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Reminiscences on Harriet Walzer Sheridan and the Founding of the Center

The reflections below are from members of the Brown teaching community from the celebration of the Center's 20th anniversary and the Lippitt endowment in November 2007. Click on a name below to view the reminiscences by that individual.

2007 - Brown Faculty and Administrators

Stanley M. Aronson, MD, founding Dean of the Brown University Medical School
(remarks delivered following the first Harriet W. Sheridan Lecture in Literature and Medicine, April 5, 1994)

We assemble this evening – not so much to honor Harriet Sheridan - but to receive yet another of her many gifts: This gift, the privilege and the warmth of each other’s company and the opportunity, in our busy lives, to pause, to reflect and to remember Harriet’s immense personal influence upon each of us. Harriet is the catalyst [which is yet another word for great teacher], the catalyst that has brought us together this April evening. Her gentle presence with us, in this season of renewal, is as palpably real and undeniable as are her lasting contributions to this university and its students.

The time for eulogies is past. And rather than explore my recollections of Harriet [fond, but toward the end, painful] I thought it more purposeful if we all listened to some of Harriet’s thoughts on education, as expressed in some of her writings – particularly an article entitled “A Teacher’s Commentary: The Desire to Be Whole Again.”[1981] When asked about the title, Harriet responded, “Ah, yes. But the reader must learn to bear some creative responsibility.”

There is however, a very brief recollection that I would share with you. At one point, when she was a patient for the uncounted time in Boston, Harriet declared – as do all humans encountering mortal disease: “Why me?” She paused, reflected, and then uttered: "Why not me?” In those three words, Why not me?, Harriet expressed her most private religious conviction; her belief that we are at best one of many in a vast multitude of living creatures given the rare, and brief, gift of life. All sense of privilege, of splendid individuality, of special treatment, is thus swept aside. And what was left was the still voice of her faith. Perhaps she was thinking of the Scriptural passage: "For I am but thy passing guest, a sojourner like all my mothers and fathers.”

In her 1981 paper, Harriet begins by observing that “good teachers believe in human perfectibility, not original sin.” She then stipulates the first of the many essential qualities of the good teacher. “Scholars” she says, “need not be good teachers, but good teachers, however, must always be scholars.” Beware, she had often declared, of the charlatans who substitute persuasive resonance for genuine scholarship. Truly, there is no substitute for disciplined and scholarly commitment to the subject being taught. She warned of the glib teacher: What he lacks in accuracy he makes up for in irrelevancy.

And what fragile hopes does such a teacher cherish? For these teachers we have the parable of the prodigal son, the reclaiming to the happier state of those who might be presumed lost, welcoming them to the world of the intellect, and then their participation in humane considerations. In many ways, Harriet believed, the seeds planted by the fervent teacher should not – cannot – be harvested at the completion of the semester. The love of scholarship [the fulfillment of the teacher’s most ardent dreams] may not emerge until long after graduation, long after the nurturing teacher’s image and imagery [and even name] have been lost to memory. There is no true reciprocity between the teacher and her pupil; as there is no symmetry between parent and child. In each case, the movement is toward the future, and repayment [or even thanks] is but a fond hope, rarely realized.

She wrote, “How much easier we have found it to cultivate the scholar in our students, to inculcate the various knowledges that have been painfully accumulated." Thus our catalogs provide course after course on the content of what we know. Yet we are not altogether successful at this. Students are bored, confused, resistive or affronted by our gifts to them. Harriet believed that there was more to education, “The essence of education is that it be religious – an education which inculcates duty and reverence.” Such words as service and responsibility were crucial to Harriet.

Harriet recognized, painfully, that teachers are victim to the opposites that they themselves have created. In her words, between “objective and accurate factuality versus compassionate, subjective responsiveness: authority vs. distributed responsibility; individual needs versus social and communal services. How can we who have lost faith in absolute certainties in this age mediate amongst contradictory objectives?”

Harriet’s further reflections on education:

First, she recognized that one of the greatest goals of education is the suspension of judgment; that controversy is at the core of education; that without controversy we have only preserved doctrine, or worse, the dregs of dogma. This view, of course, is distinguishable from Coleridge’s who asked for a willing suspension of disbelief.

