As the quiet of summertime on campus fades and the weather gives the first hint of autumn, Madison starts to swell with people returning for the fall semester. The new school year brings a host of new resolutions and tactics, as students prepare for their classes. But back-to-school season isn’t just for the students — professors need to prep, too. We asked faculty members in the College of Letters & Science how they get ready for the start of a mew academic year.
Kathleen Bartzen Culver
Director and professor in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication, James E. Burgess Chair in Journalism Ethics, Director of the Center for Journalism Ethics
I teach a course in media law, so the start of every fall for me is like drinking from the firehose of legal developments over the last year. For example, I revisit podcasts that I’ve bookmarked, because they give great takes on recent Supreme Court decisions. I take the key First Amendment opinions from the Court’s last term and boil them down to abridged versions that my students can digest.
I also try to get my 50-something-year-old head around the apps and media diets of 20-something-year-olds. This semester, that meant learning about something called “Skibidi Toilet.” I’m not joking. One of the best parts of teaching law is that it is alive, ever-changing. I get to start every fall feeling similarly alive.
Jordan Ellenberg
John D. MacArthur Professor of Mathematics, Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professor of Mathematics
This semester, I’m teaching a First-Year Interest Group (FIG) seminar called Writing and Data. This is a course where we work on writing that makes a quantitative argument clearly and correctly while also being readable and lively — the kind of thing you might see in the The New York Times or the The Wall Street Journal. For a lot of students, it’s the only time they’re asked to write something in school that isn’t academic or fictional. I taught this class for the first time last year, and it was so much fun that I’m doing it again!
At the end of each semester, I write a long email to my students and to myself, reflecting on what worked well in the course and what didn’t. Those after-thoughts are useful, as I think about what to change this time. Since the FIG program is meant to generate learning communities, one simple thing I want to do is to incorporate activities to help students connect with each other in class. Last year, the students picked their tables on the first day and stayed at those tables the whole semester — there wasn’t enough interaction between students at different tables.
I’m currently finishing Salka Valka, a long novel by Halldór Laxness. Once the semester starts and my time is more broken up, it’s hard to concentrate on a long novel. There are also a lot of tasks I have to keep track of. That means it’s time to listen to the self-titled 1979 debut from the band The Specials —probably the greatest productivity album ever recorded (though this was almost certainly not the band’s main intention).
Corey Pompey
Michael E. Leckrone Director of Athletic Bands and Associate Director of Bands
The semester starts a bit earlier for me, so when classes start it’s actually a big relief. This year, the first football game was scheduled before the semester even started, so things were already quite busy as we prepared early. The first rehearsal of the “official” UW Marching Band — or the 2024-2025 edition — was on August 19. But before that, we had leadership meetings and rehearsals for returning members. I have other classes and responsibilities in the Mead Witter School of Music, as well, so I also need to focus on those. Admittedly, it’s a balancing act, because my life is temporarily consumed with getting the marching band up and going. For me, the convocation events prior to the first day of class are always a highlight.
Zoe Todd
Assistant professor of chemistry and astronomy
Preparing for a new semester of teaching is always a lot of fun, but it can be challenging to get right, as well. I try to make sure my syllabus clearly outlines the goals and expectations of the course — if we’re all starting out on the same page, I think it makes the process go more smoothly. I also attempt to have my first few weeks of homework and discussions planned out so that when everything starts to get really busy, those materials are ready to go. I always look at my class roster ahead of time and do my best to study it so that I have an easier time learning names quickly.
Perhaps the most stressful (but also most exciting!) part is walking into the classroom on the first day. My biggest goal for the first few classes is to convince students that I’m on their side, and I want to be their partner in learning this semester. I believe we can best achieve their goals if we all put in the mutual effort of making the class is a good experience. I also tell many bad jokes in my first few classes (and beyond) so that students get used to my weird sense of humor.
Joshua Calhoun
Associate professor of English
I had to slack off when class was a sea of masked faces due to the pandemic, but this fall, I’ve recommitted — with a great deal of apprehension — to learning the names of each of my students in my large Shakespeare lecture. I will fail or barely pass at best. That’s okay. In my experience, few pedagogical strategies offer as much return on investment. Plus, the students are generous: They routinely give me half-credit for partially correct names.
Students feel seen when you speak to them by name, and that cuts two ways: They’re acknowledged as a meaningful part of a learning community, but they’re also expected to engage and participate. I also suspect there are a good many students here who don’t regularly hear their names used. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate my Rileys, Emmas and Logans (and Joshuas!), but when learning 200+ names, I find it easier to learn and use names I don’t encounter as often.
My best teachers were eager learners who got excited, not embarrassed, when confronted with something they didn’t know. Now my students get to see me struggle with something that truly challenges me even, as they struggle with subject matter that challenges them. It seems like a fair bargain — and it makes a crowd feel like a community.
John Hawks
Vilas-Borghesi Distinguished Achievement Professor and Chair of the Department of Anthropology
I’ve just returned from South Africa, where we have been busy working on some amazing new fossils, and I already miss everyone on the team. But I’m excited to greet new graduate students, our first-year students and our new faculty members. I always love it when all of our anthropologists come back from different parts of the world and share their stories. That’s an important part of how we get into the new semester, sharing what we have done in other countries, with communities and colleagues from different places and cultures. One of my favorite things is bringing those stories into the classroom for our students in Madison.