Teachers As Scholars

Teachers and administrators in MSUNER partner districts are provided an opportunity to immerse themselves in scholarly topics and issues in small, liberal arts seminars offered by university faculty. Seminars focus on three main areas: Great Lives and Literatures; Living, Learning, and the Arts; and Science Matters.

The Teachers as Scholars program at Montclair State University began with a grant from the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation. This is one of just 29 Teachers as Scholars programs throughout the country and the third such program in New Jersey. Teachers as Scholars furthers school-university collaboration by providing public school educators with intellectually stimulating seminars offered by university faculty in the arts and sciences. Eight seminars will be offered at Montclair State in fall 2011 and spring 2012.

MSUNER Teachers as Scholars 2011-2012

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1. Cleopatra: Images of Female Power
Prudence Jones
October 24 and November 14, 2011, 9:00 am to 3:00 pm
Room 1120, University Hall
This two-part seminar will examine Cleopatra VII, both as she appears in the historical record and as later authors and artists have shaped her image. Issues considered include female power, east vs. west, and politics and propaganda. Cleopatra is not only a fascinating personality but also will afford us the opportunity to learn about the Hellenistic period, the origins of the Roman empire, the cosmopolitan city of Alexandria, and women’s roles in ancient society. In addition, the seminar will offer an introduction to the study of reception, the re-creation and re-interpretation of history, art, and literature in subsequent ages. Thus, in addition to studying the historical Cleopatra, we will examine such works as Chaucer’s “The Legend of Good Women,” Shakespeare’s “Antony and Cleopatra,” and the decorative arts associated with the “Egyptomania” that accompanied the Napoleonic invasion of Egypt.
2. 10 Things to Love About Shakespeare—in Two Parts
Naomi Conn Liebler
October 27 and  November 17, 2011, 9:00 am to 3:00 pm
Courtyard Lounge, University Hall
For Shakespeare, as we know, the play was the thing. But what sort of thing was it? How different was a comedy from a tragedy? (Hint: They’re not as different as we might think.) Comedy and tragedy are more than two masks; they are refracting mirrors of a kaleidoscope whose bits of confetti never change but seem to shift as we turn the cylinder. This seminar will explore 10 key principles, some separate, some overlapping, of the two major Shakespearean genres that organize that kaleidoscope into glorious commentary on the great pageant of human concerns.
3. Evolutionary Biology
Scott Kight
December 1 and 15, 2011, 9:00 am to 3:00 pm
Room 1143, University Hall
Evolution happens.  It is occurring in every living species on the planet - right now.  Evolutionary biology is not merely about bones and fossils but rather about genes and mutations and populations of living organisms.  Bones and fossils are merely bookmarks of the evolutionary patterns that occurred when long-dead organisms did what we are doing today: striving to survive and reproduce. Evolutionary biology has been a powerful tool in our understanding of HIV and AIDS, and those scientists on the forefront of finding a cure are evolutionary biologists.  Evolutionary biology runs strongly through (indeed unifies!) the fields of genetics, conservation biology, medicine, immunology, and molecular biology.  There is not a single field in the biological sciences for which evolutionary biology does not play a pivotal role.
4. What is “Correct English,” Anyway? Standard English, Social Realities, and Language Change
Alice Freed
January 24 and 31, 2012, 9:00 am to 3:00 pm
Room 1120, University Hall

Teachers and educators spend a considerable amount of time "correcting" students' English.  The goal of these "corrections" seems to be to teach students how to write (and speak) "Standard English." But what exactly is Standard English? Is the variety of English that we consider standard today, the same as the language that was seen as standard a generation ago? Is trying to teach Standard English a reasonable objective in the face of relentlessness language change?  And why is it that the realities of social change that surround us bring with it a change in how people use language? This seminar will consider these questions and perhaps even suggest a few answers.

5. Film, Art, and Social Change in Spain

Linda Gould Levine
January 27, 2012, 9:00 am to 3:00 pm
Room 1120, University Hall
This one-day seminar focuses on Icíar Bollain’s film, Take My Eyes (Te doy mis ojos), the winner of 7 Goya award (the equivalent of the Oscars) in 2004 in Spain.  The subject of this film—domestic violence—and the impact that it had on Spanish society led to a series of legislative reforms and heightened awareness of the severity of violence against women.  Yet, the film is also an exquisite representation of the role of art and painting in empowering the female protagonist to leave her husband.  Following a screening of the film, this seminar examines the way in which Bollaín combines social critique and art history, as well as mythology and pathology, while offering a complex view of the difference between the female nude as art form and the naked woman as object of domestic violence.  The seminar also situates Bollaín’s film in the context of contemporary Spanish cinema.
6. The Sixties
Gregory Waters
February 2 and 9, 2012, 9:00 am to 3:00 pm
Room 1143, University Hall
In the tumultuous decade of the Sixties, literature, music and film were all transformed by political events, and to some extent political events were transformed by popular culture as well. This seminar is designed for anyone interested in exploring the intersections of politics and culture, and in considering the lasting impact of the civil rights movement, the Vietnam war, the counterculture, Black power, the women’s movement, gay liberation, and Watergate on American history and culture. This decade was a period of incredible hope, turmoil, despair and desperation, one that shaped a generation and transformed America. The seminar will examine all forms of expression, including poetry (Allen Ginsberg, Frank O’Hara, Sylvia Plath), music (Chuck Berry, Bob Dylan), film clips (“Dr. Strangelove,” “Rebel Without a Cause,” “Apocalypse Now”), and political documents (the Port Huron Statement, NOW Bill of Rights), etc.
7. Color in the Classroom: A Historical Perspective on How Schools Teach “Race”
Zoë Burkholder
March 2 and 23, 2012, 9:00 am to 3:00 pm
Room 1120, University Hall
This class uses a historical perspective to analyze the changing ways that teachers have understood and taught about race, from 1900 to the present. We will examine texts written by teachers in the early 2oth century who puzzled over the racial traits of Irish, Italian, and Russian children—each viewed as distinct “racial” groups with corresponding patterns of intelligence and behavior. Moving forward in time, we will consider how and why World War II prompted educators to adopt a more rigorous, scientific definition of race in American schools, one that restricted “race” to the more specific categories of Caucasian (a new term), Negroid, and Mongolian. Participants will examine historical documents, including comics and filmstrips designed to teach scientific definitions of race to students in the 1940s. Finally, we will consider the different ways that schools create and disseminate ideas about the meaning of race and the muted rules of racial etiquette in recent years. In conclusion, we will discuss possibilities for antiracist teaching and using schools to promote social justice in the 21st century.
8. Can Virtue Be Taught – by Women?
Dorothy Rogers
March 30, 2012, 9:00 am to 3:00 pm
Room 1145, University Hall
An exploration of the age-old question “can virtue be taught,” as viewed through the theories of two pre-feminist thinkers, Marietta Kies and Lucia Ames Mead.  These women were part of the philosophical ‘idealist’ movement in America, which insisted that moral and social development must be part of the American educational system.  Kies wrote on altruism and advocated a social welfare system (before it was in place in the 1880s and ‘90s).  Ames Mead wrote on pacifism and was a major force in the anti-war movement between 1890 and 1930.  Although their work was not ‘feminist,’ it could certainly be called ‘feminine’ – thus they simultaneously reinforce and challenge many of assumptions about women, particularly women as teachers.  Their lives and works point to questions we continue to grapple with today.

Download the descriptions of the 2011-2012 seminars: Teachers as Scholars Seminar Descriptions

To register, click here.