At the 2018 Opening Workshop, organized by members of the the Teaching and Learning Committee (Crystal Benedicks, Adriel Trott, Scott Himsel, Sujata Saha, Karen Quandt, Tom Pearson, Aaron Elam and Neil Schmitzer-Torbert), nearly 80 faculty and staff gathered for a set of conversations about teaching which launched our academic work for the year. Our focus was on what it means to be a liberal arts college for men, and what it means to teach men. Our conversations began with an introduction by Dr. Adriel Trott, which is reprinted below.

At Wabash College, we define our mission in terms of teaching men. Today we want to think together about how teaching men leads us to shape our pedagogy and our curriculum. I am probably not saying anything that is news to any of you when I say that teaching men in a single-sex student environment is not the same for students or for faculty as teaching women in a single-sex student environment is. And these differences have much to do with the ways that men and women have historically existed in the world. Institutions with all-women student bodies largely aim to give women opportunities to be recognized as knowers and as leaders because they historically haven’t been recognized as such. Historically, men are assumed to be the knowers, the leaders, to be ambitious, and so forth. While this is true, these roles come with their own pressures and double-binds—and speaks to the assumptions people make about how men should act and be. This recognition of male privilege and pressures makes the various issues that men face Continue reading →