Rethink Higher Education is topic of lecture

Scholar Mark C. Carnes will present his first of a four part lecture series today at Eastern Michigan University in the Student Center auditorium from 6-7:30 p.m. “Football, Booze, and Other Diversions: Win the Battle for Students’ Hearts and Minds,” will be the first topic of discussion for Carnes’ lecture series, Rethink Higher Education.

The professor will not only be speaking on how to engage students in the classroom but on his inventive way of teaching history known as “Reacting to the Past.” Over the past decade, the Reacting Method has spread to more than 300 colleges and universities, including Eastern Michigan University.

Carnes developed his method in 1995 while working in his specialty of American history on the campuses of Columbia University and Barnard University. The professor has written many books, and his work has been printed in many publications. Carnes is also executive secretary of the Society of American Historians.

Carnes is a faculty member of Barnard University in New York City.

“From the many hundreds of Eastern students who’ve done Reacting games in my classes, I am convinced that this pedagogy offers a powerful way of engaging students’ minds and emotions in constructive learning tasks,” said history professor Mark Higbee, who helped bring the new method to Eastern.

“It’s not a replacement for other types of teaching, but it is a new type and students typically love it— after an initial period of confusion.”

One of these games, typically known as the Athens game, involves students taking the role of speakers in ancient assemblies debating the birth of democracy as though they are the students of Socrates or the followers of Thrasybulus.

“It makes me think of the different arguments in different ways then what I normally would,” freshman Zach Weatherbee said. “However, it is kind of hard to know what exactly the classes are going to be about. That is also good in a way because you have to be prepared for anything.”

Weatherbee, who is in a Reacting class, has taken interest in the lecture circuit.
“I think that it is a good method,” he said.

At the workshop, Higbee “played” a part in the French revolution. After helping to bring the method to Eastern, he has begun developing his own “games.”

Carnes and Higbee will be at the lecture; however only Carnes will be lecturing. For more information contact Diane L. Winder at the College of Arts and Science dean’s office at 734-487-4344 or dwinder@emich.edu.