Second, that true scholarship requires the courage of the lonely gladiator; yes, we must work constructively together; but first we must learn to walk alone, prepared to defend our newly fashioned beliefs. Scholarship is a lonely task, it is practiced in the silent carrels of the library or behind the shut door of a study. And when scholarship comes to completion, it is published, generally to sink without a trace. True learning flourishes, as plants are said to thrive, when they share each other’s atmosphere, in collaboration.

And third, that education [like faith] is what remains when we have forgotten all that we have been taught.

Many of you knew Harriet far better than did I. But from what I could perceive, she was a righteous woman, a courageous woman, a scholarly woman, a person with an immense capacity for self-criticism, penetrating reflection, and humor, which is to say, a rare capacity for growth.

Harriet was also a deeply religious woman. In the face of an implacable and destructive disease, and in the last measure of her rich life, she achieved a rare state of equanimity, "I am not only me" she said, “I am part of something larger and I am no longer afraid to go.”

Harriet was a tolerant woman and I am therefore certain that she will forgive me when I paraphrase the psalmist who might have thought of Harriet when he declared:

O Lord, who shall sojourn in thy tent?
Who shall dwell on thy holy hill?
She who walks blamelessly, and does what is right,
And speaks truth from her heart.

The clouds pass, the semesters follow each other, but a sadness remains. Truly, the past is never dead; it is with us as an enduring legacy from those, such as Harriet, who have made our individual paths more visible, less menacing. And all of us tonight thank both Lynn Epstein and Chancellor Joukowsky for their labors, both moral and material, in ensuring that we remember Harriet Walzer Sheridan, a wise teacher and cherished friend.

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Prof. Emeritus Maurice Glicksman (Engineering), Provost in 1987 when the Sheridan Center was established.

Harriet Sheridan was a wonderful colleague, intensely engaged with education and the students at Brown. Her charisma charmed alumni and students and her total commitment rallied faculty to improve Brown’s undergraduate programs. She also inspired loyalty and support from her staff, who worked closely with her to carry out the goals of the College organization.

But I want to focus on a characteristic of Harriet which is not overwhelmingly present in many others – her personal courage and willingness to sacrifice for what she saw as the major good. It showed very clearly in her later years, as she faced medical challenges and handled them so well.

Harriet was informed by one physician that she had the prospect of only a few months of life. With the help of another physician, she found a practitioner who was willing to take aggressive action to address her medical problems and to give her years of life, albeit with difficult ongoing therapies.

Harriet did not take this approach simply to live longer: she felt that there were people who needed her support and advice, and that she needed to be there for them. She took on the strain of ongoing treatments, working when she could, in between periods of difficult living. All of us benefited from her continuing presence and activities, and her close family and associates received what she hoped to be able to give: a better base for their continuing lives. We continue to be thankful for the example she set, as her memory lives on inside so many of us.

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Prof. Emerita Arlene Gorton (Athletics)

Harriet and I played an early morning golf round many days. She was always expounding on the importance of the quality of teaching at Brown and ways to motivate faculty and students alike to work toward this purpose.

We were on a putting green very soon after one of her many cancer operations and she was realizing that she might not have enough energy to continue as Dean of the College. Then President Howard Swearer had asked her to give him a plan of action for her staying involved at Brown. She did not hesitate for a second, deciding, while making a putt, that she wanted to start a "Center for Teaching." Her only concern was - would this be a popular idea with faculty? She putted successfully and decided to move forward. I can honestly say that her first germ of an idea for what became the Sheridan Center was on the second green at the golf course about 7:30am one frosty morning.

Harriet was so devoted to the Brown undergraduate curriculum and the idea of a center for teaching. I cannot believe that more than 20 years have passed since her initial idea. She is, I believe, very proud with the results.

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Prof. Emerita Martha Sharp Joukowsky (Anthropology and Archaeology & the Ancient World), Chair of the Sheridan Center Advisory Board, 1992 - 2004

The memory of Harriet Sheridan's actions during her grueling battle against cancer is vivid as I recall her courage and heroism in confronting the disease. But she was also waging a battle on another front. One of her last wishes was the creation of a center for teaching and learning at Brown University. She told me from her hospital bed, "You must ensure my vision of helping students learn. Ideally the venue will not be in a department, but will be a comfortable place in a little white house."

