by Vanderbilt News Service
The teaching that goes on outside the classroom at Vanderbilt was celebrated for the role it plays in differentiating the university and providing students and faculty alike with an unequaled educational experience at the Nov. 18 meeting of the Academic Programs Committee of the Board of Trust.

Vanderbilt’s undergraduate students have unparalleled access to faculty, participate frequently and in meaningful ways in research projects and interact more with faculty and graduate students than students at other institutions, concluded the faculty panel that addressed the committee.

“When I look around, I don’t see anyone in the country who does this as well as we do,” said panelist Marshall Eakin, chair of the history department.

“I think I teach everywhere all the time,” said Howard M. Sandler, professor of psychology at Peabody. “I think I teach on the sidewalks. I think I teach in the hallways. When we have students over for dinner, I’m teaching. I never shut up, basically.”

Other panelists in the discussion moderated by Robert Thompson of the Law School were Greg Barz, assistant professor of ethnomusicology; Amy-Jill Levine, the Carpenter Professor of New Testament Studies; Paul Sheldon, associate professor of physics; and G. Kane Jennings, assistant professor of chemical engineering.

Jennings noted that graduate students also benefit from the instructional approach at Vanderbilt. “The graduate students get to practice their mentoring skills,” he said. “My graduate students have gained a tremendous sense of satisfaction from working with the undergraduate students.”

To illustrate the thrill faculty experience in teaching at Vanderbilt, Sandler told the committee about sophomore Lindsey Williams, who is studying the oboe at Blair. Williams reluctantly took his statistics course, and now plans to be one of his teaching assistants next fall for the same course.

“I can tell you that she’s a whiz at statistics, and, much to her amazement, she actually likes the stuff,” Sandler said. “It is a great pleasure to watch the light go on in students.”

At other committee meetings, student leaders offered Board of Trust members insight into the state of student life on campus and addressed campus safety issues during the Student Life Committee meeting.

Student Government Association (SGA) president and Vanderbilt senior Andrew Maxwell said the dialogue among students – and between students and the administration – has reached an unprecedented level since his freshman year. He credited the increased communication to a number of positive developments, including a recent event at which students of various backgrounds representing a range of student organizations came together to celebrate Vanderbilt’s growing diversity. He noted the university also is becoming more geographically diverse with more than half of the student body now coming from outside the Southeast.

“All of the dialogue is making Vanderbilt a better place and the students are feeling empowered,” Maxwell said.

Looking ahead, Maxwell noted that the university is in a transition phase with the first phase of the residential college program – the Freshman Commons on the Peabody College campus – scheduled to be up and running in 2008. He said he would like to see greater association between academics and student life and called the residential college program excellent progress toward that goal.

A panel of student leaders representing the Interhall, SGA, the Office of Housing and Residential Education, Greek Life and the Asian American Student Association, along with officials from university administration and the Office of Housing and Residential Education, updated the committee and shared concerns about campus safety.

The students singled out several successful safety and security initiatives, such as the community-oriented policing that began on Greek Row in 2003. The program, in which specific officers are assigned to patrol and to get to know students, was expanded this year and is expected to continue to expand to other areas of campus.

Another improvement that students applauded was making Vandy Vans, the transportation service offering students a safe ride on campus, more identifiable with brightly-colored vans and changing the van routes to better meet students’ needs. However, the students urged further improvement in the form of more and brighter lighting in certain areas of campus and more emergency phones to allow people in need of assistance to call campus police.

The Public and Government Relations Committee meeting featured an update on Vanderbilt’s Washington, D.C., office, described by Vice Chancellor for Public Affairs Michael Schoenfeld as the university’s “embassy” in the nation’s capital.

“What happens in Washington, D.C., is critical to Vanderbilt’s ability to be successful,” Schoenfeld said. The $380 million in federal research funds the university received last year, Medicare reimbursements and student loan policy are but a few of the many federal issues affecting Vanderbilt. “The office allows us to inject Vanderbilt experts into national debates. Our experts are speaking out and helping to set national policy,” he said.

Jeff Vincent, assistant vice chancellor for federal relations and executive director of the office, reviewed its role as a Washington home for visiting Vanderbilt students and faculty, an advocate for the university in Congress and a monitor of higher education issues. The office has four full-time staff members.

“We are a full-service lobbying and public affairs firm with just one client –  Vanderbilt University,” Vincent said. “We connect Vanderbilt’s stars – and we’ve got a lot of them – with national policy-makers.”

Vincent said 2005 will be a challenging year in Congress, with cuts to non-defense research funding and increased federal involvement in higher education issues expected. Even so, Vincent said the leadership positions held by members of Tennessee’s congressional delegation and their connections to Vanderbilt make him the envy of his colleagues at other universities. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, Sen. Lamar Alexander and Rep. Jim Cooper all have close ties to the university. “The stars have aligned in Congress for Vanderbilt this year,” he said.

The office, in collaboration with the Office of Active Citizenship and Service, is launching a Maymester program in 2005. About a dozen students will have the opportunity to take classes in the office and work in Washington. Participants in the four- to five-week program will then complete summer internships in the capital.

In addition to the committee meetings, a forum was held for students to voice some of their concerns. The young alumni trustees, who sponsored the forum with the SGA, were to report to the full board the issues raised by the students. Among those issues were parking, an on-campus military veterans memorial, higher wages for some Vanderbilt employees and academic advising. In addition to the young alumni trustees, several other board members attended the forum.

Posted 11/22/04