Humanities Faculty Panel

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Yeah, we spent a long time talking about it. Obviously in AI meetings last year with you and then this year as well. And so I hope. I hope that it's.

Doesn't vanish.

Perfect.

Yeah no, I think On the contrary, it's going to make things.

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That we got.

I see quite a few people jumping on, so I'll just give it another couple seconds to make sure everybody gets a chance to sign on and then I will do quick introductions and we can start our humanities faculty panel. So yeah.

All right?

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So hello to everyone that's joining us today. We are the humanities faculty panel. I'm Daniel Nestor, I'm assistant director of admissions here at Allegany College and I'll just be the moderate. Are I just want to take care of a couple help keeping type duty? So if you look on the left hand side of your screen there will do it clap box.

Yeah.

It feel free send in your questions when you buy a wonderful panels joining us today and will happy to answer any academic type questions you may have we can also talk a little bit I know we have a senior so if you have like first year advising questions or anything like that definitely great group to ask those questions too I will be monitoring the chat so we cannot see your question pop up right away don't worry you don't need to resend it or anything I'm just going to be sending them in one at a time so we can make sure we get everybody's question and not get overwhelmed.

But yeah so and if anybody having any tech issues the best solution is please leave the session in reenter the session that seems to be a big fix if you're having audio or any other type of issues we do have close captioning available so if you click that in the Top right hand corner you can kind of read along and then about a week later will get the recording of this panel up so you can listen to it if you are having any issues so to get started I'd just like to ask everyone.

To do a very quick introduction about themselves, what areas they teach in what is a favorite class of theirs, and I guess we will start with Professor Lewis.

OK, can you hear me OK?

Yeah, so I am a professor of French. I teach French here. Um, I'm also the chair of the language Department, so I have a little bit of a broader perspective on on. Sort of all the languages here.

And Uhm.

Would say.

My favorite class to teach was at the other question, OK?

Yeah.

So I was thinking about this question 'cause I knew it was coming an I said it's.

Hard for me to pinpoint a specific course. I think in any given semester, my favorite class that teaches a class.

It depends on on the students write the class that the students are most engaged in. Any given semester is probably going to be my favorite regardless of what the content of the courses.

So that makes it difficult for me to say this particular classes is my favorite.

Yeah, that's that's. I think my answer to that one.

Perfect in professor niblock will have you answer it looks like professors in high Roy is having tech issues so will get her back on in just a minute.

OK.

My name is James New Block and I am professor of music at Allegany.

Most of my teaching load is actually directing the Allegany choirs and choosing which one of those is my favorite is a bit like you know, saying that one of your kids is really a lot better than your other kids, so.

But I also teach a course in voice science that I really love, and I teach a course about music and comedy as an FS course. And they're all my favourites for different reasons. So my choral ensembles build an amazing sense of community among the students and the voice science courses really like a dig. Deep course focused on one subject from a lot of different perspectives. The music and comedy course is just a lot of fun, and it's about breath. And it's about teaching the kind of skills.

That I learned as an undergraduate student. You know, focusing on reading and writing public speaking. So so each course has its own.

Its own pros for me like its own sort of categories of fulfillment for me.

And.

You see me, Danielle.

Yeah.

I can't hear you.

Is that better?

Yeah, that's better.

Yes, if you want to go ahead and introduce yourself and we talk about class you teach.

Perfect so I'm professor is she does porn high Roy which is a mouthful but I teach media studies in the Department of communication arts and one of my favorite classes to teach is the one on branding and storytelling and while most people associate branding with just the field of advertising and so much more because it's really about figuring out peoples motivations for.

Presenting ideas in particular ways or connecting with people in particular ways, and hence the storytelling aspect. So there are many more classes I teach, but that's one of my favourites.

Perfect so just a reminder. You guys feel free send in your questions will get them asked, but the first question that I kind of want to addresses to Professor Niblock and maybe go into a little detail about what the music program at Allegany is like and then maybe discuss how students can bounce out with other activities like athletics.

Sure, so we're really lucky at Allegany to have a really robust music program for such a small school. It's it's pretty amazing the breadth of offerings that we have, the number of different ensembles, instruments, and voices to which we offer lessons, and so we're hopeful our whole Department is really built around the idea of access to students no matter what their previous experience has been. So if you've never played the guitar before, we have a beginner guitar course.

