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If Stephen Nathanson had to pick just one thing to improve teaching, he'd have faculty members talk to each other more. "Teaching is a very solitary activity," says Nathanson, a philosophy professor and director of the Center for Effective University Teaching. "Faculty members have to talk shop more."

That said, Nathanson thinks there are plenty of other ways to improve teaching, too. He should know: since taking the reins at the teaching center last fall he's been spending a lot of time brainstorming and talking to colleagues and reading reports about how to bolster teaching and how to give it more prominence at Northeastern.

He knows it's a tall order. As he acknowledged in the first issue of his new monthly newsletter, "Teaching Matters," some of his colleagues expressed "wonder and concern" that he would give up teaching full-time to take on a lot of "headaches." He also acknowledged that faculty are cynical when they hear administrators say that teaching does matter, because those same administrators often convey, whether intentionally or not, the opposite attitude.

"Things have been done," he says, "but by and large, people feel we haven't made any progress about putting more emphasis on teaching. And that really does create a lot of bad blood."

Working out of a small, book-lined office in the provost's suite, Nathanson hopes to get beyond the cynicism. In addition to publishing the monthly newsletter, he plans to run workshops and programs to generate ideas and techniques for strengthening teaching; to do individual consultations with faculty members regarding teaching; to stimulate discussion about teaching and support people's efforts to improve teaching; and to engage in informal lobbying and advocacy for teaching.

His office will also continue to administer the Student Government Association teacher/course evaluation questionnaires and publish a catalog of the results.

Nathanson would like to have the center do even more. For instance, he'd like to establish a mentoring system. And he says it would be great to have an associate director who specialized in faculty development. "I have shelves of books I cart home with me," he says. "I'm trying to educate myself about this, but I'm a novice. It would be nice to have somebody with real expertise."
 

. FAVOURITE QUOTES 

A new broom sweeps clean, but the old broom knows all the corners.-- Irish Proverb

If youth only knew; if age only could. -- Henri Estienne

The key to everything is patience. You get the chicken by hatching the egg, not by smashing it. -- Arnold H. Glasow

Advice should be viewed from behind. -- Swedish Proverb

Advice should always be consumed between two thick slices of doubt.-- Walt Schmidt

Learn young, learn fair; learn old, learn more. -- Scottish Proverb

Every judgment teeters on the brink of error. To claim absolute knowledge is to become monstrous.
Knowledge is an unending adventure at the edge of uncertainty. -- Frank Herbert

A diamond with a flaw is worth more than a pebble without imperfections. -- Chinese Proverb

The only nice thing about being imperfect is the joy it brings to others. -- Doug Larson

Some people like to make of life a garden, and to walk only within its paths. -- Japanese Proverb

The great pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do. -- Walter Bagehot

If you wish to learn the highest truths, begin with the alphabet. -- Japanese Proverb

If children grew up according to early indications,  we should have nothing but geniuses. -- Goethe

The eyes are not responsible when the mind does the seeing. -- Publilius Syrus

A camel never sees its own hump. -- African Proverb

It is difficult to see the picture when you are inside the frame. -- R.S. Trapp

If I am like others, who will be like me? -- Yiddish Proverb

All things change, and we change with them. -- Latin Proverb

Keep changing.  When you're through changing, you're through. -- Bruce Barton

Everything passes, everything breaks, everything wearies. -- French Proverb

No branch is better than its trunk. -- Japanese Proverb

Experience is not what happens to a man; it is what a man does with what happens to him. -- Aldous Huxley
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