By Prof. Pablo Sierra Silva
What a year (and a half) it has been! Amid the disruption caused by the pandemic, I am pleased to declare that Undergraduate Studies has evolved, adapted, and innovated. Yes, we’ve all learned to navigate Zoom, even if we still occasionally lecture while muted (!).
In all seriousness, since Spring 2020, history faculty and students have successfully developed new methods for analyzing primary sources, debating peers and visualizing research. Our chair, Prof. Laura Smoller, for instance, pioneered the use of Perusall software in her classes as a way for students to highlight, annotate, and comment on each other’s primary sources in real time. It was a smashing success and soon other faculty were making use of this innovative app in their own courses.
As history lovers, we often embrace the written word over other forms of expression. Yet, have we never encountered a situation when we expressed ourselves much better orally? In my course on the African Diaspora in Latin America, I asked students to produce weekly reaction videos through an app called VoiceThread. This experiment resulted in wonderful, mini, video presentations in which we expressed our admiration for the work of Arturo Schomburg, debated the archival silences of Michel Rolph-Trouillot, and, at times, expressed our frustration over the methodology in that one book (whose author shall remain nameless). Better yet, we were able to react to one another’s videos, in effect producing an archived video conversation outside of the classroom. Other faculty members developed creative research assignments through shareable concept maps and timelines via the Padlet app.
In sum, over the last 18 months, we’ve learned to readjust our expectations of what intellectual exchanges can encompass. So, we are hopeful and optimistic for the semesters to come. Part of that hope is also tied to two extraordinary Meliora Seminars that Professors Mical Raz and Tom Slaughter designed for fall 2021. From the former’s introduction to racism in the American health system to the latter’s exploration of Henry David Thoreau’s literary works, the seminars introduced a select group of students in the Class of 2025 to the collaborative and stimulating debates that define history.
To say that our students have thrived under difficult circumstances is an understatement. Through their research in the advanced seminars, the revamped Honors in History sequence, and the HOUR program, they have produced undergraduate work of the highest caliber. Our students’ independent projects range from 1930s Argentine nationalism through sport to the study of personality cults in Russia, and much, much more.
Truly, it has been a privilege to learn from these remarkable young scholars as director of undergraduate studies for the last three years. Muchas gracias!