DCAL: 'Keep It All To Yourself'

By Alexander Rogers | Wednesday, November 24, 2004

Wednesday, October 27th saw the first assembly of the Dartmouth Center of Advanced Learning, where faculty members would discuss "The Challenges and Opportunities of Ideological Diversity." Undergraduates were encouraged to attend in order to "diversify" the discussion.

DCAL is a new College initiative aimed towards "facilitating the sharing of faculty teaching methods and ideas." Founded in July 2004, the Center hopes to be a launching pad for keeping faculty au fait of "new teaching tools and strategies, especially the purposeful applications of digital technology and new media." It is also designed to encourage "close teacher-student relationships and hands-on, discovery-based approaches to learning." A new $4.5 million headquarters facility is slated to stretch across the southeast wing of Baker Library.

The title for the first discussion was somewhat misleading. Because it was among faculty members, one would have thought that the discussion would have been an authentic examination of the role a professor's beliefs plays in the classroom. Instead, the better part of the ninety-minute charade discussed student reaction to a lecturer's leanings, with a decided emphasis on how to best siphon, and parry those lecture hall scoundrels who dissent.

Professor of Government Anne Sa'adah was first to speak. She was quick to note how much she had sacrificed to the shrine of impartiality—so much so, in fact, that she felt more than justified to let her students know whom she planned on voting for in November's election and what she thought of our incumbent president. She explained her actions by citing the example of Senator John Kerry, who likewise faced the challenge of arguing both sides of an issue while managing to display clear, unflinching convictions.

As further evidence towards her open-mindedness, Professor Sa'adah cited her ingenuity in producing a logical pretext for the Iraq war—something the nation apparently lacked prior to her actions—as proof she was still fighting hard to represent the wrong side fairly. Though at first her lecture seemed to be merely a summary of the hazards of following the Stanley Fish model of complete detachment from partisan principles when teaching students, it became clear that the crux of her message was the desired effect her tactics would have on students: get them to trust us, then remold their sorry beliefs.

The next panelist, religion professor Susan Ackerman, was at least less muddled about where she stood when the battle lines were drawn. Her course was a thoughtful perusal of the Bible as a historical document, and not in any way would she condone the thought of a student leaving her class describing those ten weeks as a "religious experience." She finds it disconcerting that so many of her students embark upon the course with some expectation that their Sunday-school characterizations of Holy Scripture hold any clout: it is her goal as teacher to sweep the pest of "feel-good, naïve piety" from her midst. After all, should she possibly allow any one student to persist with his dark-age mentality, she might be opening the door to "faith development" a dangerous event in any religion course.

For Professor Ackerman and others, students with strong opinions dissenting from campus orthodoxies imperil the world of academia. These students take up valuable class time with their flimsy protests and misguided rhetoric, causing unnecessary friction and polluting the brains of the fragile students around them. Instead, the College ought to foster an environment of students with open and pliable minds. In the event that a student does have an opinion, Prof. Ackerman advises to "keep it all to yourself."

Although certain undesirables might have feared the world these two ideologues envisioned, Emma Sloan '05, a student panelist, found a certain resonance between her own classroom experience and that proposed. Ms. Sloan recalled her many attempts to steer wayward students back on the straight and narrow path, only to be rebuffed by a great many who were somehow not convinced that their fundamental perceptions on life were flawed. As someone who could claim an intimate grasp of the students' general airs from her time spent amongst them, she made the gloomy realization that there were indeed members of the student body not interested solely in the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake, but who rather looked at an education as a way of changing the real world or "getting ahead" in life—gasp! Optimistic nonetheless, Ms. Sloan encouraged the downtrodden intelligentsia not to let these few sorry punks dishearten them.

Now, it would be fallacious to characterize this event as a purely one-sided affair. Although organizer and moderator Thomas Luxon of DCAL made a commendable effort to stack the deck with his choice of panelists, he overlooked one detail: events open to the public have a nasty habit of inviting at least one member of the actual public to participate, and a word or two of dissent can creep into the conversation. However, the moment a lone dissenter prefaced his query by stating Dartmouth was a "liberal" institution, whatever point he was hoping to add was swallowed in the uproar. Instantly his assertions were ridiculed and questioned—this campus is no haven for liberalism. Inevitably the squabble was derailed into yet another tangent on the definition of liberalism, on which point Prof. Sa'adah proclaimed with a degree of defiance, that liberalism on campus simply meant "we're less anti-intellectual than America as a whole." Nobody protested.

The one gleam of light that graced the whole of the discussion was Professor Craig Wilder of the History department. His was the lone voice of reason, and he did not spare the audience the fact that diversity of opinion is an unavoidable consequence of teaching human beings, as opposed to bobble-head dolls. Such differences in thought should not disrupt class, nor should they be shunned—what is important is finding a way to incorporate differing world-views into the class discussion. Prof. Wilder's greatest concern given the current environment was possibility that students and teachers could become so overtly polarized by their conflicting positions that both would miss out on the rewarding experiences that transcend personal differences. It was a valid point, and one that actually deserved thorough debate. Sadly, time was running short by that point and the rest of the panelists had other hallways to haunt, so with little fanfare the first of DCAL's open roundtables came to an abrupt end.

My consolation to the four thousand undergraduates who failed to make this meeting is the likelihood this will not be the last time the specter of DCAL panels will mar the campus with its presence. If Professor Luxon and others have their way, there will soon be a glistening permanent center for DCAL that you can visit any time to get your dose of this fine academy's new and improved future. Just keep your judgment of the décor to yourself.

DCAL: 'Keep It All To Yourself'

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