By stating the simple word “solidarity,” Dr. Simon Doubleday, a Hofstra University history professor, created the course theme for all first-year honor students at Hofstra University. Each semester, the Rabinowitz Honors College changes the theme for its Culture and Expression courses. This discussion is led by a group of Hofstra University professors who rotate every semester depending on their interests and availability.
“This is a different way of teaching,” said Warren Frisina, the Dean of the Rabinowitz Honors College, “It has some real advantages, but it also has some real challenges.”
The professors are being brought out of their comfort zone when it comes to teaching. The weekly lectures are given by different faculty members from multiple departments, including but not limited to, history, philosophy, English and religion.
“The thing about the lectures is that usually those are given by people who have chosen that particular work and who have real expertise in that work,” Frisina said. “There are faculty who are sitting in the room, scribbling away, trying to take notes. That is not just because they have to teach, but because they are assimilating new information.”
The professor-to-student ratio in this particular section is approximately 15 to 250, which is typical for each academic semester. Professors are assigned two discussion groups of about 21 students that follow the lecture. The full course is broken down into a 55-minute lecture, a 55-minute social science discussion, and a 55-minute humanities discussion to make up the three-hour class on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
Before each section, students are given essays and articles to read for deeper knowledge on the topic. This ensures that while the lecture is being given each honor student already understands the information being presented to them.
In the fall semester, each reading surrounds the theme of solidarity, whether it be solidarity with oneself, a god or a community. Readings include excerpts from “The Iliad,” the Confucianist philosophers, “Wife of Bath” as well as the Hebrew and Christian Bible.
Typically, the honors college tries to organize their readings in a way that promotes deeper understanding for the students. Most often, the readings are organized in chronological order, as they are this semester. In order to understand a contemporary concept, one must understand what occurred before it.
“We want to collect or put together a list of works that we think are interesting in their own context in their own time, but we are reading them because we think they have something to say to us now,” Frisina said.
It is important to the Rabinowitz Honors College that the theme chosen for the semester resonates with the students, so they can apply what they are learning to their own lives.
“You could think domestically about the kind of polarization that’s preoccupying everybody as we go into the election year,” Frisina said. “How hard it is for some people to imagine that whoever is on the other side could be really in solidarity with them as part of a single community.”
The biggest takeaway from the lectures that the students and faculty have explored thus far is the importance of relationships. Every individual has an ingroup and outgroup that drives how they respond to the world around them. As an example of this idea, Frisina mentions how the Confucianist philosophers believed there were five cardinal relationships and there are reciprocal rituals that need to occur for solidarity to thrive.
“It is without solidarity that there is no possibility of human civilization,” Frisina said. “Solidarity is key to everything that we are and do at the same time.”
Although the fall semester has only reached its halfway point, the honors college has already begun to discuss a theme for the spring. Dr. Paul Fritz, associate professor of political science, has presented the first question to begin the conversation: Is democracy on fire?
