Susan Scheckel teaches nineteenth-century literature and culture with a special interest in the history of race and nationalism.  In the Spring of 2009, she taught a GLS 102 course entitled “Early 20th-Century Immigrants in NYC.”  In the class, students read accounts of immigrants, did group projects on an immigrant group in the early part of the twentieth century, and interviewed an immigrant.  Two of the students in that class won the Humanities’ Institute Undergraduate Award to pursue their final project for the class on Muslims in America as a documentary film.  I talked to her in early September 2009 about her experience. 

How did you choose the topic?

It’s a topic that I knew.  When I was asked to do this course for Global Studies, I thought, “I know nothing about Global Studies!  I teach 19th Century American literature! It’s not very global.”  But in my survey courses, I had always had a segment on immigration during that period.  This had worked very well in the classroom and had stirred a lot of feelings and personal stories, and I thought it might translate well to the student body here, which comes from a wide range of backgrounds.  I chose to keep the focus on what I know.  I wanted to give them a sample of what it is that I do know, and what it is that a professor of this subject does.  I wanted to give them a glimpse of a professor at work in his or her specialty, so I could do that rigorously and truly, not reaching too far outside my expertise.  I wanted to give them a sample of what they would get if they took an English class with me, and how a professor looks at things from multiple points of views. 

I was trained in American Studies, so we read Jacob Riis’s How the Other Half Lives.  It’s documentary journalism, covering the conditions of the poor, the immigrant population in the New York City tenements.  We look at the photographs, and students respond much more readily and openly to photographs than they do to the written word.  I started with the photographs as a way to get them to respond, to identify, to open up the general issues.  Then we read a variety of first-person narratives from a variety of ethnic groups, so they could see some of the ways that people had structured their immigration stories, some of the themes, some of the pressures in this range of stories.  I had them read one kind of fictionalized account, because I teach fiction.  I wanted to give them a taste of that.  That was the least successful, because unless they are choosing to take a literature course, they ask, “Why are we analyzing this story by Stephen Crane (Maggie: A Girl of the Streets)?”  He was trying to dramatize the same group with his words that Jacob Riis was trying to bring to light through photographs and journalism, so I thought it would resonate, but I found there that one of the limitations of teaching this group of students is that you can’t ask them to do too much work outside of class.  You have to choose the thing which you can fully engage in the space of the class.  That’s why the photographs were great; you put them in front of them.  I had them each order the book, so they had their own versions to look at carefully, but later, I might even do just the slides for them.  You can talk it through with them and get them to think.  They are happy to think pretty rigorously, but they see this as added on and extra. 

Two of the students from your GLS course won the Humanities Grant.  Can you tell me more about that?

I was so thrilled!  Two of the students [Yaseen Eldik and Keri Pretorius] wanted to work together on their final project instead of doing it independently. They were both interested in attitudes towards Muslims in this point in history in America, and wanted to make their project focused on that and interview a variety of Muslim and Non-Muslim students here and make that their interview.  And I thought, “This is a fabulous idea!”  I knew about the competition sponsored by the Humanities Institute that supports students in some kind of research or creative endeavor that they want to pursue independently.  They give limited funding to carry out a project and give them a venue for sharing what they learned.  I told the whole class. 

I tried to call attention to everything they could apply for.  There was a writing contest for Chinese-American Students, so I copied that and passed it out.  I know that there is a scholarship fund for students who are in Global Studies, who are in the Freshman College that one could apply for.  [I made them aware of] anything I knew about that undergraduate students could apply for.  I also made this the opportunity to teach them to make the most out of Stony Brook, and I kept giving them pep talks, saying that if you have a good idea, don’t let it die.  There are endless opportunities, but you have got to go and find them.  I told them if you had the interest, the time, the energy, this could turn into something full, not just a project for a 1-credit course.  So when I handed out the information about the Humanities Institute Award, they took me up on it and wrote a project description.  I worked with them to revise it and get it into the proper form, and it won! 

It’s the first time this prize has ever gone to freshmen.  Usually it is given to someone doing their Honor’s project, or a senior culminating experience, but the fact that it went to freshmen is great, because it is early enough that they can see where this idea leads, so they’ll get recognition right away.  They’ll have a platform to share what they’ve learned, get feedback.  With their initiative, I am sure they will continue to find support for doing what they ultimately what they want to do, which is a documentary that looks at Stony Brook as a kind of case study.  We have more Muslim students than any public university in the country, and it’s a tremendous place to be examining things.  There was a lot of attention right after 9-11, but now it would be interesting to reassess and see where those attitudes are.  Yaseen, who is a Muslim student, still feels it in subtle ways.  He is very well connected, too; his mother is the chaplain for the Muslim Students’ Organization, so he is in a wonderful position to take this idea that came out of reflecting on immigration in the past, immigration today. 

We are following up with an independent study this year so I can follow them as best I can.  I don’t know how to make movies, I am not a documentary film-maker, but I trust in them, and we can read through things together.  I can guide them in the process of gathering research and coming up with good questions and continue to try to find the people who are able to help them.  It is not a conventional literature independent study, but it will have elements of narrative, doing research, synthesizing what you read, and coming up with an analytical, interpretive framework to guide them as they try to conduct their interviews and do enough research on the situation not only in Stony Brook but also on Long Island and in the nation to contextualize just enough to come up with at least a rudimentary documentary set of interviews that I hope will be good enough to win them support from someone else who will be able to bring it to the next level.  So I see it as the first step.  The joy of working with freshmen is that if you start something, there is a lot of chance for it to mature, and I am only now trying to connect with some of the people who are in film and media who can help them as they try to make a more polished product; but for now, I’ll help them with the intellectual framework, the research, and weaving what they have into a good story.  I’ll do what I can, but we’ll learn together.  They are good enough, smart enough, and motivated enough that I know it will work, if we all put our heads together, we will learn together. 

What did you get out of teaching the course?

The pleasure of teaching freshmen.  I always used to volunteer freshmen writing when I was in departments that had it, because I like having contact with freshmen.  I think you can make a big difference if you can reach students when they are freshmen, when they are adjusting their attitudes towards this whole enterprise.  Every time you are in a new environment, there is a period of orienting yourself and deciding what is possible, so I like having contact with students at that point.  I also learned a lot from just hearing their stories.  They were wonderful stories, very moving stories.  Some of the students’ own personal stories reminded me of the kinds of students we have here, the kinds of sacrifices often they and their parents have made in order to be here.  It’s a really exceptional student body, and you can forget that or not realize it when you are up in front of about 100 students instead of the more intimate setting.  Because of the nature of this topic, it got them talking about what brought them here, what brought their parents here, what kinds of dangers and sacrifices their parents or grandparents went through so that they could have this opportunity.  So it was a good reminder of why I am teaching at a public university, and what I love about teaching at a public university.