From the time of her arrival at Brown, Harriet had a vision of how we learn, how we process information and how we disseminate it. As part of the Brown professoriate, not only did Harriet teach herself, she visited classes, finding that in some cases, teaching and learning were at risk. At a time when the faculty at Brown did not consciously address teaching and learning, she dealt personally and fell ill from the strain of her efforts. However, she did succeed, and it is that extraordinary accomplishment that we celebrate in the establishment of the Sheridan Center.

Before she was stuck by cancer, I remember Harriet’s efforts in holding sessions for students with alternative learning abilities (including my son, Misha), at risk of being left behind in the classroom. Harriet organized special meetings and helped hosts of students, before she tackled the academics and their graduate teaching assistants. She recorded them on film and discussed ways they might improve their teaching and made a film herself to address teaching and the processing of ideas. [The Center's videotape: Effective Teaching for Dyslexic/All College Students"]

Harriet endowed us with the realm of promise and the power of possibility. I remember her as a noble and brave woman without pretense who knew the spirit of human potential. She was a voice for persuasive teaching and learning, acting out of concern for the student. I feel humbled, privileged and blessed to have shared those early days with Harriet as a long time defender of the thoughtful learning process.

That same spirit of mission and commitment to Brown students that burned so brightly in Harriet, lives on in the Sheridan Center and Rebecca More who has fulfilled Harriet's dream. I have such pride in the Center. Harriet's deep depth of commitment made a difference. She was a great warrior who committed herself to an ideal and inspired others to create change in the Brown classroom. For one, I feel Harriet's mission has been realized in "a comfortable little house" that now bears her legacy."

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Prof. Emeritus Lewis P. Lipsitt (Psychology, Medical Science, and Human Development)

Among Howard Swearer's good influences on the Providence community when he left Carleton College for Brown University, he should be remembered with enormous gratitude for bringing Harriet Sheridan with him. She helped greatly to distinguish his presidency as he honored this somewhat off-center lady with the college deanship and gave her the freedom to help people. Helping people is, after all, what we should expect of deans. And off-center people, especially when they are articulate, learned, and benevolent, can be among the most cherished people in our midst.

I use the term "off-center" to characterize Harriet entirely complimentarily. Harriet cultivated her career, and her being, on individual differences - in human traits, and in the development of individuals. She respected the insecurities of others, and gave the challenged and humble the permission to be themselves. She was not cowed by authoritarian constraints. Harriet was encouraged by them, and she sought to help people with "differences" feel good about their differences and to capitalize on those differences in getting what they wanted from life - and to fight the constraints.

Harriet was a great counselor, as everyone knew who drew advantage from her understanding and pointed interventions. Evidence was of great importance to her; she proceeded in her deanly ministrations under the guidance of data. She had, for example, a keen understanding of the influences of prenatal and neonatal hazards as these affect later development and behavior. She was sure that impairments in language development and in reading ability were rooted in risk conditions during early childhood. And she sought to change those conditions of humanity which marked some individuals for less accomplishment than others.

Harriet Sheridan was way ahead of her time. She was connecting the dots long before many of us knew the dots were connected.

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Prof. Kenneth R. Miller (Bio-Med MCB)

I really didn't have much direct contact with Harriet, but one thing does stand out in my mind. At one point she asked faculty members to list their four favorite books of all time, and published a little booklet of the results to distribute to incoming freshman. For the next couple of years she asked each faculty member who had participated in the survey to pick one of their books and lead a seminar during Orientation Week for freshmen who agreed to read that book over the summer.

I can't remember all of the books I listed, but two of them were Arrowsmith (Sinclair Lewis) and Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (Robert Pirsig). At a reception in Faunce House to celebrate the publication of the booklet, Harriet came over to me and observed that six faculty, including me, had listed Pirsig's book — and she had never even heard of it. She asked me to explain.

I asked her who the other five faculty were, and we looked them up. All of them were in science or engineering. "The two cultures are alive and well," I explained. "Zen" is appreciated by us techno- types because it beautifully illustrates the integration of scientific and technical thinking with the fundamental aesthetic ideas of western culture, as articulated in Plato. She got a copy and read the book within a week. She called me to thank the six of us (collectively) for opening her eyes to another area of learning.

