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Meet Dr. Camparo and Her family
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| PROFESSIONAL & TEACHING PHILOSOPHY |
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Beyond
fulfilling teaching/scholarship needs, liberal
arts colleges are uniquely equipped to fulfill
more basic social, emotional, and intellectual
needs as well. I believe that the four years
spent at college are four of the most important
years in an individual's life; and I believe it
is not coincidental that these formative years
occur at the end of adolescence. I also believe
that during these four years it is the
obligation of the liberal arts college to coax
the late adolescent into early adulthood. Many
of these students are away from home for the
first time in their lives. They are making
important life decisions and developing the
friendships and romantic relationships that will
likely remain with them for the rest of their
lives. They are learning how to live and get
along with people representing a wider range of
beliefs, customs, experiences, and goals than
they have ever encountered. And, they are
discovering that both the stakes and the
standards are higher than they ever imagined. By
offering these students a community of
responsive and committed individuals whose
primary function is to create a setting in which
each student can develop to his/her fullest
potential, the liberal arts college is
accomplishing its principal and most fundamental
purpose. Although much of what is learned in college is learned outside the classroom, I believe the classroom provides the student with a structured, but open context for exploration and discovery. In 1998, while dropping my oldest daughter off at college in New York City, I realized how much has to be discovered--and how little time there is to do it in. At first, coming back to Whittier and my first year of mentoring freshmen, I felt overwhelmed. Then I realized that rather than thinking in terms of accomplishing everything in only four years, it was much more realistic and useful to think in terms of providing the students with the tools necessary to live an entire lifetime of discovery. This basic shift in perspective influenced how I conceptualize the student-professor relationship and affected my approach to teaching, advising, service, and scholarship. I have always believed that the quality of the student-professor relationship determines, in large part, the success of the student's experience; however, I now believe the nature of the relationship is perhaps even more important. Beyond simply respecting the student, I believe it is necessary for the professor to create an atmosphere of mutual learning and teaching. In high-school, these students were most likely treated as subordinate; they were children when they entered their high schools and were probably treated as such throughout their four years there. Additionally, "success" in high school probably meant getting good grades, and the rules for this success probably included taking less challenging classes to ensure a good grade and memorizing all the "right" answers to all the questions the teachers felt were important. Most likely there was not much room for students to think independently of the teachers. The college professor is perhaps the first adult the student has had the opportunity to interact with as an adult -- with no history as a child. "True success" in college requires mastering material rather than simply getting good grades, and the rules for success require independent thinking (e.g., critical analysis and argument). Students who enter college often are surprised by the new definition of success and the change in rules, and they are wary of independent thinking because it may not have led to the kind of success they were used to in the past. To assist students in this transition, I explicitly discuss these issues with the students on the first day of class, and even include a written discussion of this issue in the syllabus of my INTD100 course. Moreover, I believe we must work hard to communicate to the students that it is "safe" for them to begin to develop their own standards and explore, in collaboration with faculty and other students, less traditional, and perhaps more innovative "questions" and "answers." Creating an atmosphere of mutual learning and teaching imbues the student with responsibility and disallows passivity. Such an atmosphere can be accomplished when the student and professor feel free to disagree with each other and express differing points of view while still communicating respect for each other as individuals. At the same time, the student and professor are not peers, and I believe it is equally important that the professor make available to the student the fruits of the professor's greater experience. I believe this is best accomplished by the professor openly exhibiting sincere enthusiasm for her field and demonstrating an active passion for learning, by taking on intellectual challenges and consistently incorporating new perspectives into her thinking, and finally, by being accessible and making a determined effort to be aware of and responsive to her students' needs and goals. I believe it is also important to make students aware of the fact that my goal is to provide them with more tools than "bits" of information. For example, when teaching my freshman writing students the mechanics and art of argumentative writing, I explicitly state that my goal is not for them to be "done" learning about writing when they leave my class in only 13 weeks, but for them to have gained a respect for writing and the desire and skills necessary to continue to master the art of writing. I also tell them that I do not expect them to be "done" learning how to analyze and argue a position. Rather, my goal is for them to continue to apply and hone these critical thinking and argumentative skills in their other classes as well as in their discussions with their friends. Of course, the same approach applies to the students in my other classes. I believe that by putting their classroom experience into the context of a life-time experience, students will come to their own understanding of how each individual issue studied within the confines of a classroom relates to, and is influenced by, the larger four-year liberal arts experience, and they will come to treat education more as a process than simply an outcome. |
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