As the Republican primary debate and its attendant media frenzy descend on Dartmouth, we will be confronted by political issues whether we like it or not. In particular, politics plays an important, yet often undiscussed, role in the classroom. We've all taken a class in which the professor has injected his or her own political views into discussions or lectures, inevitably shaping classroom dynamics. In the spirit of the politically charged season, I interviewed a number of College faculty members to hear their personal pedagogies on politics in the classroom.
Government professor Benjamin Valentino teaches the ever-popular introductory Government 5 course on international politics. Valentino said he views his role as remaining "agnostic" toward the various political theories and philosophies he teaches.
"I present the best case for the various perspectives I am teaching," he said.
Any student of his would finish the course being familiar with basic international relations theories like realism, liberalism and constructivism, but as Valentino recalled with a bemused chuckle no introductory IR class during his undergraduate days would have been complete without a primer on Marxism.
When Valentino attended Stanford, an introductory class on American politics was taught by an avowed Marxist.
"On the first day of class," Valentino recounted, "[my professor] said, I am a Marxist, and I am going to teach you the American political system from a Marxist perspective, but I'm going to tell you right from the outset. I've been working in political science for 40 years now, and if I didn't have strong opinions about it there would be something wrong with me.'"
Valentino said he respected his professor, but doesn't agree with his philosophy. Following his professor's lead, Valentino used to begin his courses by stating his own political views.
"I used to start on the first day of class by saying, I know some of you are concerned about the political leanings of your faculty, so if it matters to anyone, I'm a conservative Democrat, but it doesn't color my teaching style.'" He has since stopped doing it unless specifically asked by his students.
"I think that the worst thing would be to have a political perspective that seeps in but is not acknowledged. The best teaching method would be simply neutral and not allow your own views to seep in," he said.
Economics professor and Director of the Rockefeller Center Andrew Samwick said he doesn't think about the issue being so much politics in the classroom, but rather the discussion of politically sensitive topics in the classroom.
The professor "should always be most focused on student learning," Samwick explained, using that sentiment as a guiding "framework."
"Regardless of political background, you will find faculty taking offense to the idea that they relegate the student learning experience to anything but its place of primacy," he said.
As a young professor, Samwick used to worry about how his lectures might be viewed and tried to strip out any language that might be construed as politically loaded, he said. Now, though, he simply discloses it. "It's important that conflicts of interest are disclosed to show where biases might be coming from."
Samwick served as the chief economist on the staff of President George W. Bush's Council of Economic Advisors and is comfortable with sharing his experience and expertise with his students.
"I don't think that I put off students who know that I served in a Republican administration," he said. "I may have largely right-of-center answers to policy challenges, but I have to make students feel comfortable so that they can express any opinion regardless of that fact."
This philosophy seems to have been effective, as Samwick was named New Hampshire Professor of the Year in 2009.
Economics department Vice Chair Bruce Sacerdote agreed that professors should be "very above board" about their views and biases while also expecting that students will be "intelligent consumers of class lectures and discussions" ready to push back and question professors' points. Political or personal opinions should not be espoused in "a subconscious or sneak attack," he said.
"If we think we know something and feel, for example, that fiscaul austerity in Europe or banking regulations are a disaster, we're going to say that," Sacerdote said.
History professor Ronald Edsforth said he tries to "encourage students to develop their own understanding of the material."
"I try to emphasize the work of understanding different points of view on various issues to better understand that controversy in its contemporary light," he said.
Edsforth also acknowledged that his own views will invariably come across during lectures, but said that he "express[es] not bias or opinions, but conclusions that I have drawn after close study of the question."
"I do think that students use the term bias' in a way that's unfair to professors," he said. "All of us are well-trained professionals who devote our lives to understanding our particular subjects, so when we offer to our students what might be perceived as opinion it is in fact a conclusion that has been drawn after careful study."
Charles Wheelan, a visiting professor who often teaches economics and public policy courses over the Summer term, views maintaining neutrality in public policy courses as "tricky."
"There's no objective truth everyone brings their own view to the task at hand," he said. He added that it is "relatively easy with various policy ideas to teach the tradeoffs you can stick to looking at the issue, explaining what we know empirically about each particular option."
Somewhat ironically, he noted that political issues emerge more frequently in classes where politics matter the least, while in public policy, government and economics courses, "you are hyperaware of politics and the need to separate theory from empirical analysis. If you teach this stuff, you have to think hard about it."
Government professor Ronald Shaiko, a Senior Fellow at the Rockefeller Center, believes that neutrality is "particularly crucial at the intro level where you are there to teach how to think, not what to think." In this way, he referenced the tendency of first year students "to want to take down what the professor says as gospel truth."
After 25 years of teaching, Shaiko has tried to refine impartiality to a science, with his goal being to keep students guessing about his own political views throughout the course. As a self-described "unregistered independent," he finds it relatively easy "to argue every side of the issue and play devil's advocate."
"I'm lucky in the sense that I fall down the middle any way, so as a moderate it is easier for me to wrestle with the left and right," he said. Although Shaiko notes that some professors "overtly lay out their philosophy on the first day," he believes that this knowledge of a professor's views never goes away, and that students "will continue to write for that audience."
Aine Donovan, the director of the Ethics Institute as well as an adjunct professor at the Tuck School of Business, teaches a faculty seminar every year whose first class addresses the question of personal opinion in the classroom. She promotes the concept of "teacher as moral agent" and views the injection of personal views as being "very context-driven."
In a freshman course, she explained, students might be too impressionable or intimidated to question their professor, but in a senior seminar, they should be endowed with "a finely honed sense of critical analysis." Even then, she said, professorial opinions should be "context-driven."
"For example, in a bioethics class, if you come in with a very firm opinion that abortion is wrong, you've really skewed the discussion from the get-go. With great moral issues like beginning a war or ending a life, it's hard to continue normally once the professor has expressed an opinion. This chills the conversation and dampens meaningful debate," she said.
According to Donovan, it is important to encourage healthy debate in the classroom.
"The last thing you want," she said, "is to say, Everyone had better agree with me if they want an A.'"