But we also have two spots in our jazz ensemble. For really proficient guitarists, and so there are lots of openings in lots of different things, just depending on the level at which you'd like to participate and the level of your musical skills.

As far as balancing that with other activities. The again the number of offerings that were able to maintain makes a big difference, so for example, if you are a singer and you are unavailable at the time when the college choir meets in the evening because you have track practice chances are you are available in the afternoons at the times when women's ensemble or chamber. Choir meat and so the fact that there are a variety of offerings at different times of the day.

Uh, make it a lot more likely that students are going to find a way to participate in those things. And of course, music has intersections with other Department Stew. I know students often will ask questions about musical Theatre and whether or not those offerings are housed in the music Department or in the theater Department. There primarily offered in the theater Department because the music Department tends to focus more on opera and on chamber music, but obviously a lot of our students that participate in ensembles.

And take lessons. Also participate in those musical productions in the theater Department. Whether they're playing in the pit orchestra or singing in the shows, professor soon hardly might be able to say more about that as she's aligned with that Department.

So.

So, uhm, the Music Theatre bought a fit. James captured it wonderfully. We have two directors who are also faculty members in the Theater Department, which is part of the Communication Arts Department. And they're professor Mark Austin and Beth Watkins. Both of them have a keen interest in music theater from very different angles. Mark is primarily very interested in Broadway shows.

And, uhm, a professor Beth Watkins actually works and collaborates with people both from the town from the stage at a national level and also with faculty from the music Department to create her productions. So for instance, in 2019 she worked with assistant professor music Douglas jurors to create a show called the dog runs because he can and it will the kind of.

Musical detective show that looked at the uncleaned disappearance of the composer who wrote this amazing piano Sonata was a leading composer in the 1980s, had won several prestigious prizes, and then suddenly around 1992 he disappeared, leaving several commissions behind, and so professor jurors and bath Watkins collaborated on that production. Professor Mark Austin.

Also takes students from the theater Department in the fall to New York City.

Where they watch Broadway musicals, they meet with professionals and alumni, both from Broadway but also from companies that promote Broadway. And they therefore are able to really put together what they're learning in the classroom with what they're watching on stage.

Perfect so we did get a question in an it's kind of along the lines of music so just kind of keep on that theme. Erica wants to know that she is interested in double majoring in business and music. So from the music side, what classes might she be taking? We're learning about in what performance based classes are required. She does play violin and sing as well as compose.

So we we have offerings in voice, there are five choral ensemble offerings as well as vocal chamber music in the form of opera scenes and duets and trios. Student recitals. We have offerings for violent for string players would include lessons, chamber music, string quartet and orchestra, and as far as.

Oh, and composition lessons as well, so I just remembered that was tacked on there. Sorry, as far as the intersection with business goes, sometimes students will look at a music business degree program from a major University and say Oh, this is the sort of thing that I would like to do and I think they can expect a somewhat different experience at Allegany because our department's are oriented in such a way to give them a really fundamental grounding.

And how each of those disciplines is constructed? You know what skills is that discipline rooted in? What's the base of knowledge required to understand that discipline? So for us, rather than offer a course that's titled Music business, we expect somebody that's going to go into the music business to have a really thorough knowledge of music. So we're going to teach them music theory, music history, performance, whether that's voice, piano, guitar.

Whatever instrument they play, maybe multiple instruments so that that person has a good understanding of what the people are doing that are performing in the music business.

From the business side, I can't speak with great specificity about the courses that they would take, but I think you know there's some. To some degree, it's sort of obvious what kinds of things you're going to need to understand from that from that business angle. And then there are various areas where that intersects in a really important way. For example, about Copyright and recording entities publishing clearing houses for rights.

Both mechanical and print, so I think that we have two different disciplines there, where a student can get a firm grounding and then also have room within our curriculum to over to explore the overlap between them.

Perfect so to kind of jump on a different track. We did have a couple language based questions come in, so the first would be would first questions from Becky would I be able to take both French and Spanish classes if I do not major in either languages?

Perfect and to kind of go off of that. We do have some students that have never taken a language before and were wondering what kind of beginner courses or what is the pathway to going into that as a major or minor.

Awesome and I do have a question. Prefer Professor Synnara. I was wondering if maybe with communication we could talk a little bit about kind of. I know creative writing is not within the communication but a little bit about the writing at Allegany specifically. We had a few questions about that environmental writing and creative writing in different theater opportunities. Kind of combined into those.

