Chris Marston '96 was interested in governmental intelligence and the Central Intelligence Agency -- so he decided to create a class about it.
Marston is teaching Student Initiated Seminar 1, "Interdisciplinary Approach to Intelligence," this term. Marston and 17 other students are enrolled in the course and six professors help Marston teach it.
The course focuses on the history of intelligence as a function of government, early U.S. intelligence until 1941, and examines how each president after World War II used intelligence in his administration, Marston said.
After his Dartmouth classes piqued his interest, Marston spent hours in the library reading material that dealt with intelligence.
"Later, when I was going through the Organization, Regulations and Courses book, trying to decide what courses to take during my senior year, and I came to this page that told about student-initiated seminars," Marston said. "I thought, what the heck, I might as well try to create a course on intelligence myself."
But it was not that simple. Before his course could be approved, Marston had to expand his research on the subject and find professors who were willing to help teach the course.
"All in all, I worked at least five hours a week for 10 to 12 weeks to put the course together," Marston said.
In the fall, Marston found professors from six departments to teach the course and presented his plans to the Committee on Instruction for approval.
But Marston learned he had to create a reading list before his course could be considered.
After spending about 30 hours at Baker library this winter, Marston said he compiled a reading list for the course.
"I knew a couple of good sources," he said. "Geography professor David Lindgren and David Overton from Tuck helped me out a lot."
Once he compiled the reading list, Marston said he
approached the COI again, and was granted approval for the course.
Marston said constructing a course can be difficult, and compiling the reading list was the one of the hardest things to accomplish.
"It was really hard to narrow the field," he said.
Marston said he tried to choose articles that were cited most frequently in bibliographies about intelligence. A comprehensive bibliography on intelligence was published in 1994, and Marston said it was an invaluable tool.
"The most difficult part was finding readings appropriate for our discussion on the ethical side of intelligence," Marston said.
"There are only three articles out there," he said. Because they were all written by people who work in national intelligence, "they're pretty slanted."
Another hurdle for a student-initiated seminar is COI approval.
The committee must decide "that the course makes sense academically and is given the appropriate distributive classification," said COI Chair Jonathan Crewe. "We also make sure that at least one professor is willing to help out with the course."
Marston has also faced obstacles while teaching. He said being an authority figure made him a little uncomfortable at times.
"I was not sure, at first, whether they would listen to me and do the readings when I told them to," Marston said. "And just recently they gave me a hard time about an x-hour that I called."
Marston's course examines governmental intelligence in the second half of this century.
"The course also looks at the public's perceptions of intelligence in spy films and novels, as well as the ethical implications of intelligence," he said.
Marston said he was a bit disappointed with the name of the course.
"When we first advertised the course, I was getting a lot of blitzes from psychology majors because they all thought it was about intelligence and the brain," Marston said.
The course is structured so a faculty member presents a lecture every other class. On the days a professor is not in attendance, the class has discussion sessions.
"Although the professors were generally reluctant to take on extra duties involved with the course, they were genuinely impressed with how seriously we take it," Marston said.
Professors help teach Marston's course in addition to their regular teaching responsibilities.
Government Professor James Murphy is teaching a session of the seminar on the ethical side of the intelligence issue.
"It took impressive initiative for Chris to organize this seminar," Murphy said. "It is certainly well organized, and is not just a cloak and dagger, fun spy session."
"I was in charge of the discussions at the beginning of the term," Marston said. "I came up with the discussion topics and prodded the discussion along when there were dry spells."
But now, students in the course are in charge of leading the discussions. Marston said he has taken on an administrative role.
"I provide the students with topics for discussion and tell them what to read and when things are due," Marston said. "I also take attendance and evaluate the students' performance in leading discussion, activities that make up two-thirds of the students' grades."
But Crewe said Marston could not ultimately be held responsible for the course.
"When it comes down to it, the professors are still responsible for the course," Crewe said.
Each student does a course project with a professor which the professor grades. The project counts for the other third of the course grade.
Though the distinction between teacher and classmate is sometimes unclear, students in the class said they do not have a hard time taking Marston seriously.
Brendan Doherty '96 wrote in an e-mail message that he wondered if the discussion in the class would be different than discussion in a course that was put together by a professor.
"However, any doubts we might have had about a student's abilities to effectively organize and lead a class were allayed when Chris first came in and took control of discussion," Doherty wrote. "It was clear Chris knew what he was doing.
Students in the class said they took it because they were interested in the topic.
"I took the course because it seemed like interesting subject matter," Oge Young '96 said. "All little boys like spy novels, and there is that same kind of attraction to the subject material here. It's been a lot of fun."
Marston said he has learned a lot while leading the class.
"I've learned about group dynamics and how to lead a group in and academic way," Marston said. "I've also learned what a pain it is to do the stuff that professors do, like creating a syllabus and a reading list."
The professors in charge of the course see students in this class taking on a different role than they would on other classes.
"The participants see their own part in the creation of this course and, therefore, are willing to put more of their time and energy in it," said sociology professor Daniel Lee, who is one of the faculty consultants for the course.
"It is not a seminar that is done to them, but something they construct themselves," he said.
