Over the past few days, I’ve found myself in the company of students new to Georgetown. They seemed uniformly excited by and attentive to their new surroundings, not unlike immigrants to a new country. They were very interested in how things work in their new home and thirsted for guidance about how to succeed in their new surroundings. They wanted to know how to navigate efficiently to their goal. They were nervous and unsure of their abilities.
Those meetings rekindled memories of my own first moments in higher education.
I remember arriving at an elite Northeastern university from a challenged Southern US high school. In the first days, I met privileged prep school graduates, who seem to have already mastered the subjects covered in first year classes. The professors seemed all-knowing; the class discussions were intimidating.
One freshman seminar stands out in my mind. It consisted of a group of 10 or so students, focused on close reading and creative writing. The instructor was a tweedy, pipe-smoking scholar in American literature. He oozed intellectual sophistication.
I felt out of place. One student was already working on the fourth chapter of his novel! I pretended I was a poet, but mainly produced amateurish e.e.cummings’ knock-offs. All of my work seemed inadequate. It was tough sledding and merely served to remind me that I didn’t belong there.
About four weeks into the course, at the end of the class, the professor called me aside and asked me to see him the next day during his office hours. I remember panicking at the thought that this was a prelude to the end. He had probably reviewed my application, noted the weaknesses others had overlooked, and arranged for a quiet removal of the admission’s mistake.
The offices of the English department were in a building with intimidating dark wood-paneled hallways and wooden office doors with frosted glass upper panels. I knocked quietly on the closed door, waited a few minutes, and then knocked more loudly. A voice from inside beckoned me to come in.
Pipe smoke; tweed jacket; serious look on face.
He began by asking me about my background. He asked how I thought I was doing. And then, much to my surprise, he said he found that my comments in class very thoughtful. He found interesting a particular interpretation I had voiced in the last class. He said he called me in to office hours because he wanted to hear more from me in class; I was making the class better by my participation. That was it. That’s what he wanted me to know. That was all he wanted me to know!
Despite its brevity, that moment was a turning point for me. Every step after that meeting, for years, was a deeper and deeper commitment to the life of the mind common to all academics.
I have no way of knowing what would have become of me without that 5-10 minute conversation. I literally can’t remember where I was headed before it. But I had clearly made several misjudgments common to youth.
I now code that meeting as an example of the power of faculty contact to shape students’ lives. I cannot imagine a functional equivalent of that moment without the human interaction of a caring senior intellect reaching out to a junior student.
It took that faculty member only minutes to shape my life.
So, returning to my recent meetings with new students, my common answer to how to be successful at Georgetown is to get to know a faculty member who seems to care about you. It is the best of what we do here.
Ah, but there is a counterfactual to the moment Provost Groves described. If the tweedy professor had elected to allocate more of his time to research, he might have passed on the opportunity to mentor the young Groves, a man upon whom many young people now depend. At the risk of over-dramatizing, I’m reminded of the moment in It’s a Wonderful Life when Clarence the Guardian Angel tells George Bailey, “Every man on that transport died. Your brother Harry wasn’t there to save them, because you weren’t there to save Harry.” The effect of these things has a way of multiplying.
But the matter is not simple. The tweedy professor’s research might have led to a significant discovery that provided even more societal benefit than did mentoring young Groves.
President DeGioia often refers to Georgetown’s three core functions: the creation of knowledge, the dissemination of knowledge, and community service. All are important. Considered in that context, Provost Groves recollection reminds us that, in our resource-constrained world, pursuing one necessarily diminishes the others. So as Georgetown redesigns itself for the future, it should set its priorities among the three carefully, with the participation of all stakeholders and thoughtful consideration of the form it ultimately wants to take.
Bill Kuncik, Georgetown MALS
Thank you for sharing your story about “the power of faculty contact to shape students’ lives.” I think many of us have similar stories both from a faculty and student perspective. The research supports the importance of these interactions, as well. I recently wrote a piece about the ways in which interpersonal interactions are key to college students’ success that you might find relevant.
http://deborahstearns.blogspot.com/2015/08/college-is-not-content-delivery-system.html
Thanks, Provost Groves, for sharing some of your story. I appreciated the chance to hear you share similar thoughts at the Pangaea dinner two weeks ago.
Certainly, we need faculty who care deeply about mentoring students. I too had a pivotal moment of connection with a professor during my freshman year at another university. I am still in touch with that professor and two others who have been greatly involved in my personal and professional journey. What a gift!
I am also still in touch with a former supervisor from a work-study position I held as a student. This supervisor influenced my self-concept and career aspirations in ways that still resonate profoundly. Both faculty and staff were an important part of my story; to speak of one and not the other would be to convey a perfunctory description of my growth and development during college.
I want to invite you to acknowledge and celebrate the growth and development facilitated by athletic coaches, academic advisors, student affairs professionals, older students, alumni, and other staff members in addition to our wonderful faculty. This would encourage students to seek mentors in multiple spheres and as part of a life-long practice of contemplation in action. It would also paint a more complete picture of the mentoring that happens on this campus.
Thank you, Provost Groves! It’s what we love to do!