Wonderful, so um what I'm doing here is, uh, trying to attach a couple of links that I think people would like to explore. The first story is actually an interesting example of the liberal arts in action, because we recently had a college professor from biology and alumnus who both were awarded the 2020 Sciences Story Fellowship both.

Actually need took a course with a professor in the creative writing program at Allegany and um, sort of discovered their talents there. The creative writing program at Allegany is wonderfully vast and diverse in terms of offering foundation and then advanced courses in everything from drama to poetry, to fiction to even nonfiction. And because it's a liberal arts education, there are partnerships.

With other Department. So for instance you could be in creative writing in the English Department an yet also take courses in journalism.

Uhm, you could be in creative writing and take courses in environmental studies or environmental science, right? And so the possibilities of writing across the field is very much encouraged. At Allegany, we have a terrific series called a single voice reading series that is hosted by a professor in the English apartment, Christopher Botkin and he invites.

Poison writers who are nationally and internationally renowned to come and give readings at Allegany College and then to talk with students primarily.

About their craft and what they want to do with it and the other big opportunity at Allegany College is connecting. Of course, with alumni who are in the writing professions and so there are ways in which the Department encourages that are there are funds to actually send you to writing conferences, and so there's a vast network through which students learn where their strengths lie, and then can seek the appropriate faculty to help them.

Develop those.

Sure.

Perfect thank you I'm so we actually had Erica wanted to clarify she was interested in the music business and then also probably teaching she has to a great question for all of you what are some of the internship students can get through say your Department or through other departments that specially when they have interest that are in a lot of different areas and if we want to start professor niblock since she was business maybe you could start there and then we can go with professor Lewis and Peppers and Roy.

Yeah.

So, more often than not, our students, when they are pursuing internships, they surprise me with picking things that are a little further afield than I expect them to. So occasionally someone who is a really great musician. I'm thinking of a student from a few years ago who was a wonderful musician. A pianist, singer, guitarist, and, but was double majoring in music and math, and she came into my office one day and said I'm going to do the city arts.

Um?

Study away program for a semester and I said, OK, you know what exactly are you hoping to do in that? And she said, I'm going to intern with the songwriter for the entire semester and that's what she was excited about. Just at that particular moment will she learned a lot of really important things. June, particularly want to become a songwriter. She just thought that she'd learn interesting things an enjoy that experience. And she was right. And like so many of our students.

And she proved that the experience is exactly what you make of it, and no more and no less.

And so we don't have a, you know, I can't think of a particular sort of well worn path for students as far as the kind of internship experience that we think is best or the kind of internship experience that we think is most reliable.

Uh, I I can. I also can't think of a time where a student came back to me though and said Oh my internship was really worthless. All I did was make photo copies because our students right well and speak well and develop a broad array of academic skills. And when they get out in work environments, people recognize those skills and put them to work doing interesting things.

Does that mean next?

So students in our Department have variety of internship opportunities specifically.

It's sort of varies from language to language, so it'll depend obviously somewhat on what language you're interested in. I can give you a couple of examples that are specific to French, 'cause That's what I know best. So for example, we have a relationship with our.

Sister City Meadville has a sister city in Branson theme in northern France.

And at the small town and every summer, we have the opportunity to send a couple of one or two Allegany students to go work in their City Hall right in their city government. And so that's an internship that.

Berries from summer to summer with they asked the students to do, but it gets them in touch with.

Some function or another, depending on what they're asked to do of the city government there and then. Most importantly, work experience abroad for a month or so in the summer.

Another way that students do internships through while they're studying French here is that we have we often when we send students abroad, we have a program through Boston University that goes to Paris and that has an internship component. So students are in classes for the first half to 2/3 of the semester and then the final month of this semester that they're in Paris. They're actually matched with an internship in their interest in their area of.

It's a, It's a good program for double majors for exactly that reason, so there in Paris. But say there a biology major. Well, we've had students matched with.

Uh.

The I believe it was the job and if not in in Paris, that was a number of years ago, or more recently, a student who was a French and psychology psychology major in a French minor had a worked in a kind of counseling and social services center in Paris. So they match students based on their interests. Again in the context in France. So they're learning the language in the cultural context as well.

Most of the languages have an opportunity similar to that in one way or another through a study abroad program or or another kind of relationship we also have.

