Book Reports

I have had the past week off from work as there are no students at my college and so no one to visit my little clinic. I had time to read two books about campus life. I have been working here for about a year and am still trying to find my way around.

My Freshman Year, What a professor learned about becoming a student by Rebekah Nathan, c 2005.

This book was written by an anthropology professor who spent her sabbatical year at Northern Arizona University taking freshman courses and living in the dorm. Her real name is Cathy Small. She is also a tenured professor there. The school is big enough that she could take classes and live in the dorm and not be recognized as a professor. Somehow, it was OK with the residence life staff to let a 50 something year old woman live with the other younger college students.

At first, when reading the reviews, I thought she must have been young enough looking to appear to be a college student (a thirty something looking 20.) But no, she just moved into the dorm and took classes and acted like that would be a normal thing for her to despite being the same age as everyone else’s Mom. I am the Mom of a college student, and I can tell you, I would be very curious if he told me that there was a middle aged person living in his dorm. I would wonder if dorm life seemed acceptable because she had just come out of a convent or prison. I would wonder if she had some personal interest in my college youth that I as a mother should worry about-sexually or cult recruiting perhaps. Maybe people in the western US have a more live and let live attitude.

Cathy Small got approval from the Institutional Review Board to conduct here research at her institution; she was limited in what she could say. The other students didn’t know she was an anthropology professor doing research on them and soshe didn’t feel that she could tell everything she saw or experienced. She did observational surveys on content of the white boards on their doors and the ‘graffiti’ in the women’s bathroom and formal surveys with individuals (saying she was a student) and reported this data.

I’m glad she was ethical enough to not report personal conversations; but the format was dry and stilted at times. Some of the surveys I do myself (like observations during meal time about who sits with whom and who just leaves with their meal to go.) Being on campus wasn’t the big revelation it seemed it should be. There was also no reflection on the changes she noted now from the days when she was an undergrad. That also would have been unprofessional; including her own life experience wasn’t the point. Well, I would have liked to know her personal thoughts and the compare and contrast between then and now. The book didn’t miss doing what it promised; it just had so much more potential.

My Freshman Year gave me a few insights about college life. I learned that students are career oriented; so that their volunteer/social life often revolves around careers and creating resumes. That doesn’t surprise me, high school students are encouraged to do extra curricular activities so that their college applications will look good. The next step would be resume and grad school applications. I wonder how much of that is that they are expected to talk this way or their true feelings. How often do we each reveal our true feelings?

The book was a good read; it started as many questions as it answered. I doubt that many students would find it interesting or informative.

I'm The Teacher, You're The Student: A Semester In The University Classroom
by Patrick Allitt, c2005.

This book follows a professor at Emory University through a spring semester US History class. It did do what it promised as it was more musings on being a professor and how one balances the need to cover the content, interest the student and be sympathetic to the developmental needs of the students. I was surprised that the professor had a line over which he did want to go into people’s personal lives.

His job is to communicate the class content. He happily met students to discuss course work; but was careful not to go any further. As a nurse practitioner I will at times have personal discussions with patients, who are now students. I am comfortable with listening to tales about how a student is getting along with family, friends and at school. If there were a health issue that required a visit to a residence hall or student apartment; I would do it. I didn’t consider that professors would want to keep a distance.

The course sounded great. Allitt has collected a mass of slides to illustrate the content and used music appropriate to each day’s lecture to start many classes. He challenged students to know where events occurred by having them label maps of the USA. He banned the use of the web for content in their papers (it is a history class- books would work.) He didn’t use a textbook but rather assigned a list of real books. These are books which may one day be re read and enjoyed again by his students. As an avid reader; this seems like an incredible gift.

He was not always satisfied with effort and skill of the students. He bemoaned their writing skills and their ability to present their thoughts in a cogent manner. He talked about helping them with perseverance and patience. And he did have several to brag about. He had me wondering how I would do in his class when I was a college student (forget that those studying nursing don’t get to take history classes) and how I would do now. I certainly am not succinct.

So, will reading these books help with my job at a small Midwestern college? I believe so. It is one of the amazing things about the USA: that the experiences of college youth in Georgia, in Arizona and the Midwest are similar enough to be helpful to this middle aged nurse practitioner. It was a nice break from medical and nursing literature. I do have two other new books, one about contraceptives for adolescents and the other a series of review articles about college health. They will be interesting, but not such light reading.

Happy New Year, dear and patient reader, soloNP.