I thought you folks might find this interesting, and it might generate some
discussion.
Lining Up to Get a Lecture
The New York Times
November 17, 2000
By KAREN W. ARENSON
ITHACA, N.Y. James B. Maas, a professor at Cornell University, teaches a
large class. A really large class. With nearly 1,600 students, it is one of
the largest lecture classes in any American university, so big that no
classroom is large enough to hold it. Instead, the class, Psychology 101,
meets in the university's 88-year-old concert hall, with hard-backed wooden
seats, bare floors and no desks.
It hardly sounds like a class that an Ivy League university charging nearly
$25,000 a year in tuition would boast about. Lectures these days are
generally looked down upon as money savers for colleges, the fastest way to
put students to sleep.
But year after year, decade after decade, Dr. Maas's Psych 101 has been
Cornell's most popular course. Students keep flocking, and when they
finish, they send their friends and their children.
"My father went here in '74 and took this course, and he said be sure to
take it," said Jennifer Basarab, a gum-chewing freshman biology major from
Lancaster, Pa.
What makes the class the talk of the campus and an icon among psychology
professors is a combination of show business and personal contact, traits
students say they do not often find even in smaller classes. Dr. Maas crams
the lectures with show and tell. He talks about his family. He shows clips
from "Candid Camera," demonstrating, for example, that people entering an
elevator will face the back if three other people are turned that way.
Although the course is a lecture, there is no blackboard in sight. And he
tries to pull students in. Not by calling on them and putting them on the
spot, but through exercises, games and a constant stream of slides and
videos.
Last week, for example, he wanted students to think about memory. He
challenged them to try to remember a list of about a dozen unrelated word
pairs. Words like Locomotive- dishtowel. Jacket-asparagus. Oyster-
telephone. Alligator-thermometer. He divided the students into two groups,
asking the first group to try to remember the words by repeating them over
and over and the second to associate them with pictures in their minds.
Then he tested them. A show of hands clearly illustrated that the group
with the mind pictures did far better and that imagery can be a powerful
memory aid.
Next was a demonstration of how paintings serve as a "mirror of the mind."
He flashed slide after slide of drawings by schizophrenics onto a large
screen in the center of the stage, commenting on each as an art history
professor might. There was a drawing of vases and columns by a 16-year-old
homosexual boy with a fixation on choking his mother to death. Another was
by a patient concerned about morality and sex.
"Far from being stupid, idiotic or retarded, these people are extremely
bright," he told the class, suggesting they not easily dismiss such people.
Some professors try to squeeze as many facts as possible into their
lectures. For Dr. Maas, the goal is to convey three or four concepts and
entice students to seek more through the textbook and computer programs
that accompany the course. For students who have questions, he uses a corps
of more than 20 teaching assistants, available 12 hours a day. If students
want discussion, they can sign up for a separate one-credit companion
course that focuses on a topic in depth like psychology and the law but
only about 150 have done so.
It is not unusual to find introductory psychology among the largest classes
on a campus. It is a juicy topic for students seeking to understand
themselves and the world. And it is often viewed as a gut course (though
the average grade here is below a B).
Even the best universities run large classes, some by star lecturers,
although large usually means a few hundred students, not 1,600. At Harvard,
a course called Justice taught by Michael Sandel, a professor of
government, has 779 students this semester. But few courses attain the
near-mythical status that Dr. Maas's has achieved.
Educators are quick to point out that large classes do not necessarily mean
bad teaching any more than small classes guarantee good teaching.
Administrators at Cornell and elsewhere say that lectures may be
appropriate for subjects that have no labs, do not require daily essay
writing and are suited to a staged presentation.
"If this were the only mode of instruction, it would not be a great way to
go," said Biddy Martin, Cornell's provost. "But a good lecture is not just
an educational experience, it can really be an aesthetic experience, too."
Students talking about Dr. Maas often sound like groupies raving about the
latest rock star.