The ability each summer.

To send students to New York City to work with the Modern Language Association so you may have heard of.

Probably, if you haven't, you will soon heard of the Modern Language Association MLA style, right? That is kind of our professional organization in English and the foreign languages and our students have a Direct Line to an internship at the MLA in New York. Working on bibliography work and then there is another another that also varies from year to year. But if there's often bibliography work involved and then.

A second type of.

Of of internship for the summer. With that, that's just a few examples with our with our Department, but often what can be really great is the opportunity to complete an internship and also be abroad at the same time and be working on language skills and cultural competencies at the same time.

All right, and then, um, professors in early. If you want to.

If so, maybe some examples of internship.

So, uhm, we have different layers or tiers of internships in the Communication Arts and theater Department. And as you can guess, where a large Department, because we consist of people who are doing work in public communication in media studies in video production and digital storytelling and then in theater, right? And when I say theater, we're not just talking about acting on stage, we're talking about set design.

A costume design and so forth. So, um, there a lot of components here. And depending on your interests, again, we sort of paying you with the right people, and we have a wonderful career education office at Allegany College. That sort of sits down an interview with you and helps you match your interests to opportunities that are out there. So our typical intern ships would range from working in the White House.

To working in Hollywood media industries to um participating in.

Um documentary making animation studios toy design studios, now the big thing is global held and innovation and communication in that field.

And of course, advertising, marketing, branding and storytelling for video games, right? Those would eat typical intern ships, and I'm not even counting journalism in that mix rate. But a typical internships, for instance. And here's a link to a great story.

This is any Wise Garber. She's an alumnus who wanted to be a biology major and basically she wanted to be a physician when she came to Allegany, but organic chemistry cured her of that and she became a communication major. But treating her interest in the Sciences and when she finished defending her com or her senior thesis, she had an opportunity to shadow at you, PMC.

Is one of the largest hospitals in Pitts burg.

And that you BMC, she found a position that was pretty amazing and it combines her interest in science with her talent in communication because it allowed her to be the middle person between the family of someone who had lost a loved person who was also an organ donor and the hospital. So she actually gets to harvest the organs, wild counseling the family involved.

And now she's a senior person in the organization and it goes to show you that the liberal laws really does prepare you for careers you can't imagine. Third possibility that I'd just like to throw in the mix because I know a lot of people go on to grad school.

And we have an amazing program at Allegany during the summer which is undergraduate collaborative research with faculties. So the the kind of research scaffolding you learn there and the kind of research you produce opens amazing gateways to the top tier graduate schools in the country.

So Jacob, um, you've come to the right place because Allegany College, our slogan for the longest time, has been unusual combinations are students. Take it as a personal challenge to double major to double major triple minor and do all kinds of self destructive things. But it's extremely possible to do what you're planning because a lot of the courses do overlap. In other words, they would double count for the majors and minors you're thinking.

Off so when you come in um, the best thing that any student can do is to explore different disciplines. In their first 2 years before they declare majors and minors, because you might think that you want to major in something and you might, for instance, wander into foreign languages or into the music Department and completely change your POV, right? So?

The short answer is yes. The long answer is try your hand at everything before you decide the major minor.

And while we're on it, professor Lewis, do you want to maybe talk a little bit about that first year advising experience and how students end up picking classes?

Yeah, um, so this is an I'm not sure how much the participants today have already heard about this, but this is some sort of to pick your classes for your first semester, right? How do you decide what you're going to take in the first semester when you arrive in August? And what happened?

Is during the month of July. Uhm, you are scheduled for a conversation. It has been on the phone off and but I think more and more of us are moving toward a medium like this. Video chat of some kind.

Flexible, but in any case a virtual conversation with a faculty member. I have done this for probably.

Not eight or nine years, uhm.

And you have an hour long appointment with that faculty member. You're asked to provide some information in advance so that we can prepare the appointment, and then you have an hour long appointment during which you will talk with that faculty member about your goals, your interest. But you like, you don't like. Well, look through your academic record and you know different placement tests in AP and things like that and get a sense of what you need.

And then.

Work together to build you a schedule and it's a very.

As much as it's not an in person experience, it is a very personalized experience. I know that there are students that I have had.

That I've worked with for brush, your course registration that I've continued to be in one way or another. You know across there for years, and we continue to recognize each other and you know it. You know it's a very personal experience.

