The keynote event that kicked off this year’s Thinking Matters symposium saw students sounding off on their interpretations of the term “academic freedom,” as it may apply when a conflict arises between students and educators.
They didn’t expect to see a real-life demonstration.
The event was run as a panel discussion, overlapping with the conclusion of the Gloria S. Duclos Convocation on Academic Freedom. The panel was moderated by senior history major Daniel Chard, and was comprised of two prize-winners in the convocation’s essay contest: Aramis Lopez and Adom Harnik (a third winner, Kristen Neilson, was unable to attend). The contest asked undergraduates to respond to the question, “Must the academic freedom of professors be in conflict with the academic freedom of students?”
The first-place, $500 prize-winning essay belonged to Lopez, a senior classics and philosophy major. His paper stressed that the defining difference between students and professors was a matter of experience – the student being an undeveloped “embryo of intellectual activity.”
At one point during the question and answer session, Lopez briefly mentioned a link between the disintegration of analytical, discussion-based learning in both the United States and France. That immediately drew a sharp rebuke from Nancy Erickson, a French professor, as she thumbed through a copy of Le Bon Usage in the back of the room.
“No, I don’t think that’s true,” she said. “I think the curriculum (in France) is oriented towards a firmer rooting in discussion, and questioning . and an engagement in the material that’s just not present in most United States classrooms.”
“I mean, look, we’re sitting here, and who is talking? Only professors,” she added.
That provoked some laughter and much disagreement from others in the audience. Lopez and Erickson then engaged in a lengthy, energetic back-and-forth, mostly on the state of French higher education. There were several sarcastic exchanges. Citing too much information on her side, the professor “withdrew” from the debate several times, only to jump back in.
A student in the audience responded to Erickson’s mention of student apathy.
“I think that sometimes students, what they’re scared of is that they cannot talk to (a professor) without one or the other being so involved emotionally or culturally, that we can’t engage in a dialogue.”
Later, with 20 minutes remaining, Erickson and history professor Eileen Eagan got up and left the room. When asked why they had left, the women mentioned that Erickson had a class coming up, but also admitted feeling alienated by the patriarchal tone of the panel.
After the event, organizers and students in the room were a bit taken aback by that characterization, but history professor Adam Tuchinsky pointed out that it was an excellent live-action companion to the winning essays, and an interesting start to the symposium.