Suffolk University Alumni Magazine 2008/2009 - (Page 11) SHERRI MILES ANATOmY IN THE EARBUDS STudENTS frOm EriC dewar’s Anatomy and Physiology course huddle English Professor George Kalogeris ‘79 MICHAEL MADDEN clASSIcS GAlORE fOr ThE firST TimE in the University’s 101-year history, the College is offering a concentration in ancient classical literature. Students will be able to immerse themselves in the epics of homer, virgil and dante. They will be charmed by ovid and challenged by Aeschylus. They will sit on the shoulders of Tacitus and Suetonius in observing Imperial rome at its apex. for Professor George kalogeris BS’78, the Classics program’s guiding force, it is the first time in a 20-year teaching and writing career that he can work full time with two things he loves most: ancient writers and the students who want to study them. “When young people engage with these texts it helps them to develop an inner life, whether they know it or not,” says kalogeris. raised in Winthrop with the smell of the oceans and the sounds of rebetika—a style of Greek folk music popular among 1930s day laborers—kalogeris’ interest in words and language came from his mother, who understood and conversed in nearly every regional dialect of modern Greek. As an undergraduate, kalogeris took the Blue Line for four years to Suffolk University where he studied literature and psychology. his undergraduate thesis was on Jim Morrison’s allusions to Sophocles in The doors’ tune, “The end.” After a brief stint as a psychologist, kalogeris entered the University Professors Program at Boston University where he earned master’s and doctoral degrees in Comparative Literature. he recently released a collection of his translation of Albert Camus’ diary notebooks, Carnets (Pressed Wafer Publishing, 2006) and had his translation of a C.P. Cavafy poem read before a commencement audience at oxford University. kalogeris believes the most valuable lesson he has learned as a Suffolk professor is the importance of students. “It’s about people seeing things for the first time,” he says. he fosters this awareness in students, from giving out his home phone number and taking calls night and day to spending countless hours hosting informal poetry discussions. “I kind of hate english and classical literature,” said a student at a discussion on Sappho, “but I like kalogeris and I could never miss this seminar.” around a softball-sized orb balanced on a short metal tripod at the corner of his desk. They’re working on an extra credit project, recording a podcast into the space-aged looking microphone for class. dewar, a paleontologist and assistant professor in the Biology department, is one of several professors in the College using podcasting in his courses, uploading lectures and class recordings to iTunes University and making course content as mobile as a browser or mp3 player. “Part of what I wanted to do with this is meet students where they are,” he says. “But I also wanted to show students that scholarship or research in science isn’t something that requires a ton of buildup, it’s just what we do when we’re scientists and any way we can communicate our ideas is positive.” The podcasts might be 10-15 minute lecture recaps or topics examined by students in small groups. “The thing I like about being able to involve students in the podcast is creating a sense of ownership,” he says. “Students have had tons of science by the time they get to college. But have they ever really done science? I want to model what a professional scientist does. Students can do this. It’s like an Amish barn raising, and when we’re done we have something we built ourselves and it looks nice.” Students post the recorded podcasts online for their classmates. eventually, some podcasts may reach a wider audience. “I’m hopeful that some student projects can be made publicly available,” he says, anticipating results from project-based laboratories, surveys, or data gathered from the basketball team, for example, to see what their oxygen consumption is like on a treadmill. “That’s the kind of thing we can post up on the public site and say, here’s what students are doing at Suffolk.” “A student told me she was driving in her car, and her boyfriend was looking at her iPod and said, ‘What’s this anatomy thing you have? oh hey let’s listen to it.’ To know that I’m somewhere between Beyoncé and 50 Cent in my students’ playlists I think is very funny.” Assistant Professor of Biology Eric Dewar (left, with students) www.suffolk.edu SUFFOLKARTS+SCIENCES//2008/2009 [11] http://www.suffolk.edu
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