And that.

Is uhm?

It's also.

Restart I'm thinking back to the advice that she gave a moment ago.

You know, we encourage students during that appointment to, yes, absolutely think about what your potential major and minor might be, but also think about.

What you just want to try? What you just want to explore, right? I think a lot of students at that appointment say they come in. They don't even say I want to major in or I will. I want to be. They say I am a major.

Already right up and and that may be true, but it's true. Less often the students think it is precisely because of what she just said, which is that you know you come in and you say, Well, you know I'm going to major in this in minor in this, so I'm going to take one class in this in one class in this, and I need another class. So I take this other thing and that ends up being when I fall in love with so.

It's I I, I generally encourage students to guess absolutely. Explore the thing that you think is your primary interest that explore, explore other stuff too. It's not a race.

And we we talk through.

Um, in those appointments we talk through not just kind of the nuts and bolts of what you need to do to get started on what you think your major is going to be, but also.

Who you want to become right as part of your Allegany education and what you can do to move toward that as well in a much more profound I guess, way.

Perfect and to kind of step into some other divisions within Humanities. Could we talk a little bit about like our philosophy classes? Specifically, what kind of learning style those would be and that can be very general, like what kind of learning style or what kind of teaching methods do you guys utilized within your classrooms? Because I do know a lot of professors do very experiential type learning, hands-on learning, discussion based. So if you guys wanna spend a couple minutes talk about that.

Feel free.

So I'll I'll jump in and say that, uh, just on the on the general subject of different kinds of learning in the classroom, I mentioned at the outset that each of my courses that I teach there are reasons why I really enjoy teaching that particular thing, and a lot of that has to do with the different kinds of learning that we do in the classroom. So teaching a really, really empirical and fact Laden course like the voice science seminar that I teach.

Give students a lot of opportunity to ask very technical questions and a lot of the material that we're exploring. Their exploring essentially, through lab exercises, their reading spectrograms working right now with a local veterinarian who is going to help us dissect a cow head. The next time I teach that course so that students can actually extract the Larynx from the cow and understand the parallels between how it works in a human voice.

And compared to for example, my music and comedy course, which is primarily a discussion course, it is a first year seminar and students find it a little bit unnerving. Sometimes when they walk in for three or four class sessions in a row and my my kickoff of the classes. So would you think because they've done reading and they've done listening exercises? They've watched videos that range from musical comedy acts from the 1950s to things that were made last week and posted on YouTube.

And music and comedy both share these features. Which are that?

Everybody has an opinion about what they like in each of those fields, and very few people ever take the time to dissect or assess or breakdown or think about what those specific things are that they really like. So when we talk about TV shows that we like, Oh yeah, I like it. It's kind of dark.

That's not a. That's not a really vivid description. It certainly doesn't give anyone the substance of what it is, so going back to the the origin of that question about philosophy, alot of our courses are sort of deeply philosophical and Socratic. That way, right? The instructors are asking questions, trying to lead students to think about what the material is and develop answers of their own first hand rather than writing things on the board and saying, hey, write this down. This is going to be important.

5 weeks from now.

So I hope that's, uh, I hope that's helpful in answering the question and a really general way.

So, uhm.

In my classes I like to connect again as Professor Niblock was saying what's happening in the classroom with what's happening outside, and particularly looking at current events and how we can apply the material to addressing those situations, understanding them, and even coming up with potential ways of not solving. But you know, attempting to find ways through them, right and so.

Uh, a lot of the work is experiential. It's based on inviting professionals from the field to video conference with us and to talk about what they do so that that informs part of the curriculum. And for instance, right now we're in the middle of lockdown. None of us anticipated that, so my students are scattered across the world and we were in the middle of a story, Titan class. And so we.

Put together this a blog and you're free to visit it where our students only became a little experiential information. Collectors and story collectors in the field talking to our first responders on campus. The people who are looking out the student stranded here to interviewing family, friends, strangers about what it means to be under lock down, right? So a big part of my.

Classroom experience is.

Uh, just finding out why we're starting something and why it matters, professionally or experientially, and Secondly, learning to argue against yourself.

So I think the best thing a liberal arts education really teaches you is not to hold on or be devoted to a singular position, right? So if someone comes in and says, that's great that you think this, but let's hear you defend the other sides. and I emphasize the plural. Their sides to a perspective rate to A to an issue. Sorry, you should be able to do so, right? So I think that's it.

