Tufts University - Jumbo Yearbook (Medford, MA)

Page 27 text:

The Bravest Man in the Drama Department is, unanimously, Dr. Sherwood Collins, who earned his title last fall as the fearless director of eighteen females in the cast of The House of Bernarda Alba. That feat alone will ensure his place in the Tufts Arena Theater Hall of fame. But it is not surprising that Dr. Collins met with such success, for he demonstrates his capability in the classroom daily. In addition to his courses in acting, playwriting, and American theater, popular among drama majors, Dr. Collins also teaches the introductory Theater Arts course which accounts for the ever-growing interest in theater at Tufts. This year, Dr. Collins introduced an exciting course in contemporary western theater, directing intensive independent study of the works of such playwrights as Beckett, Ionesco, and Albee. Originally from Kansas, where he studied journal¬ ism and radio at the state university, then later at the Universities of Ohio and Wisconsin, Dr. Collins pursued his interest in experimental and educational theater, in particular, playwriting. His midwestern background and stories of the dust bowl, provided him with source material for several original plays, as well as the many humorous anecdotes with which he spices his classes. Here in the East, intrigued by the remnants of the Puri¬ tan ethic, Dr. Collins received a fellowship to work this theme in an opera, in conjunction with Professor Mc- Killop of the Music Department. According to Dr. Collins, the opera, still in the process of revision, con¬ cerns a voluptuous woman named Brigitte Bishop whose appearance in the dreams of the young men of the town incites cries of witchcraft. More than the fact that they “don’t know their Freud,” the townspeople, believes Dr. Collins, illustrate the idea that there are still “witches” influencing our lives. Interested in developing a program to save poten¬ tially talented young playwrights from the odds posed by the cost of living, Dr. Collins has submitted a three- part proposal to the national government. The proposal calls for an inter-departmental program at Tufts which would offer courses taught specifically for playwrights in such areas as sociology and psychology; a workshop program to allow students to experiment, to get out of the “hit-flop syndrome” to which we are now accustom¬ ed; and a program to subsidize developing playwrights at the time when they are most likely to meet with the defeat of reality. This concern with the individual is, perhaps, what has endeared Dr. Collins to all his students. His exten¬ sive constructive criticism on every paper and exam, his willingness to sit and talk with a student about even the most trivial personal, as well as academic, problem, and his delightful chats over coffee between classes are the things which make Dr. Collins a truly fine pro¬ fessor. 23

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To Ashley S. Campbell a teacher’s most impor¬ tant job “is to communicate his own enthusiasm for the subject.” In addition, it is vital that he com¬ municate “that the subject involves a method of thinking that can be important outside the subject. . . . Facts are less important than procedures. The engineering student must be prepared to assimilate new knowledge generated after he graduates.” Campbell, while Dean of the College of Engi¬ neering, still teaches in mechanical engineering. A unique feature of his courses is an occasional essay exam — a radical departure from the slide rule ap¬ proach common to engineering courses. As he ex¬ presses it, “I don’t think that learning formulas is a very profitable way for a student to spend his time. It certainly doesn’t happen that way in real life.” In fact, engineering examinations are especially dif¬ ficult to produce. What can you do in two hours to measure the work of sixteen weeks ? “Oneidea, then, is to ask a student to tell you how to solve a prob¬ lem. . . . You’ll then know a lot more about what he knows. There is no such thing as ‘slinging the bull’ in engineering. It’s quite impossible for the student to fool himself, so rather difficult to fool the professor.” Indeed, “Successful manipulation of numbers does not convince a reader the way the manipula¬ tion of words does.” The Dean comments that “engineers are lousy at putting numbers into mean¬ ing. ” Thus, there is a need for training in com¬ munication. In this connection, Dean Campbell explains the reasoning behind the elimination of re¬ quired freshman English for engineers: “Part of the notion here is that one learns to write only in Eng¬ lish 1-2. In fact, English 1-2 does not purport to be a writing course. It is an enormous help in becom¬ ing facile with words, but other courses are too. Writing and communication should pervade the whole engineering curriculum.” While some teachers lament their students’ at¬ tention to non-academic pursuits, Dean Campbell sees these as invaluable. “We graduate two kinds of students: most graduate from the classroom, while a few graduate from the college. Only a few have had enough significant extra-classroom activity to help them in the adult world. Students are clamor¬ ing for more responsibility, so we ought to provide all the opportunity we can for them to develop responsibility. We have not done very much. . . .”

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“The excitement of biology” is, according to Dr. George M. Curry, Professor of Biology and chairman of the biology department, his most out¬ standing teaching experience. Dr. Curry has not, however, always been a biologist. His first academic contact with biology was in 1952 when he took “Bio 1-2” at the Harvard summer school. Before that time, he taught at Groton School, having re¬ ceived his B.S. in physics from Acadia University in Nova Scotia in 1946 and his master’s degree in physics from Yale in 1947. He received his Ph.D. in biology from Harvard in 1957, having done some of his research in Holland. Following a post¬ doctoral year at Harvard, he came to Tufts in 1958 and became acting chairman of the department in 1964. In 1965, he was appointed chairman of the department. Dr. Curry’s special field of interest is photobiol¬ ogy and, specifically, the relationship between light and plant growth. He is widely-published and high¬ ly respected in this field. His teaching is divided be¬ tween individual instruction and courses in plant physiology and cell structure and function. He also lectures in Biology 1 and is remembered vividly for six pages of notes on biochemical reactions. As chairman of a department rapidly expanding