Teaching to the Chairs

What if they threw a class and nobody came?

In the driven world of Harvard students, it may not happen all that often. But professors who have to face empty classrooms say it doesn't go unnoticed when students stay in bed.

Though they sometimes understand why students do it, professors still hope their material is so enticing no one ever wants to skip.

But then there are the elite few who always have a full classroom. They say the key to packing students in is presenting new material that students can not simply pick up from the readings.

"I suppose the best way for a professor to get students to keep coming to class is to say things worth listening to," says Dean of the College Harry R. Lewis '68.

Skippidy-do-dah

Students tend to skip class most just before vacations and senior thesis due dates, says Professor of History James Hankins.

But for those who skip on a regular basis, coming up with original excuses can prove difficult.

"The usual reasons given are health or death in the family," Hankins says. "One must take such excuses seriously, though, I once had a student who made the mistake of killing off her mother twice in the same semester."

Hankins says that he understands that sometimes students' social lives can interfere with the desire to go to class but says that from the standpoint of a professor, no excuse is acceptable.

"When I was in college I missed at least 50 percent of my classes, but that was the 70s," Hankins says. "In this age of serious students I think the most likely explanation is the belief that one's friends' class notes are a good substitute for coming oneself. This, by the way, is a mistake. I have seen student notes from my own lectures before, and they often bear little or no relation to what

was said."

Bu Hankins says when he thinks about the opportunities afforded students in Harvard classrooms, skipping becomes "imponderable."

Government professor Andrew Moravcsik, who teaches Historical Study A-12: International Conflicts in the Modern World, says that Harvard students may be too busy to attend lecture but he regards section attendance as paramount to a student's success.

"Obviously in a class of over 200 the number of students at lectures fluctuates, but Professor [Stephen P.] Rosen and I neither monitor nor police lecture attendance," Moravcsik says. "Much of the learning takes place in section. We have a policy that if a student misses three section meetings unexcused, they fail. We enforce it."

To further encourage attendance, Moravcsik says that he includes information that was only presented in lecture on exams.

Geisinger Professor of History William C. Kirby is one of a select few who has not had a great deal of difficulty in getting students to attend lecture.

"Lecture attendance has on the whole been very good," he writes in an e-mail message. "In Historical Study A-13, we videotaped each lecture and put the lecture on the course website that night, and it seemed to have no effect on attendance at all. Rather, some people viewed the video as a review, in addition to hearing the real thing."

Professor of German Eric Rentschler says he doesn't have a problem with students skipping his class. And to avoid jinxing himself, he has never allowed lectures to be videotaped.

"I would never think of having a class videotaped precisely because of that fear," he says. "At Harvard, students are working so very hard and have so many activities that they are already pushing their limits."

But Associate Dean of the College David P. Illingworth '71 says that students just may not have the same respect for classes that they used to.

"It's a larger problem the larger the course," Illingworth says. "In small departments with smaller classes it is harder to get away with."

But for those who do skip, he says, the likely culprit is just laziness.

"Most people probably skip because they don't want to get up in the morning," Illingworth says. "I'm old fashioned, and I think that being there is better."

Illingworth says that students at Harvard probably skip class less than those at other universities.

"In general, students go to class. Whether they are awake is a different

story," he says.

The Few, The Proud

For those who face frequently half-empty lecture halls, maintaining a proper classroom atmosphere can be a hard.

"It surely is detrimental to the class morale, and that of a shared experience," Rentschler says. His class Foreign Cultures 76: Mass Culture of Nazi Germany frequently relies on the viewing Nazi propaganda films as part of the educational experience of the class.

"If you have a large number of students missing class you want to repeat the material in the next meeting, and you don't get the same intensity that you otherwise would," he says.

And this intensity is vital to learning new material in lecture, Rentschler says.

According to Moravcsik, the intensity of even the best lecture can be shattered when students who leave in the middle of lecture, causing a disturbance to the rest of the class.

"I understand that students very occasionally have to leave or do something else," he says. "It is rude, to be sure, but only truly disruptive when a student who has to leave in the middle of a lecture sits in a prominent place. And students underestimate how prominent they are to us, and their fellow students."

For example, he says, students who sit in the balcony of Lowell lecture hall where A-12 is taught, seem to think they are invisible, but can create a huge disruption to the class.

Higgins Professor of Chemistry Richard H. Holm says that it is essential that students attend lecture in order to preserve the character of the class.

"It is absolutely detrimental to the learning environment when students skip class," he says. "Students will lose a

respect for the class if people don't come every time."

While You Were Out

Much of the time, students who skip class do not realize what they are missing.

Hankins says there is little to do about students who do not come to class, and that college is the time that students should learn to take care of their own academic welfare.

"I don't like draconian measures like attendance-taking and maximum allowable absences, as I still harbor the no-doubt antiquated view that college students, at least in the humanities and soft social sciences, should be interested in the life of the mind for its own sake," Hankins says.

If students can't learn now that they need to go to class, Hankins says, there is little hope for them in the real world.

"Modern American college life already infantalizes students in so many ways, there's no need to introduce more mindless hoop-jumping and cattle-prodding than already exists," he says.

The best way for Faculty members to get students to come to class, Hankins says, is to give good lectures.

Rentshler says the best way to get students to come to lecture is to present new and interesting material and to not simply rehash the reading.

"The fact that I am bringing in new and individual materials and that I try to make a point of having lectures that offer material that is not in the reading helps people to come to lecture," Rentschler says.

In his course Foreign Cultures 76: Mass Culture in Nazi Germany, Rentschler also employs a number of visual aids to spice up his lectures.

"In some courses the lectures just rehash the reading. It seems that trying not to do that is a way of keeping me honest," he says.

Moravcsik also says that college is a time for students to understand how to be responsible to their professors and to themselves.

"Generally...I view the teaching environment as a professional one, in which students have responsibilities to themselves, each other, their section," he says.

Mallinckrodt Professor of Biology Fakhri A. Bazzaz says that whether students come or not, he always puts on his best performance.

"It doesn't matter to me whether students come or not," he says. "I can lecture enthusiastically no matter who is there."