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Contents
A Note from the Collaborative Director
Undergraduate Research: Adjusting to Life at a Liberal Arts College
2012-2013 McNair Scholars
Fall-Summer Collaborative Grants
Convention Spotlight
NCUR
AACR
- Kaela Gedda
- Jens Paasen
- Gretchen Panzer
- Hannah Schmitt
- Luanne Spence
- Sarah Titus
Collaborative Research Stories
Important Dates
May 4, 2012 Student Academic Travel Grant and Attendee Grant applications due
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Undergraduate Research
Adjusting to Life at a Liberal Arts College
Dr. Blake Henson
Assistant Professor of Music Theory, History, & Composition
Like many of my colleagues, I came
to St. Norbert College directly from the state university where I received my
doctorate. While choosing to call St. Norbert “home” was easy, deciding to move
from a Research I institution to a Liberal Arts College (LAC) took a great deal
of consideration. At my previous
university, I was one of two-dozen members of a specialized department, working
in a subspecialty shared by at least two or three others. Teaching at an LAC would mean, indeed, likely
being the only professor of my field,
certainly being the only person with my specialty. While others in similar positions might find the
notion of working in a smaller department while maintaining wider teaching
responsibilities daunting, I was excited by the academic freedom that would
come with the absence of direct inter-departmental scholarly competition.
What I failed to realize was the
extent to which I had become dependent upon conversations (indeed, arguments)
with my colleagues who were doing similar research. In hindsight, I remember
very few lunches, coffee breaks, or hallway conversations that were not wrought
with heated exchanges over potential applications of new theoretical paradigms
(or the dead ends others were sure to soon to meet). What I had not understood
was the extent to which I had become dependent upon them as mediums for talking-through
and testing-out new theories, an incubator for new ideas. The atmosphere was often unnecessarily
competitive, but the conversations were exceedingly helpful.
My first year at St. Norbert was a
blur, to be sure, but also alarmingly relaxing.
Academic freedom and a friendly, non-competitive environment made it
easy to establish my own timetable for research and production. However, I soon
realized the extent to which I relied upon the competitive atmosphere I so
loathed. At my University, pitfalls and
snags in my scholarship could be circumvented and undone with little more than
a cup of coffee in a semi-public place, at my College, I was responsible for
solving my own problems, or making the effort to connect with theorists at
other campuses to do so (an act that seemed entirely too formal for its
intended purpose).
During the summer between my first
and second year, I took time to evaluate and reflect upon my work and growth. While the bright spots far out-numbered the
dark, my lack of scholarly production apropos ongoing work in music theory was
troubling, and the solution failed to present itself until I began considering
how I could be a more effective teacher.
While I generally keep the proverbial bar set quite high in my courses,
I also understand that the wide-ranging knowledge base with which students
typically enter my classes makes it difficult to proceed through the material
as quickly as the more advanced students might prefer (if not require).
Therein, I determined, was the solution to both problems.
At the start of my second year, I
identified a small set of students—a pilot group, of sorts—to whom I offered
the opportunity to begin extracurricular research. The idea was simple: working in consultation
with each student, I would select a subtopic of my own research that relates to
the material we are studying in class, and invite students to do their own
research on the subject, with me serving as their research advisor. The results were astonishing on many
fronts. Students who previously seemed
bored in class—waiting for their colleagues to catch-up so we could move on
through the material—now had a reason to stay engaged: they began attempting to
apply what we were doing in class to what they were studying in their own research. This had the added effect of softening the
tone of the class, taking some of the pressure off of the slower learners and
allowing me to be more flexible with my pedagogy. At the end of their research, each student
had three new feathers in their caps: a scholarly paper of their own worthy of
submission to conferences or publications, the first body of work in their
music theory portfolios, and a listing as a contributor to my own
scholarship.
By the end of my first semester, I
had managed to create a collaborative coalition that began to help me bridge
the gap between life at a Research I and an LAC. I had a group of burgeoning theorists off of
whom I could bounce ideas, and they loved getting to peak behind the curtain of
academic scholarship. One student
commented on how surprised and, even comforted, she was to see that I ran into
problems with my research at all, and helping me work through those
complications helped her see the value of collaborative work. Of course, much of my own work was too
advanced for my undergraduate students, but the challenge of explaining it to
them in a manner they could understand was often precisely the endeavor I
needed to undertake in order to reframe my initial problem. Indeed, the
resulting collective offered opportunities for the types of advanced discussions
I missed from my former university, without involving the competition that
seemed a fixture of such institutions.
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