Response to Henson
Reading through Mr. Henson’s weekly column, I was pleasantly surprised both by his positive take on our university and his charge to the student body. Nonetheless, I was motivated to write this article by what I feel is a persisting fundamental misconception regarding last week’s discussion of the “Phantom Prof.”
Of the many things that Mr. Henson appreciates about SMU, one critical aspect of our community was omitted from his list of lauds, primarily as a function of his faculty-based perspective. That is, the “Phantom Prof” is not disturbing because he is exercising his free speech but, rather, because he has betrayed the confidence of the students he so cruelly and publicly ridicules — in the process threatening one of SMU’s greatest assets.
Over the past three years, I have had the opportunity to audit or attend classes at three other universities including two large state schools and one SMU-sized private school. While sitting-in at the former, I was struck by the distance between professors and students — even in advanced courses. These experiences truly illustrated the educational value of the intimacy afforded by the 20- or 30-student classes of SMU. Specifically, SMU professors not only know your name but, frequently, they know your story. Far from alienating or sterile, the individual interaction with SMU professors I have observed and experienced over the last three years — fostered largely by a sense of trust — enabled me to not only learn concrete information but feel comfortable exploring new ideas in a classroom environment without fear of derision or embarrassment.
Attending classes for credit at a private university last semester, I experienced the danger of intimate classes with a professor unable to cultivate the trust of his students. Though an excellent and professional instructor, the sense that the students and the professors were of different communities prevented the development of critical dialogue both collectively and individually. While working under his tutelage was educational and enjoyable, the stifling sense that new ideas may not be readily tolerated because of this divide prevented my classmates and I from reaping the full rewards of our experience.
I admit that I am an SMU fan through-and-through. Nonetheless, I believe that anyone can recognize the value of a community in which students and professors are so familiar that one instructor even informed me he could recognize my papers just by my style. That sort of familiarity facilitates the learning that makes SMU a uniquely edifying university. Unfortunately, betrayals of student confidence both from the office and the classroom like those perpetrated by the “Phantom Prof” undermine that sense of community that makes SMU great and threatens the efficacy of the faculty far more than it embarrasses the student body. What the “Phantom Prof” did in writing about his personal experiences as a professor, though not inherently wrong in its own right, was irresponsible and threatened to undermine one of the great pillars of our institution — and for that he was out of line.
