COLUMN: Sites of Learning

From Max Page's "Office Hours," Fall '95 The reason for this jolting arrival into the world of wisdom and responsibility was the completion of my Ph.D. in history at Penn and an offer of a job as a lecturer. When I exchanged my green graduate student ID for a red faculty one, my "centuries of childhood," as graduate school has been aptly named, had come to a close and there was no turning back. With all the changes my new position has brought, what has struck me most in these first, frantic weeks is the transformation of the environment in which I conduct my business, the teaching of American history. When my friends ask me, "What's it like to be a professor? How is it different?" all I can say is, "I have an office! It has a window! Natural light! A desk!" Amidst all the upheavals of higher education today, my focus on the glories of my private office seems rather petty, even downright materialistic. But there's a more honorable reason for this giddiness: Having spent time on both sides of the academic aisle, as student and as teacher, I am now aware of the importance of the learning environment. Toni Morrison describes studying in reading rooms, like those in Van Pelt or Furness, as the "experience of private meditation in public." But equally important are those unscheduled encounters where some of the most important learning happens. It is in the TA lounge or the professor's office where discussions between students and their teachers take place. Here, in a one on one situation, one can find the heart of the university's educational work. As I sit in my new office, I can't help but think about my own experience as an undergraduate and later as a TA. I remember quite distinctly one meeting I had with a professor when I was a junior in college. I had gone, as ordered, simply to have my research topic approved. But once this perfunctory task was completed, we began talking about why I chose the topic, how I might organize the paper. Soon we were talking about storytelling, how to weave a narrative through one's research notes. He urged me to follow my heart in pursuing the topic, something no one had ever suggested. I never forgot that discussion. It marked the first time I considered graduate studies in history. It is often this way: We often remember nothing more of a course than a single class, a turn of a phrase in a lecture, a comment on a paper. The exchange of questions and answers, ideas and inspiration between teacher and student remains a great mystery. It is also one of the most potent sources of change and advancement in our society. The settings for this potential encounter, the fragile space where learning happens, deserve, at the very least, to be dignified by a desk and a chair. Unfortunately, none of these existed when I taught in my previous incarnation at Penn. My place in the University came down to a windowless TA lounge on the third floor of College Hall. It was a welcoming room where fifty or so friendly graduate students congregated to sift through mail, eat lunch and trade war stories. But as a place for meeting students, for teaching, it was, too put it mildly, lacking. Considering the importance of the role of the teaching assistant -- all duly noted in the Dean's yearly pep talks to first-time TAs -- one would have expected the settings to match the rhetoric. A few years ago, I strolled into 209 College Hall which had been the TA lounge during my first year at Penn. The room had been a ragged warehouse for teaching. Ripped up carpets, flimsy partitions for offices, junky furniture. While large, the room always felt cramped since it had to accommodate 50 graduate students and their meetings with their 40 or 50 undergraduates. From morning to evening, the room was filled with students and TAs in conference (or conflict). Even though the history TAs taught the recitation sections and graded the papers of perhaps a thousand students each semester, we were accorded little more than this sad room. There was no clearer indication of how our work was really valued by the University. Today, it is a luxurious home for, of all things, lawyers. As the Corporation Counsel's office, it is plushly carpeted with art works lining the walls, mahogany desks for everyone. It is, frankly, appalling. While the History Department TA's were forced into ever-smaller offices, with with no windows, no private space for student meetings, hundreds of thousands of dollars (much more than a year's worth of graduate fellowships for the entire History Department!) were spent making gracious accommodations for lawyers who will rarely ever speak with a student. The formula employed by Penn and most universities runs opposite to common sense: The fewer students you see, the bigger the office. Even now as I work contentedly in my glorious piece of real estate at 3401 Walnut, I look out my window at the Law School library, one of our University's grandest new additions and am reminded of the architectural hierarchies at the University. After years of expecting little more than a mail box and a spot on the stained green couch in the lounge, I was amazed to walk into the Law Library several months ago and find plush arm chairs by corner windows, beautifully crafted wood chairs nestled into carrels with built-in ports for laptop computers. I felt like an intruder in a private country club. In a fit of graduate student insecurity, I was possessed by the perverse desire to use my Swiss army knife to carve "History Rules!" into the smooth surface of those carrels. The Law Library's message, as well as that of the Corporation Counsel's office, is simple and clear: What happens here is important; the people who work here are important. In the logical universe of University administrations this all makes sense: As an office for lawyers, the Corporation Counsel has to have impressive surroundings; it is expected of that profession. But teachers of history, or philosophy, or religious studies don't need that; they should be content with the remains of administration makeovers. The implications are obvious, not only to me, and to other faculty members, but to students as well. Perhaps, led by President Rodin, who is admirably focusing her efforts on revitalizing undergraduate education, it is time to suggest that maybe, just maybe, teachers deserve the same respect as do the lawyers. If we can beautify the President's house, build a Law School Library, and a lavish parking garage in the heart of campus -- we can also create dignified settings where students and their teachers can meet to learn. Max Page is a lecturer in the history department from Amherst, Mass. "Office Hours" will appear alternate Thursdays.