David Sumner wants to start a conversation - in the classroom, in the community and virtually anywhere people meet

Mileham, Mardi

English

DigitalCommons@Linfield

Linfield Magazine Volume 3 Number 3 Winter 2007 Article 10 Winter 2007 Taking the Conversation from the Class to the Community Mardi Mileham Linfield College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.linfield.edu/linfield_magazine Recommended Citation Mileham, Mardi (2007) "Taking the Conversation from the Class to the Community," Linfield Magazine: Vol. 3 : No. 3 , Article 10. Available at: https://digitalcommons.linfield.edu/linfield_magazine/vol3/iss3/10 This article is brought to you for free via open access, courtesy of DigitalCommons@Linfield. For more information, please contact digitalcommons@linfield.edu. David Sumner wants to start a conversation - in theclassroom, in the community and virtually anywherepeople meet.This conversation is anything but idle chatter - it’sfilled with references to literature and rich personalexperiences motivated by a genuine interest in hearingthe discoveries and ideas of others.That desire to generate discussions helped launchMacReads, an annual community book club open to alllocal residents, book enthusiasts, and high school andcollege classes. Once the text is selected, a series of con-versations is organized, usually led by Linfield facultyand McMinnville residents.The program culminates ina campus reading by the author, where participantsengage in a wide-ranging discussion. Selections haveincluded David James Duncan’s The Brothers K andDavid Quammen’s Song of the Dodo. This year’s book isTracy Kidder’s Mountains Beyond Mountains:The Quest ofDr. Paul Farmer, A Man Who Would Cure the World.Kidder will present a reading at Linfield on March 1 aspart of presidential inauguration week activities.Sumner, an assistant professor of English and direc-tor of the college writing program, believes a core valueof a liberal education is to engage the wider communi-ty in discussions about important and interesting issues.One way to do that is through literature. Every poem,novel or play makes an argument and that argument hasimplications for how people interact and live together,he said.“If we are going to exist as a community, we haveto be able to share our beliefs with one another,” headded. “I’m very interested in how the arguments wemake and the way we negotiate our views as a commu-nity lead us down certain paths. Can we do that in away that respects the human being behind it? Can wedo that in a way where we actually engage ideas that arebeyond the prejudices we all bring to the table?”That same attitude permeates his classroom, whereSumner encourages students to think critically, connectreasons with their beliefs and express their ideas in apublic way.“I want my students to think about how we evalu-ate the world and how we talk about it, without beingfoolishly simplistic,” he said.“I want to engage in a kindof ethical dialogue, but an ethical dialogue that issophisticated, nuanced and not reductive.”Barbara Seidman, dean of faculty, commendsSumner for “placing his considerable expertise andenthusiasm to work as an advocate for the role of writ-ing - and reading closely the good writing of others -as a vehicle for the deep learning that epitomizes a lib-eral arts education.”Sumner, an outdoor enthusiast, specializes inAmerican nature writing and western American litera-ture. He will take his expertise to the University ofBayreuth in Germany this spring under the prestigiousFulbright Junior Faculty Lectureship program.There hewill teach two courses: Western Myth and WesternLiterature, and American Nature Writing. Sumnerbelieves teaching and living in a different culture willhelp him broaden his perspective, which will benefit hisstudents as well as himself.Watching students begin to formulate their ownworld view - as opposed to their teachers’ or their par-ents’ - is the inspiration that keeps him in the classroom.“The most exciting thing about teaching is whenthe students encounter ideas and begin to take com-mand, to think about them and begin to negotiate theirrelationship with the world for themselves,” he said.“It’sexciting to come across a new idea or a new way of see-ing an idea.Your world expands or adjusts or slightlychanges.And that’s what education should be.”– Mardi MilehamDavid Sumner, assistant professor of English and director of thewriting center, encourages his students to think critically andexpress their ideas during discussions in the classroom. W I N T E R  2 0 0 7 -   1 9Taking theconversationfrom theclass to the community

Taking the Conversation from the Class to the Community

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Taking the Conversation from the Class to the Community

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