CIR Reading Group October Pick
Title: My Freshman Year: What a Professor Learned by Becoming a Student
Author: Rebekah Nathan
Call Number: LB3605 .N34 2005
My Freshman Year stimulated the first discussion of Haverford’s new CIR Reading Group. Published under the pseudonym Rebekah Nathan, the book is Northern Arizona University Professor Cathy Small’s account of the sabbatical year she spent researching undergraduate life by enrolling at her own university. Small’s description of life at “AnyU” and the controversies surrounding its publication prompted the group to consider a range of topics:
- How are Small’s observations descriptive of other American colleges and universities?
- How well do students and professors understand each others’ perspectives?
- What is the role of community or community-building in higher education?
- What is the balance between personal and academic growth in students’ lives? What should it be?
- How might identifying herself as an anthropologist/professor to the students with whom she lived and took classes have changed her study?
- Can her conclusions be generalized? Why or why not?
John Anderies, Vanessa Gorman, Betsy Griffith-Smith, Elizabeth Salmon, and Christa Williford participated in the discussion, which was led by Theresa Donahue.
