Dartmouth's Summer Symposium

By writing this article and getting it published in the MALS Quarterly, I have officially insulted Summer Symposium, the darling brainchild of my master's degree program chair: the esteemed Dr. Donald Pease.

That is just something you DON'T DO, but I thought it was high time somebody spoke up about it.

When the directors of the program say things such as, "We know this has been an issue for years, but what can you do?" there is a serious problem. When you're expected to pay thousands of dollars a year for an education, you expect that the people receiving those thousands of dollars DO THEIR JOB. And in this case, that job would be making sure that the keystone of the program actually does what it is supposed to do - be a culminating experience. So I wrote this AND put my name on it (unlike many MALSers who offered to provide quotes only if they remained anonymous) AND got it approved by the Quarterly editor, only to have Don Pease demand it not be published. However, I must give credit to Lauren Clarke, the program director, for allowing it to go to press ("If we don't print it, then there's nothing to separate you from Stalin," she apparently told Pease). As a result, you can read the Quarterly version HERE, complete with watered-down title and out-of-context sections emboldened to make the article seem less harsh (and here I thought I was being fair), or you can read the original version below:


THE PROBLEM WITH SUMMER SYMPOSIUM: A Student’s Look at the MALS Requirement

Despite the MALS program’s description of its summer symposium as the “highlight of the summer term,” the traditional attitude towards the required lecture series among students has been to just get it it over with -- preferably as quickly and painlessly as possible. Upon first glance, that would seem like a surprising reaction. With the provoking titles of past symposia, including “Race Matters” in 2003, “Ideologies of Terrorism” in 2004, and “Return of the Sacred: Fundamentalism and Politics,” one would think that MALS students would, as mature intellectuals, be chomping at the bit to participate. However, that has not been the case. Perhaps the hot, sticky weather of Hanover has crept into the pores of the MALS student body, slowing their otherwise sharp minds to a sloth-like pace as July and August have slid lazily by. Possibly, but sunny days aside, the typical MALS student is a far cry from a hungover undergrad, trying to blow through his summer term on 101 classes designed to pose the least amount of disruption from his otherwise enjoyable summer at Camp Dartmouth. Add to that the fact that summer term marks the start of the program for many newly minted MALS students, plenty of whom are eager to get a running start on their Dartmouth careers. So what is to account for this lack of enthusiasm? Perhaps it is time to take a look at the symposium structure itself.

In the past, the MALS summer symposium has consisted of a series of weekly lectures made by resident scholars or guest speakers which surround that year’s theme. At the conclusion of each talk, the students broke up into small discussion groups, where they chatted about what they had just heard. Then, they went home and wrote a 1-2 page journal entry where they summarized the lecture, and gave some critical reaction to it. Although a seemingly sound procedure, this format has not really succeeded in engaging students in the way the MALS program had hoped.

First, the weekly lecture format created an atmosphere in which the students were being talked at rather than having their own stake in the discussion. Also, despite the aims of the symposium to unite students from across the liberal arts disciplines, the reality of the lecture series is that it has been built largely around the concept of global and cultural studies. While the topics themselves are of universal concern, the language used in these discussions is largely unfamiliar to students who have had no prior experience in the American or global studies field. Terms such as “American Exceptionalism” and “transnationalism” completely confuse and therefore alienate many MALS students, especially those concentrating in the creative writing or cognitive science fields. As a result, discussion sessions are often spent explaining foreign terms and concepts to the students, rather than having them discuss the ideas presented. Also, the disconnect between the global studies symposium and the students studying other fields leaves many MALSers wondering how this course is supposed to benefit them, if at all.

The symposium substitute, called the Future’s Institute, is even more intimidating and ultimately baffling. Cramming a summer’s worth of lectures into two weeks’ time, the sheer drudgery of sitting in a lecture hall for, on some days, up to fourteen hours, is alone enough to send students running for the hills. But on top of that, the Institute isn’t really made for MALS students; rather, they are merely sitting in as guests to a conference in which academics from around the world read their very complex papers on very niche -- and often seemingly irrelevant -- topics. Not only does this make the students feel even more marginalized than in normal symposium, but the language used by these scholars is so lofty (often unnecessarily so), that many students, including myself, have found that the only way to keep up is with a dictionary. Although told I should be honored to be attending such a prestigious seminar, I often found myself too busy feeling lost, confused, bored, and ultimately frustrated to be grateful. Granted, MALS students do volunteer to replace a symposium with Future’s Institute, but those who are attending the Oxford Program, or who need to, for whatever reason, finish both symposia requirements in one term, are forced to submit to it. However, rather than being enlightened by the experience, I merely felt angered by the fact that, other than fulfilling a graduation requirement, I’d wasted my time.

Clearly, the MALS summer symposia offerings are in dire need of an overhaul, and this year, program chair Donald Pease and director Lauren Clarke have begun to make some changes. 2006’s symposium, entitled “Examining American Exceptionalism,” has been restructured to make it more student based, and somewhat more user-friendly. This summer, Pease and Clarke decided to do away with the lecture-based format, and dedicate the entire session to discussion. Now, students are assigned weekly readings on Blackboard, and are asked to pose pertinent discussion questions on the internet forum prior to the class meeting. Then, during the symposium session, Pease and Professor of History, Ronald Edsforth, along with groups of MALS students, lead discussion amongst the the rest of the symposium attendees. The result has been a much livelier discussion, and, since the reactions of students to the readings dictates the flow of the conversation, discussions have shown much greater flexibility in subject matter. With this new forum, I finally see a glimmer of that all-important dialogue emerging. Rather than being simply talked at, the students able to talk back. Rather than being completely sidelined, summer symposium has made students the focus.

Despite these improvements, there remains much to be done. The problem with completely free-flowing discussion has been that it tends to revolve in circles. As the summer has wore on, the readings continue to come back to the same thing again and again - America as Exception - and without some direction, there’s only so much to be said about a topic which most MALS students only have a basic understanding of. Rather than deepening our knowledge of the subject, we are only talking about what we already know with little guidance. Just when something seems to be gaining momentum, one of the participants kills it by switching gears, often at random. Perhaps more of a balance needs to be struck between lecture and discussion, where students are both asked to examine and made to understand.

But the real problem lies deeper than simple formatting issues. In reality, the entire concept of symposium seems to be fundamentally flawed. In my own experience, what has frustrated students most about symposium is the lack of focus on current global events. The issues dealt with in the summer series, whether being those of race, terrorism, or exceptionalism, are hot button enough to easily tie-in with current newspaper headlines. As such, MALS students are practically jumping out of their seats to debate them. However, rather than tapping into this interest, symposium directly discourages students from looking at these issues with anything other than a historical perspective. Why? Instead of focusing solely on historical basis and readings, why can’t symposium be used as a forum for practical discussion? For example, several weeks ago, following North Korea’s failed missile tests, there were several murmurs from MALS students in symposium, wishing that the class time could be used to discuss this latest international development, rather than rehash American Exceptionalism once again. However, not surprisingly, this event wasn’t even mentioned.

By choosing to ignore the issue, the symposium missed a golden opportunity to allow MALS students to turn a critical eye on the current state of the world. It just made me again realize how, too often, academia restricts itself to its collegiate bubbles and halls of books, and forgets to acknowledge the living organism which is today’s society. To say symposium does this would be unfair; however, the potential for debate among MALS students and faculty about current events is too great to, in my opinion, be overlooked. At the very least, if would give students the sense that they are participating in something relevant to their liberal arts education, rather than simply forced into it as just another graduation requirement. Perhaps, instead of asking what is wrong with summer symposium, the MALS program should be asking, what could make it right?