Students as partners

Betsy Huang joined the Clark faculty in 2003. Just three years later she received the University's highest teaching honor, the Outstanding Teacher Award. In her teaching and research on ethnicity in literature, Huang is always looking for new ways to let her students experience literature and its themes, sometimes outside the confines of the traditional classroom. Here she discusses her role as both mentor and partner to her students and how that relationship helps inform her teaching and research.

I don't separate teaching and research. For me, working with students in both of these areas is intertwined. In the classroom I begin my courses with a set of course materials on the syllabus, but then students are encouraged to bring in other forms of cultural production to help us think about how perceptions of ethnicity are shaped. For example, in my Ethnic American Literature course, I assign fiction, autobiography, and secondary texts. While we look at those texts in relation to race and ethnicity, my students are encouraged to bring in popular cultural influences to our discussions. That could include examples from the new ³Survivor² series that is segregated by race to feature films, fashion, food, art, and music. Their contribution has a tremendous impact on how we think about the material and how I shape the class.

As I think about new ways to engage my students with the course material, I'm also always looking for resources for new course development. For example, one semester, I was able to get some funding to take my graduate seminar on Ethnic Literature to see a Broadway show in New York City. We saw ³Bridge and Tunnel² starring Sarah Jones. It's a one-woman show in which she impersonates a number of immigrants who come to live in New York City. This is the kind of experience that takes students out of the confines of the classroom where you're talking about everything in the abstract. Instead, I took them down to New York City, the bed of diversity, and had them see an unconventional Broadway show, put on by someone who is openly and explicitly addressing issues of ethnicity and race. It proved to be an incredibly valuable experience for all of us. The talk among the students in the van coming back to Clark was unparalleled. You can't get that kind of dialogue in the classroom.

My students know I'm going to make use of their feedback not just in the classroom but also in my research. Right now I'm working on a book about three contemporary genre fictions‹immigrant fiction, science fiction and crime fiction‹to see how each participates in the shaping of American culture. Because this is an emerging area, my mind has not been made up about anything that I study. It's very open-ended for me. And students take a very active part in helping me formulate my theories. I want them to be engaged in the research and to understand that they're not just sitting around a seminar table listening and responding to my views and findings. Rather, I rely on their point of view to inform my work.

The students at Clark know the importance of thinking hard and working hard. And they understand how it all contributes to a very fulfilling and rewarding four years at college. I feel that it really is a tremendous honor as a junior faculty member to be nominated and to win the Outstanding Teacher Award. I have the students to thank for it.

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