall.
Before becoming a professor of education Becki Ambrose taught middle school math for 10 years. At the University of California, Davis, Becki enjoys being her own boss and picking her projects. Focusing on mathematics education, Becki researches how to teach geometry, saying the focus should be on getting kids to solve problems and reflect on how they solve problems. Becki served an administrative stint as director of teacher education and she enjoys teaching an introduction to schools course.
Most people don’t realize how much time professors spend by themselves writing and researching and how much time they spend dealing with grants and budgets, Becki explained. “Professors’ jobs are wonderful, complicated and demanding.”
Today students are on their screens all the time, and Becki tries to figure out how to take advantage of that technology, using graphing apps and analyzing statistics garnered from videos. Jenny Jones Cavenaugh notes that today’s students “have a lot more distractions to contend with. They can live a mediated reality. Many also come out of a K-12 system that has literally conditioned them to view learning as something that is done when you pass a standardized test. Getting them to trust their imagination and ambiguity and risk-taking is hard.”
Jenny is dean of the faculty at Rollins College, but she still teaches one class. Her favorites are “Feminist Theater” and “Gender and Performance.” Jenny researches the working conditions of chorus women in the early Golden Age musicals.
Will Polik, chemistry professor at Hope College, notes, “It’s tremendous fun to work with the next generation and to discover or invent something that no one else ever has seen before.” Will researches laser spectroscopy and computational chemistry. He has mentored 78 undergraduate students, given more than 100 invited seminars, published 69 papers, chaired Hope’s chemistry department and led the American Chemical Society’s development of guidelines for undergraduate chemistry degrees. Will’s two favorite classes are “General Chemistry Lab,” where chemistry comes alive on the benchtop, and “Quantum Chemistry,” which blends his Dartmouth mathematics and chemistry majors. “The most rewarding aspect of teaching a course is watching students get excited about what they are learning. And the most rewarding part of mentoring research students is seeing them succeed.”
Join the first joint ’81-’82 reunion during Homecoming. Learn more at 1982.dartmouth.org.
—Robin Shaffert, 5044 Macomb St., NW, Washington, DC 20016; robinshaffert@yahoo.com; David Eichman, 9004 Wonderland Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90046; dme4law@sbcglobal.net
Teaching “Introduction to Archeology” to about 140 students is Eric’s favorite part of the job. For the first summer in 20 years Eric isn’t taking students on an archeological dig. Instead, he is completing two books, Digging Up Armageddon and Three Stones Make a Wall.
Before becoming a professor of education Becki Ambrose taught middle school math for 10 years. At the University of California, Davis, Becki enjoys being her own boss and picking her projects. Focusing on mathematics education, Becki researches how to teach geometry, saying the focus should be on getting kids to solve problems and reflect on how they solve problems. Becki served an administrative stint as director of teacher education and she enjoys teaching an introduction to schools course.
Most people don’t realize how much time professors spend by themselves writing and researching and how much time they spend dealing with grants and budgets, Becki explained. “Professors’ jobs are wonderful, complicated and demanding.”
Today students are on their screens all the time, and Becki tries to figure out how to take advantage of that technology, using graphing apps and analyzing statistics garnered from videos. Jenny Jones Cavenaugh notes that today’s students “have a lot more distractions to contend with. They can live a mediated reality. Many also come out of a K-12 system that has literally conditioned them to view learning as something that is done when you pass a standardized test. Getting them to trust their imagination and ambiguity and risk-taking is hard.”
Jenny is dean of the faculty at Rollins College, but she still teaches one class. Her favorites are “Feminist Theater” and “Gender and Performance.” Jenny researches the working conditions of chorus women in the early Golden Age musicals.
Will Polik, chemistry professor at Hope College, notes, “It’s tremendous fun to work with the next generation and to discover or invent something that no one else ever has seen before.” Will researches laser spectroscopy and computational chemistry. He has mentored 78 undergraduate students, given more than 100 invited seminars, published 69 papers, chaired Hope’s chemistry department and led the American Chemical Society’s development of guidelines for undergraduate chemistry degrees. Will’s two favorite classes are “General Chemistry Lab,” where chemistry comes alive on the benchtop, and “Quantum Chemistry,” which blends his Dartmouth mathematics and chemistry majors. “The most rewarding aspect of teaching a course is watching students get excited about what they are learning. And the most rewarding part of mentoring research students is seeing them succeed.”
Join the first joint ’81-’82 reunion during Homecoming. Learn more at 1982.dartmouth.org.
—Robin Shaffert, 5044 Macomb St., NW, Washington, DC 20016; robinshaffert@yahoo.com; David Eichman, 9004 Wonderland Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90046; dme4law@sbcglobal.net