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Introducing Spartan Talks

by Patrick Grubbs, Assitant Dean, Humanities and Social Sciences


About three years ago I spent some time thinking about my field, History, and what all my discipline had to offer students at NCC. In thinking about this I wondered what a class entitled “What is History?” might look like for students. I envisioned a semester long course where each week a different member of the History faculty presented their favorite topics to the class. Through this intellectual smorgasbord of classes, students would get a taste of not only different historical periods and topics, but also of different teaching styles and professors. Administratively speaking a course such as this would be difficult to conduct, especially at a community college. However, some ideas tend to evolve over time, which is what happened here. As TED talks became more relevant, popular, and powerful over the past three years the premise behind them blended with my idea about a shared History course. This evolution and blend ultimately brought about the creation of what will now be known as “Spartan Talks.” “Spartan Talks” is a project that is designed to provide faculty with an opportunity to present their favorite topics in their field to the student body, and other faculty, in order to provide a sample, or taste, of not only their discipline, but also themselves and their teaching style.


Here is our mission and goals:

Mission: To work with Northampton Community College faculty to provide an arena for open, academic thought on engaging topics across various disciplines.


Purpose / Goals: To work with Northampton Community College faculty, primarily adjunct faculty, in organizing multiple educational talks focused on enlightening the student body on engaging topics across various disciplines. Talks are designed to be short, no more than 20-minutes in length, and are to focus on a topic within the faculty members primary discipline of study. These talks have three targeted goals: to promote the faculty, to promote a discipline, and to enlarge academic knowledge and curiosity amongst the student body. In order to promote these goals, the talks will provide a venue for faculty, with priority given to adjunct faculty, to promote themselves, their teaching style, and their primary area of interest, to the student body. Ultimately, the focus is to open the student body up to topics, areas of educational interest, disciplines, and faculty who they might not originally have been exposed to, in order to enlarge academic knowledge and spark intellectual curiosity amongst the student body.


If this idea intrigues you, and you would like to be a part of the introductory group of “Spartan Talks” presenters we are asking that you email us at: pgrubbs@northampton.edu and spartantalks@northampton.edu, with your name, topic, and an abstract of your presentation. Our goal is to hold the first session of “Spartan Talks” the first week of April during the T/R club period times. Thank you.

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