Steven Sargent, who received the
Stillman Prize for Excellence in Teaching, recalls the pride he felt in
watching a former student present her research at a conference.
“Christine Brennan ('91) was the
best researcher I ever supervised for senior thesis,” said the professor of
history. “After graduate school she became a curator of the medieval collection
at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. I hadn't seen her in several years, and
watching her present her research among established names in her field made me
feel proud and grateful to have had a hand in her intellectual development.”
He also recalls a chance meeting
at a Schenectady restaurant with another former student who had taken his
European history survey: “He said that he had found the course very stimulating
and as a result had become a history major, gone on to graduate school, and
ended up teaching American history at Guilderland High School. He came over to
my table, he said, to thank me for having gotten him interested in history and
influencing his choice of career.”
Encounters like those, Sargent
says, illustrate the significance and rewards of teaching at Union
College. “Since my first term in
the Fall of 1982, I have always strived to awaken in my students a love of
learning, a strong curiosity to understand how the past affects the present,
and a desire to use their educations to enrich their adult lives.”
Sargent began his professional
life as a systems engineer at Bell Telephone Laboratories in Holmdel,
N.J. But when he wasn't working as an
engineer, he immersed himself in English literature and medieval history, his
passion since ninth grade. It was C. Warren Hollister's Medieval Europe: A Short History that prompted him to re-start his
career as a historian.
He went on to earn his Ph.D. from
the University of Pennsylvania,
writing his dissertation on the social history of medieval religion, his area
of specialization.
He arrived at Union
in 1982 to what he calls a “good environment, a place where a student can be an
engineer and study the humanities.” Sargent recently teamed with Prof. Ashraf
Ghaly to offer a course called “Construction for Humanity,” which investigated
the history of human building.
“I encourage my students to
consider their education as a golden opportunity to seek out and adopt ideas
that will aid them in constructing a meaningful life,” he said. “If they are to
resist simply becoming products of their culture and to have real choices about
how to live their lives, young people must have lots of ideas to choose
from.
“The most important stimulus to
great teaching is caritas or love of
one's fellow human beings. An appreciation of history as a humanistic
discipline drives my enthusiasm in class, and the goal of getting the students
to think deeply about their lives leads me to present them with significant
intellectual challenges.
“In the end, the real joy of
teaching comes from helping young people become successful human beings. Second
only to their parents, teachers play a crucial role in forming students'
characters. The joy we feel when we see them presenting scholarly papers or
reporting on their personal and professional achievements rests on the
satisfaction of having helped them realize their human potential. Their success
becomes our success and enriches our lives. We in turn communicate our joy to
each new generation of undergraduates and transmit to them the lessons of
living well. Long after we retire, our efforts on their behalf will bear fruit
in their lives and in those of the people they love. Given the opportunity to
produce so much good, who could resist feeling joyful?”