In terms of the particular question that asked about teaching within philosophy, I think that's what started this, uhm?

I wish you could meet our philosophy faculty because they're wonderfully quirky.

And it's illustrated by a little event that they did for first year students who were wondering what a philosophy major is, and they basically design A panel around the television, show the good place, and that panel gave the students three challenges based on the show to see if they could earn enough points to enter the good place, right? And those challenges were very much based also on.

Understanding certain core philosophical concepts that the professors then explained so there there are many fun ways in which philosophy approaches some of the questions we have talked about, including making those metal questions. Why do we exist? Is there a God, wise, they good and evil, actually relatable to things happening in your own life?

So, uhm.

From the point of view of languages, and I can sort of start their the I think The thing is a lot of what my colleagues have just said is true for us as well that there is a mix of different kinds of.

Roaches, I mean obviously in language there is some sort of.

What was the phrase used a minute ago? James fact Laden you have to. You have to get your conjugations right. You have to get, you know you have to learn vocabulary and things like that in languages, right? So there is a kind of objective side to a language course, but we're also teaching you a skill for also teaching you to do something. So you're learning by doing it, and that's the experiential kind of side that issue was talking about.

At the same time, we are not just teaching you language, we're teaching you culture. So with that, there is a lot of discussion, engagement with current events, but also with the past. Right culture isn't just the present, it's also that cultural heritage that each.

Country that might take a particular language and sort of identifies with.

And so that because.

And take place in the language as well, so you're doing both things at once.

Um?

I would say.

Two that uhm.

We

The the.

But doing all of those things at once, like I just said, is part of what is unique about a language class experience, right? In any given activity in one of our classes, you are deploying all those facts about vocabulary and grammar and so forth that you've learned painstakingly. Often you are engaging with cultural knowledge and sometimes cultural norms as well, depending on what the activity is.

You're also thinking about the big questions that you might be tackled.

I thinking deeply about current events for things like that so.

And that will all be happening in one activity sometimes.

Um?

So it's it's very hands-on and Participatory as well. You can't learn to speak a language without speaking it, so you're expected to be involved in every single class, which I hope students see is a good thing. 'cause it is meant to be.

You can't, you can't coast uhm.

Yeah, I mean I that I think it varies from class to class. Obviously in from level to level, but I think that's a picture of sort of how we approach our classes.

Perfect so we actually got two questions. Kind of about the same topic. The first is general class requirements in here at Allegany we call them distribution requirements in its design in the curriculum to be a little bit more engaging than a traditional general education requirement. So I was wondering if anybody would like to speak about the distribution requirements in how students can fill them with their major minor courses count for those, or just how students generally tackle them.

Yeah, I can do that. So the we have 8.

Maybe Briana can spark.

Yeah.

Yeah, can you hear me OK?

Yep, she is good to go.

OK, you can hear me.

Yes.

OK, so.

The we have eight distribution requirements and I think the distinction that Danielle made is a good one. There meant that we call them distribution requirements 'cause they're meant to spread your learning out across different ways of thinking and knowing and learning.

Without saying, You must take.

This math class and this history class in this English class.

Instead of doing that, we have sort of broad types of learning categories of learning, and then I'm going to try to list all eight, but I don't know if I'm going to come up with a late right here on this spot. Human experience in expression, international cultural in cultural perspectives.

Modes of expression.

Um, social behavior, institution, scientific process and knowledge.

Um, quantitative reasoning.

Civic learning and a human.

Civic learning and and.

Power, privilege and difference. Where the two that I have the last two there.

And those, and so those don't correspond to course names, right? So what are they? Those are really broadly articulated learning outcome that happen in. Lots, of course, is across the campus.

Um and so we tagged. We'll hear this word distribution tags we tagged specific courses.

As meeting

One or two of those of those distribution requirements and you can meet your personal distribution requirement by taking any course with that tag.

Um so too.

Um, if we're going to take an example.

International and intercultural perspective, right. My department for reasons that should be obvious. Does a lot of that.

But

You can get that in political science. You can get that in history. You can get that you can get that in lots of places across campus, and that's true for all of them. Quantitative reasoning that sounds like math and a lot of it happens in math. But it also happens in a statistics class that you have to take for a psychology major or minor. It also happens in the natural Sciences and over idea places there is music class, right? With quantitative reasoning tag.

