17
With your
credentials,
you could be
on the faculty
anywhere.
Why do you
choose to teach
at St. John’s?
St. John’s is a choice-
worthy place to teach for
two main reasons. First,
one is not only allowed
to have a broad range of
intellectual interests, but
a tutor is also expected
to pursue those interests
with colleagues on the
faculty and in the student
body. Second, the
responsibility for learning
is placed much more
What author
or work from
the program
intimidates
you most?
As I am not a mathemati-
cian by nature or by
training, I find all the work
we do in mathematics and
laboratory particularly
challenging. I deal with
the difficulty by spending
many hours poring over
the texts and experiments
and when, even then,
I still don’t get it I have
learned not to be afraid to
say so. My colleagues and
my students help me out.
I take very seriously the
role of co-learner and
have come to enjoy
working through difficult
Mr. George Russell, Tutor
Ph.D., Philosophy
The Catholic University of America
Ms. Judith Seeger, Tutor
Ph.D., Romance Languages and Literatures
The University of Chicago
on the shoulders of the
students than at other
places. But then, the
various engagements
between the tutors and
the students are routinely
more serious than those
of the ordinary lecture
hall. Here, on a daily basis,
tutors assist students
who come to class with
questions and concerns
that emerge, not out of
the concerns and interests
of the tutors, but out of
the students’ encounters
with the subject matter
of the class.
texts with others who may
have little if any more
experience with them than
I have. About two of our
readings in particular,
which are notoriously
difficult—Kant’s Critique
of Pure Reason and
Hegel’s Phenomenology
of Spirit—I told myself,
“
This is only a book.
How hard can it be?”
When I discovered that
they were very hard
indeed, I reminded myself
that I was not, in fact,
there to teach the material,
but to learn in conversa-
tion with others. Remem-
bering that keeps me
appropriately humble.