Re ach ing H igher attraction to the position. “Rhodes is such a lively intellectual community,” Bakewell notes. “It has a wonderful mix of students who are interested in lots of different things. The faculty is equally committed to teaching and research. A lot of places talk that talk, but don’t walk that walk. But Rhodes really does.” A classicist and member of the Greek and Roman Studies Department, Bakewell teaches in as well as directs Search. Managing a diverse staff and recruiting new faculty are his top priorities. He says he enjoys getting to know the interests and personalities of his colleagues while taking on the challenge of seeking out a variety of professors to teach in the program. He is also responsible for organizing the Douglass Seminar, a faculty workshop held each May that allows the Search faculty to troubleshoot everything from course mechanics to the all-important choice of authors and readings. The discussions are typically spirited, occasionally contentious and often humorous. Bakewell describes the experience as “a combination of summer camp and going back to school. It’s exciting to get people together from different disciplines,” he says. “We are really living what we’re telling our students to do, which is to go on and keep learning.” Inevitably, there are different scholarly approaches to the topics covered in Search, but faculty members agree that preserving and improving the crossdisciplinary agenda of the program is paramount to its success. Each professor is attentive to the fact that academic disciplines must not be segregated in order for the course to accomplish its mission. This is both an exciting and challenging concept for faculty. Political Science professor Daniel Cullen has been a member of the Rhodes faculty for 22 years and has participated in the Search program for nearly as long. “What’s unique about Search is that it’s not a course taught by specialists. Every one of us is a specialist in something, but none of us is a specialist in everything that Search covers,” Cullen explains. In other words, the professors often fi nd themselves in two roles— teacher and student in their own classes. Having just completed teaching in her second
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Rhodes Welcomes New Head of Search.indd 3
academic year at Rhodes, Music professor Vanessa Rogers already appreciates her part in the interdisciplinary program. When asked how music fits into the curriculum, Rogers explains: “Music is always a product of the cultural, historical, political period that it comes out of. So it makes perfect sense that music would be a part of the Search program. For example, Martin Luther was a musician. He was extremely interested in how music worked in his new vision for the church and about what congregational singing meant for religion.” Much like the faculty, Rhodes students appreciate the intellectual diversity of the Search curriculum. Political Science major Mary Frances Dunlap ’12 was able to explore her interests in political philosophy in light of many other fields through the course. “I think that this approach to learning makes people a little bit more flexible in how they approach problems and how they try to work with people who are coming from completely different perspectives,” she says. Senior Chemistry major Maha Bano most appreciated the discussion-based nature of her classes. Bano remembers her professors often teaching by mediating conversations among students. When asked how Search has influenced her studies in the seemingly unrelated field of Chemistry, Bano reflects, “Search taught me how to think. Down the road, I may not remember every detail of every story I read, but it
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