Harriet was determined not to let any aspect of scholarship escape her grasp, and her eagerness to learn about a book that her faculty valued was a wonderful demonstration of that.

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Associate Dean of the College Emerita Karen Romer (English)

What I remember about the Office of the Dean of the College [during Harriet's tenure] is that we were the only entity (before the Sheridan Center) that seemed to think about graduate student teaching from the point of student learning. So we weighed in wherever we could, for example, in:

  • In the tutoring program, that annually collected graduate student tutors who came well recommended, meant interaction with professors too about what they meant when they said someone was "good" and what we meant by student learning.
  • In English courses taught by graduate students, we had input into the document that Elizabeth Kirk drew up as guidelines for the Department. She developed a special course for those who would teach in which the graduate students created a course and had it critiqued, they learned to develop the pedagogical principles and then get feedback as they taught.
  • In science course sections, the Office of the Dean of the College, tended to work with the graduate students who were teaching them, often through individual students;
  • In the modern language courses, since graduate students often taught the introductory sections in the larger courses;
  • With regard to the problem of ESL for graduate students who taught in mathematics, economics, chemistry, i.e. gateway courses where undergraduates had to lay the groundwork for future work and concentration courses, and were severely disadvantaged by section leaders who had limited English (I developed a project involving undergraduate pairings with the English-challenged grad student which is published in "The Future Professoriate")

Harriet continued a practice the previous Dean, Walter Massey, had begun (as chair of CCC) of inviting concentrators from a department, on rotating basis over several years, to a brown bag lunch where she explored (with a couple of staff participating) issues undergraduates had with their concentration: such as, course sequences, attitudes to S/NC grades, teaching styles, the usefulness of a DUG, involvement with honors theses, etc.. You can imagine that undergraduates typically would include assessments of teaching in key courses, the goods and bad, and things they would especially like to change! It was all in confidence but with the understanding that afterwards she would synthesize it and give feedback to the relevant department. This often gave rise to fruitful interchanges or even new initiatives.

Quite a few of our grant proposals included graduate students which gave us some authority over a few who were working with us in some way. For example, the project with FIPSE/AAC involved the faculty and graduate students in several departments exploring teaching issues with colleagues at a local area liberal arts college (1989-1992).

You can see how in the Office of the Dean of the College we kept nibbling where we had access, using contacts we had in various ways to strengthen the opportunities to talk more about teaching. While this mostly worked with the deans who taught, plenty of others actually collected quite a lot of insight from extensive talks with undergraduates about their learning processes.

All of this made the idea of the Sheridan Center very appealing, as we were aware that we were trying to work at something in which we only had limited authority and the Graduate School at that time was not really interested in graduate teaching. The Sheridan Center provided a focus for really thinking about teaching and for sharing opportunities with other research universities which were beginning to do a lot with teaching.

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Prof. Emeritus Frank Rothman, (Bio-Med MCB), Provost Emeritus

One reminiscence I have of Harriet is of her losing a battle with the faculty in her attempt to get every concentration to require an integrative senior experience, whether a thesis, seminar, or similar activity. The faculty meeting at which it was rejected helped to define some major issues in the tension, (I hope creative), that is intrinsic in a "university college." One advisor in a large concentration, a dedicated and skilled teacher himself, simply dismissed her proposal as impossible. As I recall, a number of departments felt that faculty time would limit such a requirement only to honors programs. Although it did not carry the day, Harriet's vision of the importance of such an activity to the education of all students shone through.

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Today I keep up somewhat with issues in undergraduate science education through my continuing association with Project Kaleidoscope. There is no doubt that the educational principles for which Harriet fought at Brown have become the mainstream view in science education, as documented in numerous reports from the National Academy of Sciences, the National Research Council, various professional societies, and other public and private educational organizations. That full implementations of Harriet's ideas remain a challenge at most research universities in no way detracts from her vision.

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Prof. Emeritus Mark Schupak, (Engineering), Dean of the Graduate School Emeritus

There are two incidents I remember that may suggest her attitude towards life:

First, Harriet and I, along with other people in the administration, had to attend Brown Corporation meetings to show the flag. We didn't speak or participate, but we did appear knowledgeable and supportive. One dark and cold February morning I was sitting next to Harriet at the Corporation meeting (the administrators had their own special section separate from the Corporation members). In the middle of the meeting, Harriet fell asleep. I pushed her a little and said "Wake up, Harriet, we are being paid to be here." She woke with a start, and said in a voice that was a little too loud, "Not nearly enough!"