Yep.

Yep.

Yep.

Yeah there are music some of the music theory courses Carey quantitative reasoning and so does my voice science class.

Yeah, so it really allows you to.

Kind of mold your education around your own interests.

In this Broadway while still.

Engaging with the the.

Breath of what Allegany has to offer.

And it's designed to be flexible and to be personalized by each student.

Perfect.

And that's I mean, I think bran is. Emery is great and it's one thing I would highlight is the point that she made about lots of different departments offering lots of different tags and so in the music department, for example, you can get intercultural and international perspectives by taking music history course or the history of jazz.

You can get a quantitative reasoning course in music theory or in the voice science seminar you and again as Professor Lewis just said, for reasons that probably are obvious, human expression and sorry modes of expression and human experience are two courses that we deal in quite a lot so. But the point is that many students, when they start registering for courses they don't realize right away that there going to fulfill a lot of those tags.

In the course of pursuing a major and a minor in the course of exploring a few different disciplines as Professor Sinharoy suggested and so it's not simply a matter of getting out of the starting gate and trying to check all of those boxes. It's a little bit more about finding out as you make your way through that process of registering semester after semester. Have I left any holes? Are there ways of knowing things and ways of discussing and ways of?

Uh, sharing and engaging with information that I haven't really explored.

Yeah, and I would add to that.

And it may be helpful to add here that high school your approach to learning in high school is very different from learning in college and so in high school, for instance, there is to quote, my colleagues are checking off of the boxes, right as you move in a linear fashion through your education in a liberal arts education setting. In particular, we ask you instead to think about why you're taking a course.

And wide matters so that you understand that it's not just a requirement, but it's actually helping you connect the dots between different fields to sort of Orient and prepare you for your profession or the career thinking in a much better rounded way.

Perfect and I know we're almost at the end of our panel here.

But we actually had a question come in. I thought it was a very good kind of closer is during these times students, specially sophomores, juniors, even seniors. They have a variety of interest. They have time now. What should they be doing to get experience in the areas that are interested in or what should they be doing with kind of this?

Downtime, innocence to really strengthen, say their resume or strengthen their knowledge in particular area.

Well, I can start that one. I think that, um, it's actually a gift in an opportunity in a lot of ways to do self reflection and to ask yourself outside of a career. What do you want in life right? So we spend so much time obsessing about the word career and obsessing about jobs that we rarely think about. What would make us content and happy as people as well?

Great and a lot of people in fact. Interestingly, the research is showing that this lock down has caused a lot of people worldwide not to want to go back to normal right. They don't want to go back to their jobs that have them away from their families or that prevented them from having what we call a quality of life. So the first opportunity here is to do some reflection and ask yourself what kind of Spears of life do you?

And I again plorer right different spheres of life. We want to be engaged in that would make you a more complete and satisfied human being.

And one of the, uh, morbid, but necessary exercises that I play with my students is if you were to suddenly drop dead right now, what would you obituary say, write? What would friend say when they go into your memorial service? And if all they could talk about was what you did at work, how sad would that be, right? So this is a moment of reflection. And then in terms of resume building, which no doubt is important.

Ask yourself what you're really passionate about. Rate. Forget the Karere. If you love photography, perfect time to go out and document the world as you see it, because it's a chance again to show your unique perspective on things, right? Talk to people. This is a great time and everyone stuck at home.

How many of you have thought of cold calling people and asking them for mentoring advice, right? How many of you have thought of storytelling and keeping a diary that would provide an insight into how you spend your days, how you interviewed people, how you collected evidence of this lock down, right? So you can start a whole host of fun things, including collecting grandma's recipes and forming your own little book, your own little YouTube show.

Right, uhm, investigating your cultural and ancestral roots.

And sort of compiling a family book around that. Each of those awful offers, amazing ways, an insights into both what personally relevant to you, but also how you see the world right?

Yeah I would. Uhm this is maybe a little bit of a sort of a different version of what is she did just said, but I think my starting place.

For folks wondering what to do with their down time right now is I would say start by letting yourself be bored.

Um, that's the thing that you don't normally get to do when you have activity after activity after activity, and instead of saying how am I going to get through everything I have to do?

Or making yourself a list of everything you have to do and then figuring out how you have to do it to get it on your resume or whatever. Instead say.