"He is amazing; you're in for a treat," Keri Rodgers, a sophomore Spanish
major from Columbus, Ohio, told a visitor before the class started one
morning last week. "Psychology is not up my alley," she continued from her
perch on the edge of the stage before class. "But I love this course. He's
just funny."
On stage, Dr. Maas, 62, looks more corporate than punk, dressed in a blue
Oxford shirt and a striped tie, a slightly heavy, balding man with a mild,
unassuming manner. He has taught the same basic course for 36 years he has
not missed a year but still approaches it with the air of a boy in a candy
shop. He spends hours preparing each lecture and refuses to go to a movie
or party the nights before he teaches.
He comes to class 40 minutes early, unpacking slides, videocassettes and
other props from a boxy legal briefcase. When he is sure that the
projectors and sound system are working, he heads out to talk to students.
By the end of a semester, Dr. Maas estimates, he knows perhaps 200 or 300
student names.
"What are you studying?" he asked Adrien Desbaillets, a young, dark-haired
hotel-management student hunched over a textbook in the front row of the
mezzanine.
Mr. Desbaillets said he was preparing for the coming psychology test. Then
he and Dr. Maas chatted about whether the professor might visit Singapore
in the coming year.
Several other students cornered Dr. Maas to ask about the exam, one of
three all multiple choice that are given. Teachers often dislike talking
about the minutiae of exams, but Dr. Maas smiled amiably, as if there was
nothing he would rather discuss.
He tries to get to know students in other ways, too. He invites them to
brown bag lunches where they ask about everything, from what it is like to
be a psychologist to questions about his family. He draws in students
through research. (In the coming months, a squad of undergraduate research
assistants will fan out to question high school students about their sleep
habits, to help Dr. Maas on his next book about the need for sleep, which
is his specialty.)
Still, being a student in such a large class can be daunting, said David
Kaplan, a senior from Middletown, N.J., who took Psych 101 as a freshman
and is now a teaching assistant.
"For me," he said, "the course was definitely overwhelming to be in a class
with almost 2,000 other students and the professor is a little figure up on
stage."
His strategy was simple: "I'd try to sit as close up front as possible."
He said, however, that Dr. Maas helped offset the feeling of distance with
his open-door policy and willingness to talk to students.
About six years ago, four students who had worked for Dr. Maas said he had
gotten too personal, kissing and hugging them and making suggestive
remarks. Cornell reprimanded him and said he was ineligible for a raise
that year. He challenged the fairness of Cornell's procedures for sexual
misconduct inquiries, but lost in court. The episode, however, does not
appear to have diminished his popularity as a lecturer. Last week, he
called the proceedings "absolutely unfair," but he said the experience had
had "no bearing on the course whatsoever."
Dr. Maas's path to Psych 101 was serpentine. As a student, he planned to be
a dentist. But premedical courses were difficult, while psychology was "a
piece of cake," he said.
The first hint that he might make a good teacher came during his senior
year at Williams College in western Massachusetts, when he taught a
psychology seminar and some of his fraternity brothers told him that he had
really helped them understand the material.
His aim after earning his Ph.D. at Cornell was to return to Williams. But
just as he was about to head back, Cornell asked him to teach for a year.
Thirty-six years later, he is still there, teaching Psych 101 three days a
week each fall and a seminar in the spring.
He has also written and edited articles and books, made numerous films and
become a staple on television talk shows and on the corporate lecture
circuit, where he often talks about the dangers of not getting a good
night's sleep.
His biggest delight is still the Psych 101 course. He recounts with pride
how two of his students helped thwart a suicide attempt one afternoon after
a class in which he had talked about how people hesitate to be good
Samaritans and the importance of not standing idly by.
Such tales become fodder for future lectures the kinds of anecdotes that
keep students riveted.
"Students love hearing about these things," he said.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Rip Pisacreta, Ph.D.
Professor, Psychology,
Ferris State University
Big Rapids, MI 49307
email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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