Second, Frank Durand and I were the two Associate Provosts working for Provost Maurice Glicksman. One of our big projects one year was to put together a comprehensive faculty database both to keep track of crucial data about the faculty and to serve in making planning decisions. We would report the progress we had made at the Provost's staff meetings. As we were finally getting near the end of the long building process, we reported that "We are beginning to see the light at the end of the terminal." Harriet, ever the keeper of our rhetoric, complained loudly to the rest of the group, especially to Maurice. She said that we shouldn't be allowed to talk that way. Maurice smiled and said he appreciated that the database could be used soon.

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Prof. Robert Shaw (Education), former Associate Dean of the College; now Dean of the School of Education, Westminster College, Utah

On the wall of Harriet Sheridan's office hung a faded transom window on which one could still make out the word "Rhetoric." Rhetoric, the ability to use language effectively, the art of influencing the thought and conduct of an audience, epitomized Dean Sheridan. Whether in a prepared lecture or in an informal conversation, her use of language was delightful. She understood that the Dean of the College position is a bully pulpit and used it well to implement a number of innovations in the Brown curriculum, including the Curricular Advising Program model of freshman advising, greatly increased support for undergraduate research opportunities, and a support system for students with learning disabilities that has served as a model for hundreds of other colleges and universities. In the 1980s she served on the boards of two national organizations, the Orton Dyslexia Society (now called the International Dyslexia Association) and the American Association of Higher Education (AAHE). She convinced both that they should care about the issue of students with learning disabilities in higher education. The Orton Society started a college affiliate program, of which Brown was the first member, and the AAHE included sessions on dyslexia and other learning differences in all their national conferences from then on.

Harriet was a wonderful mentor. She knew enough about each of her colleagues to suggest steps they should take to further their careers - courses to take, research opportunities to pursue, conferences to attend. The complex character of her mind was reflected in her office, with its life-sized papier-mache dragon, a large mixed-media painting of Venetian boatmen, and the comfortable conversation area next to her desk. A professor of English, she took delight in learning about complex issues in science and the social sciences as well. She served as an inspirational model for students and faculty alike.

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Prof. Emeritus Terry E. Tullis, Geological Sciences

I took Early English Literature from Harriet during my freshman year at Carleton College in 1960-61. The books I recall reading are Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, and Milton’s Paradise Lost. For a boy from the wilds of South Dakota’s Black Hills, with an orientation toward math and science, this world of Middle English was a rather confusing one. Harriet, however, was clearly in her element. Her enthusiasm and caring made me understand and appreciate the literature more than I can imagine anyone else managing to do, even though it did not turn me away from science! As a professor at Brown, it was a great pleasure to reconnect with her and be invited to dinner at her home on George and Benefit Streets when she came to Brown as Dean of the College many years later.

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Prof. Emeritus Thompson Webb III, Geological Sciences

In the fall of 1979, I drove down to the Alton Jones Center with Jimmy Wren (East Asian Studies) and Anne Fausto-Sterling (Bio-Med MCB) to participate with Hunter Dupree (History), George Morgan (Engineering), Tori Haring-Smith (English) and others in a day of interdisciplinary discussions about teaching and writing at Brown organized by Harriet. Harriet had recruited Tori Haring-Smith to get the Writing Fellows program started. I participated in a small group (eight or so faculty) with Tori facilitating the discussion about writing and other issues across the curriculum. I later took a summer teaching seminar, perhaps in either 1987 or 1990, which Tori organized and ran for six or so faculty.

After Harriet stepped down as Dean of the College, I was at a talk on teaching in Wilson Hall. When I stopped to talk with her, she congratulated me on my article in "The Teaching Professor" about having students do self-grading of their papers (adapted for an article in the Sheridan Center's "Teaching Exchange"). Harriet was the only person at Brown to mention reading "The Teaching Professor" to me, and until she mentioned it, I had never thought of listing an article about teaching on my curriculum vitae.

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