I have a whole day in front of me. How do I want to fill this day?

Right, so instead of trying to find enough time for the for the work, try it. See if you can start from the other end and say How do I want to fill this day?

Um?

You know, for some of us, let's be honest. Sometimes that is watching an entire season of something on Netflix.

'cause I've done that too. Uhm, but hopefully, and I suspect this is true for the kinds of students who are interested in Allegany, right? Hopefully that isn't forever that the a little while, and then you say OK, now I want to.

Do something that may be a little bit more interesting, or if it may be a little bit more productive, but by productive I don't necessarily mean getting back to that point where you have an endless stressful To Do List, and I think that's where this sort of connects with when she was saying a moment ago.

But you can. It's an opportunity to fill your days in ways that you wouldn't normally have the opportunity to do.

And I think that's a great practice for that question that I will that I or one of my colleagues will ask you during pressure course registration which is.

OK, so you got one more class to take. What do you just like? What are you interested in right? What do you just want to try? 'cause it seems cool?

Your big practicing answering that question, and I think that's a really important question.

Yeah, I think a lot of that rings true with me right now because even though my job is still the same, mycareer is still the same. My relationship with my students is not shattered by being at home, but my schedule is completely blown up, just annihilated from what it was before and I am the person that professor send her wise referring to who schedule is.

Obnoxious, you know, and you just think you'll never escape the inertia of that schedule. And so I've been mountain biking with my sons who are 10 and 12, and I've been drawing on the driveway with my daughter who is 4.

And I think it's OK to trust your your feeling in your gut about what is satisfying and engaging for you.

In my whole life I have never put a lot of stock in the word resume. Uhm, when you think when you get stressed about building a resume, you are not doing what's necessary to build up yourself and your resume is supposed to be a reflection of you and the work that you do. So it's always been really important to me as academics, we develop this overly sophisticated, extra long resume called a curriculum Vita.

And uhm, the initial CV matching with Curriculum Vita an coronavirus really struck a chord with me at some point because I thought, yeah, that's pretty much how I felt about updating my resume my whole life.

Which is not to say that I'm not doing important things that I think deserve to be listed on my resume, or that I wouldn't want colleagues to know about.

But I I trust myself to be inquisitive. I trust I never. I've haven't been bored in 20 years, probably, and so I've been, you know, I've been doing a lot of woodworking in my shop and teaching my kids to use tools, and they've been turning bowls and there's 100 things to do every day. And the question is whether or not in this current situation, whether or not you can muster some intentionality about what you want to do.

Because if you're interested in knowing more about music.

You can go and read the biography of Beethoven on Wikipedia. You don't need to find a 900 Page Biography about Beethoven if you're interested in hearing things that you've never heard. YouTube has your name written all over it, and the question is just whether or not you're asking yourself, what do I want to soak up today? Or are you just along for the ride waiting for the sun to go down again?

So, and those are skills that I learned as a student at Allegany, like being intentional about pursuing things that contribute to you building yourself up as a person.

Those are not habits of mind and habits of body that I knew when I was in high school. Those are habits that I developed as an undergraduate student.

Perfect dessert.

Read the card catalog. I make one last pitch. By the way, every student out there who's thinking, oh, I don't know what school should I go to? What's really from me? What am I going to do whenever I meet with students face to face in my office?

I always make a pitch for them to look at the academic bulletin, which just seems like a catalog. It's not like reading a phone book, it is. It is the summary of everything that we offer in the curriculum at Allegany. And when you read the descriptions of those courses, if you get halfway through the course listings for a whole Department and nothing seems interesting, that should tell you something. But if you get to the Comm Arts Department and every course in media studies like is making your brain.

Light up and the sunshine out of your ears. That also should tell you something about what you are interested in, so look at that document. It is available online through the colleges website.

That is all really, really good advice actually. Might take some of that in mind during this transition, and I just wanted to thank everyone for their time. Thank our panel is thank our participants. It's really been great. If anybody does have any additional questions, I'll put my email in the chat. Feel free shoot me an email and I can get you in contact with anybody on this panel. Or if you want to talk to somebody in political science or philosophy, I'm happy to make connection that way. But yeah, just wanted to say thanks.

And I hope everybody found this really informative.

Thanks very much, Daniel.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Thanks to everybody driving.

What?

Thank you all.