Erôs and Insight
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Introduction to Amherst: First-Year Seminars
From Upton’s office window on this last day before the
semester break, the
world outside looks chill and gray. Ice glitters on the bare trees; snow clouds
hang heavily in the winter sky. Upton and Zajonc have just arrived, stiff from
the cold, each encased in layers of wool and fleece. A couple of e-mails or a
phone call would have spared both the trip to campus, but the two professors
prefer to talk about student papers in person. Today, they sit facing a thick
stack of final essays, the culmination of a semester’s work. Upton and
Zajonc have made a point throughout the semester to discuss each and every student
essay (a total of 150). Both read all papers, and they provide detailed comments
after they have conferred.
“Listen to this, Arthur,” Upton urges his colleague. He lifts a paper
from the top of the stack, reading aloud: ‘“I came to this school
because I had a feeling that there would be someone here who could help me. I
did not care how long it would take to find this person. What happened was that
the class was asking the same questions that I have been asking myself my whole
life. And I was surrounded by many other people who held the same curiosity as
me. For the first time in my life I did not feel alone.’” Upton pauses,
visibly moved.
Zajonc sits in respectful silence, allowing the words to penetrate—as he
so often has encouraged his students to do.
‘“Because of this class,’” Upton goes on, paper in hand, ‘“I
have made the distinction between knowledge and knowing. This one concept has
elevated my consciousness tenfold and given me a more intimate relationship between
myself and the world.’”
“Participatory knowing,” Zajonc says, nodding in acknowledgement
of the student’s discovery.
“That’s exactly it,” Upton agrees, reaching eagerly for the
next paper.
As they work thoughtfully through the pile, more “gold” (as a delighted
Upton calls it) emerges. A student writes of his “heart fluttering” in
response to Thomas Merton, hoping, like Merton, for an “inner cataclysm.” Another
writes: “I did not know that a class could reach me on such a personal
level, yet now I do not want to settle for anything less. Suddenly, my education
isn’t just about my four years at Amherst, but it has also become
a direct challenge about how I will choose to live the rest of my life.”
Zajonc reads a paper by a student who felt stuck on a GPA “treadmill” until
Amherst: “‘Before enrolling in FYS 13, my learning had forever been
for my own intellectual aggrandizement; it had been for my own success. But while
sitting in front of Rembrandt’s Aristotle With a Bust
of Homer I saw Love….Rembrandt
brought liberated thought, unrestrained ideas and the boundless possibilities
of creation and imagination back into my life—into my education.’”
There is one more class meeting, but no reading is required and no lecture
will be delivered. In homage to Plato’s Symposium, Zajonc and Upton
have planned an evening gathering for their students in the top-floor room of
Fayerweather. There, accompanied by fruit, bread and maybe a drop of watered-down
wine, they can look out at the night sky, share plans and dreams, and continue
a conversation that the professors hope will last throughout their lives.
Next: An
Introduction to Amherst: First-Year Seminars >>
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