Dean Mary McGee
By Sue Goetschius
The prospect of working at a small liberal arts college is what brought Dr. Mary McGee from Columbia University to Alfred at the beginning of the 2008-09 academic year. “I see exciting things happening at small colleges,” says Dr. McGee, “where dynamic, teaching-centered faculties are rethinking and transforming curriculums through innovation and forward-thinking.”
Alfred’s College of Liberal Arts & Sciences (CLAS) certainly has that potential, says Dr. McGee, with a faculty as committed as she is to teaching and educating responsible global citizens and future leaders.
Her first year in the dean’s office in Seidlin Hall has been spent learning about the College and the University– its people, its strengths and its hopes for the future.
Now she’s ready to get to work.
First item on the agenda: Examining the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences’ general education courses, that complement of requirements which creates the foundation for a good liberal arts education. “We will be looking critically and thoughtfully at how our curriculum measures up, and whether we might want to make any changes.”
It’s hard, and perhaps a little scary for everyone involved, to make changes in something so fundamental in defining an AU education. “But we are educators, and as teachers we need to model what we ask our students to do everyday: be open-minded, critically examine both the familiar and the unfamiliar, and be willing to try new experiences and new ways of thinking, knowing that we will learn something about ourselves and our world in the process.” In these times, observes Dean McGee, “we need to be creative about our use of resources, institutionalize common sense, and have the courage to make change where needed.”
As Dr. McGee remarked to new students and their parents during fall Orientation, “An Alfred liberal arts education involves more than just learning scientific facts, economic policies, or the political structures or art forms of another culture; it is a process of developing critical skills and competencies that will help you to live responsibly in a world that is rapidly changing, a world where you may find yourself in a job 10 or 15 years from now that you never imagined.” What skills, competencies, values, and knowledge should our General Education curriculum reinforce in this 21st century to prepare our students to be versatile thinkers, life-long learners, and leaders in a global society?
This is the kind of question Dean McGee plans to explore with the CLAS faculty in a series of conversations around general education next academic year. In tandem with this series about what we teach (general education), McGee is developing a series of workshops about how we teach (pedagogy.) These workshops, each to be led by different CLAS faculty, will provide an important opportunity for faculty development, allowing faculty to share ideas and discuss teaching strategies across disciplines and programs. McGee, a historian of religion with a specialty in South Asia religions, reports that some of the great ideas she has implemented in her own teaching have come from colleagues in biology and business.
Those open discussions among peers are particularly important as the College hires new faculty members. “We have several new faculty members this year, and we will have more next year,” says Dr. McGee. To help them become acclimated to AU, she’s started a new faculty orientation program and asked veteran faculty members to mentor their newer colleagues.
One of the things that excited her about Alfred University is the variety of opportunities for students to travel abroad, particularly with faculty. While spending a semester or a year abroad can be a life-changing event for students, some find it difficult to do because of financial constraints or employment. In recent years, the University has been developing a series of semester or half-semester courses that culminate with a two-week trip to another country.
In January, for example, students spent two weeks in Belize with Dr. Robert Myers, professor of anthropology, and Dr. Cheryld Emmons, professor of biology, gaining perspectives from two disparate fields of study. Developing more such courses across the curricula and among academic units would be “good for AU, good for our students,” says Dr. McGee.
She notes the University is already committed to bringing the world to Alfred “in multiple ways,” from Fulbright Scholars-in-Residence from other countries to exchange programs, and visiting artists and lecturers. But there are always ways to do more, she says, pointing to an innovative program at Rollins College in Winter Park, FL, for example, that guarantees every single faculty member will travel abroad every three years, bringing back to campus their rich and diverse experiences.
She’s also enthusiastic about programs that allow for faculty to spend a semester with their peers, reading books and articles about a particular country, discussing what they have read from the perspective of their own fields, and then visiting the country together. While AU has supported individual faculty participation in Council on International Educational Exchange programs, McGee notes having a small group of faculty from AU travel together would provide an opportunity for faculty to support each other upon their return as they explore ways to infuse what they learned into the curriculum or to create a new course together. “Can you imagine how exciting it would be to be able to visit West Africa with a chemist, a historian, a modern language professor, a poet?”
Dr. McGee also thinks that AU, being a small university, might be a great venue to explore a common topic or theme annually (or every other year) across schools. For example, a university-wide focus on China for a year would provide a great opportunity for students and faculty alike to learn about China and its contributions to our world. “We have numerous named lectures – in ethics, history, religion, chemistry” – and for that year, a number of them could focus on how China has influenced thinking or study or research in those fields. “With advanced planning, a focus on China could be incorporated into a number of existing courses, exhibit spaces, visiting lectureships, performances, and lecture series using existing resources. AU and certainly CLAS have a history of curriculum innovation, and this could be another way to expand and celebrate interdisciplinarity by exploring a common theme through a range of academic lenses and experiences. As teachers, we need to recognize that students learn differently, notes McGee, and “taking on a shared topic, question, or theme across our curriculum and schools allows for different ways of learning as well as sharing different viewpoints.”
One of the things she knew about Alfred before she sought the deanship is that the University not only allows, but encourages, students to earn double majors or even two degrees, often from different schools or colleges within the University. “These kinds of programs allow us to use resources, pulling them together in interesting ways that support the goals and inquisitiveness of our students,” she says.
She also knew that AU prides itself on the close connection between faculty and students, but she didn’t fully realize what that meant until she arrived here. She sees it happening on many levels, in the classroom, certainly, but also in service learning projects, in research, in extracurricular activities, in performing arts.
Those mentoring relationships, she observes, are “what keep students and faculty here and keep them connected, even after they have left the University. When alumni talk about their alma mater, they remember their teachers, more than the subject matter; it is that experience – the interaction with faculty on multiple levels – that is valued.”
Dean McGee has highlighted this aspect of life at Alfred during this year’s open houses for accepted students, asking teams of faculty and students to offer unscripted remarks about their experiences together.
“I was so proud. It was humbling, and exciting at the same time,” she says.
It also underscored what she believes is integral to a liberal arts education at Alfred: “It’s about the learning experience, not necessarily the major. It’s about the mentoring: faculty and students working side-by-side, learning together within as well as outside the classroom,” says Dr. McGee.
To foster those connections between faculty and student, Dr. McGee cites the excellent faculty-student advising system within the College. “Advising is a form of teaching“ she believes, and extremely important, particularly for the growing number of students who arrive on campus with no idea what they want to major in. “So many students haven’t declared a major, and that’s okay,” says the dean. “We want to expose them to different ways of thinking, new areas of study. They will find their majors when they find a subject they love and that engages them.”
While many colleges ask students to choose their major even before they arrive, Dr. McGee favors exposing them to a variety of fields, through the general education course requirements; offering them solid advising, and a chance to form student-mentor relationships with professors; and then celebrating with them when they make their decision about a major.
“General education,” explains Dean McGee, “imparts a breadth of knowledge and skills, which provide an important foundation for the major. But it is within the major where students will deepen their knowledge in a particular area while honing their analytical and communication skills.”
She, too, is trying to build better connections with students, meeting with them frequently, inviting them to serve on College committees, and listening to their comments and concerns in evaluating and revamping programs. “There is a lot we can learn from the students that will make our programs even stronger,” Dr. McGee believes.
Tags: Alfred University, College of Liberal Arts & Sciences, Mary McGee
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