Surrounded by books, the seminar students wrestled with Cicero’s ideas of wisdom, virtue, and eloquence, while the senior assistant and professor listened, reanimating the occasional lulls.
In restructuring the 5-year-old honors freshman seminar this semester, Collegiate Scholars Program Director Richard Gamble included three senior assistants, who bring an experienced perspective and a sense of responsibility to hand down the tradition of collegiality they experienced in the Hillsdale College Honors Program.
The seminars were open to all of campus, not only freshmen interested in Collegiate Scholars, which replaced the Honors Program.
“I get to watch the conversation start that these people will be having for the next four years with each other and other classmates about why they’re here, what they’re doing, why they’re learning what they’re learning,” senior assistant Audrey Southgate said.
According to Gamble, he included the seniors in order to help keep the students on track while discussing key ideas. While he said his students this semester remain focused and intellectually engaged with the texts, he still appreciates Southgate’s unique perspective.
“She’s bringing the perspective of a senior; she’s bringing a different level of experience to the course,” Gamble said.
Before each session, Southgate prepares questions to reinvigorate the discussion, but for the most part, she said she tries to stay on the sidelines. To promote social interaction and further the conversation, she invited the students to her dorm, Waterman Residence, for tea.
Freshman Ross Hatley said he originally felt supervised by the assistant, like she was a second teacher in the room. But as the seminar progressed, he said he trusts the seniors the professors put into the classrooms to guide the conversation as mentors.
“For Audrey, personally, she adds quite a bit,” Hatley said. “She’s disciplined; she doesn’t jump in until there’s a pause in the conversation.”
The seminar has four sections with 55 students enrolled, and the faculty teaching the seminars represent the disciplines of physics, German, and history. Gamble said his goal for the seminar is that it be interdisciplinary in order to avoid specialists engaging in a narrow discussion.
“This tradition belongs to everyone on campus,” Gamble said. “These readings are not the private property of any one department, but they belong to all of us. They’re open to all of us to have a conversation about.”
For Southgate, the great tradition that Hillsdale studies on how to be educated is not only able to bring people together, but it is worth continual consideration.
“I took this in the beginning, and now I’m taking it at the end and looking back, which is so fun and really constructive,” Southgate said. “It’s worth thinking about again, and it’s making me grateful for my time at Hillsdale.”
Gamble said Southgate’s opportunity intrigues him because she will be able to encounter her younger self, perhaps even through old margin notes.
“I think that’s an incredibly value experience for any student,” Gamble said. “It’s an effective way for students to say, ‘Wow, I really have learned a lot.’”
Southgate said she is thankful that she gets to take part in a conversation that includes students of all grades and faculty of various disciplines and can bring people together.
“Normally you have to fail a class to take it again,” Southgate said. “This is the class—if I could take one again—I would want to take this one the most.”
