Editor's Note: This is the fourth article in a five-part series exploring the disparities between how the College presents itself and the reality that students encounter on campus. In this piece, The Dartmouth examines academics.
"Slide into your chair at the seminar table with 30 seconds to spare. The professor looks around, smiles at the 12 of you and collects the essays. Discussion starts, your hand is in the air before you remember that you don't have to be called on to speak," the Office of Admissions writes in their narrative of a typical Dartmouth student's morning.
Many students, however, find themselves in a nameless sea of people in large lecture halls, never able to speak and never awoken by the morning air.
And in departments where course demand is very high, faculty interaction -- even in discussion classes -- is often hard to come by.
"I have lunch with every student who wants to have lunch," economics department chair Jonathan Skinner said. "But when you have 90 students it's kind of hard."
Hiring more professors may not be enough to increase the ability of faculty members to build relationships with their students, Skinner added.
"Even if we hired 10 faculty members we'd be behind," he said. "I think we have 17 percent of all majors, but I know we don't have 17 percent of the faculty."
Increasing student-faculty interaction without additional faculty members involves other sacrifices. According to Skinner, departments that try to cap class sizes create an "unfortunate tradeoff" where students have trouble getting the classes they want.
Professors in smaller departments are also not always able to interact with their students as much as they might like.
"I tend to be too busy," religion professor Reiko Ohnuma said. "It's hard to do any informal interaction with any class that's not under 20 students."
But the Dartmouth admissions booklet paints a far different portrait of student-teacher relationships than those Ohnuma has experienced.
"Through course-related discussions, research collaborations and casual conversation, students get to know their professors as instructors, mentors, colleagues and friends," the admissions brochure tells prospective students.
For some, including those who do research with their professors, this is a reality. Some faculty members, like philosophy professor Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, even publish jointly with their students.
In his most recent collaboration, Sinnott-Armstrong worked with Jana Schaich Borg '02, who ran experiments that Sinnott-Armstrong had designed.
"It made my Dartmouth experience," Borg '02 said. "I can't imagine my undergraduate career without it."
But Armstrong said he is more the exception than the rule, pointing out that he is the only philosophy professor to publish with a student.
"I'm special," Armstrong said.
Many faculty members, though, take at least some informal interaction as a fixed part of their curricula.
As a freshman, Adrienne Lee '07 attended a mandatory dinner at her English 5 professor's house.
"I don't think I felt closer to my professor, but I felt closer to the people in my class," Lee said of her experience.
"It's up to you. If you wanted a relationship with your professors, you could have one," Lee said. "Most professors are very approachable."
Borg, who now works in Connecticut, praised her Dartmouth experience for her relationships with professors.
"The more time I spend in the real world, the more I know I was lucky," Borg said. "More than I understood before."
Students who want to get to know their professors better could do it on the College's tab under the Faculty and Students Together program. The program gives out vouchers for students to take their professors out to eat and sponsors lunches for professors and their classes.
