Poetry:

...I swallowed vision and snail, rejoicing at creation, all its slimy stinking marvels, and the sprite which scampers somewhere behind the ribcage, named, yea verily, Courage...

...What should the students know...

...Writing assignments can be a most effective way of bringing out those deeper levels of reflectivity whose absence the Boyers, Smiths, and Wilshires deplore...

...Critical thinking" was the buzz concept eighteen of us discussed and hammered into projected class syllabi for each of our disciplines...

...Student insights arise out of the way a subject is approached rather than being deliberately injected by the instructor-a sure way of turning students off ("why is she preaching at us...

...I've always believed that students staring impassively at the ceiling or reading the campus newspaper in class say much more about us as instructors than about the students...

...Despite the absence of a core curriculum, I submit that virtually any subject matter in the humanities and social sciences, if taught in an "invitational" manner, will inevitably generate discussion about values, life-orientations, respect, decency, character...

...What exercises will stimulate thinking and critical assessment of what they are learning and writing...

...0 16: 21 April 1995 Commonweal...

...We are "in it" together and move on to engage assigned readings, interact with guest speakers, and sometimes break out into small discussion groups...

...How would you state your desired outcomes for this course...

...Friendships often begin in these exchanged greetings...

...There is simply no substitute for the sustained conversations that universities, at their best, make possible...

...The simple gesture of asking students to address one another by first names can not only dissolve barriers, but in my experience, helps to encourage the mutual respect that must undergird a truly multicultural society...

...The TV sound bites, students come to realize, are indeed impoverished ways of understanding complex matters that will continue to impact their lives...

...I have learned how community-building is my effort-successful by the fourth week or so of class-to learn students' names and to use them in class when acknowledging an upraised hand...

...Building a learning community is a partial response to the charge that deeper issues of life and its meaning are skirted at the university...

...Multicultural issues need not be divisive or fraught with PC repercussions...

...Opening readings probe cultural and institutionalized forms of discrimination...

...Such conversations, carried with them after commencement, offer the best hope that our young (and not-so-young) women and men will indeed confront their freedom and responsibility and, as thoughtful citizens, belie the pessimistic assessments of them...

...Casual conversations before and after class are good occasions to practice names as well...

...Intellectual curiosity has not vanished from our students nor are twenty-plusyear-olds lost wanderers without futures...

...Five years later we still share classroom experiences when we run across one another on campus...

...How do you intend to get them there...

...Stimulating" is a decided understatement to describe a faculty workshop I participated in a few years ago...

...Ir he best efforts to engage students arise from cooperating kindred spirits among the faculty...

...Our student body is indeed multi-hued and multicultured, and the "Dynamics of Prejudice" course in the sociology department draws large enrollments in its sections...

...patible with intellectual rigor (including readings from classic authors) reinforced by demanding examinations and tough grading...

...Let me add that these approaches do not translate into a "touchy-feely" style of learning...

...Absences become rarer when they realize you know they're missing...

...I share these reflections not in a "see what we're doing" tone but as antidote to the abstracted character of so much criticism...

...If you have neglected women's and/or ethnic/racial issues in your courses, how do you compensate and still maintain the conceptual unity of your courseor should that unity be reconsidered...

...Names are next...

...How we resist the unknown...

...I was nudged into dipping a silver fork into garlic-pungent butter melted to golden pond, and thrusting into my still recalcitrant mouth the morsel that made me think, shudderingly at first, then stunningly, of gardens lush with seed sunlight and shadows, myself in a chair with a hook, half dreaming...

...Our culture does, however, force us more than ever, if we care about teaching, to invite young men and women into learning partnerships where issues are read about, critically discussed, and written about...

...Students of varied racial/ethnic backgrounds (no ethnic separatism here, pace D'Souza and Jacoby) then form panels presenting their experiences-on the job, in the neighborhood, on the athletic field or court, in the student union building-followed by questions from class members, all taking place within a classroom climate of respectful interest often laced with humor...

...They are perfectly com Geraldine C. Little First rime Taste it, my friend urged...