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Rebecca Stanton
Appendix: Unsolicited Student Testimonials
"Now that I am home, safe and sound, and I have 30 seconds to stop and reflect on my first year at C.U….I realize how lucky I am! I really enjoyed your class this year […] Not only were your ideas so clear and interesting, but they were brilliantly presented, too! And the best part is--you got me to think! By writing papers for your class, I surprised myself with how much I learned. Future classes will be so lucky to have you! […] Thank you for a great year."
----------------- "Once again, thank you for such a wonderful class. I am one of those few weirdos who actually came here for the core, and your Lit. Hum. class was better than I was even hoping for. Have a wonderful summer."
----------------- "I wanted to thank you again for all your help. I really enjoyed this year. You are an amazing teacher and I feel privileged to have been in your class."
----------------- "Not to overplay this sadness of things ending....but I HAVE to say that I feel infinitely infinitely lucky to have had you as a professor and the class and students that we did...something I really didn't think about first semester. I honestly don't think that I would have gotten nearly as much out of Lit. Hum. as I did if things weren't so and if we didn't have you to lead us through the texts. […]..Point being...you should know that and ...thanks."
----------------- "I just wanted to say thank you so much for everything! And just so you know, I've read most of the articles on the Current Events [Web] page too. I haven't found time yet to post; however, I had meant to tell you how much I appreciate you taking the time to do this for our class. Your commitment to true freedom of speech and ideas is apparent: you've supplied us from information written by everyone from Lynn Cheney to Noam Chomsky. As a college student who doesn't have as much time as he would like to be able to search the internet and periodicals for current events information, this has been really helpful to me."
----------------- "I just wanted to once again thank you for such a great year--people asked me which was better, Barnard [Pre-College Program] or Columbia [High School Program] and I really can't say. Even though the social aspect is a lot better this year […], your class, as well as Sean Sawyer's, was absolutely great. I was thinking about all the things we read with you--the Iliad, Macbeth, all those New Zealand stories, etc--and it really doesn't compare to the stuff we read this year. Thank you for being such a wonderful teacher and for having such a great class. "P.S. When my [high school] English class was discussing Macbeth I wowed everyone with analysis about gender role reversals and the religious undertones we saw. Thanks for that, too!"
----------------- "Thank you for helping me with my [graduate school application] statement, and thank you for being the one person at Columbia who has given me any sort of positive feedback on my decision to pursue graduate school. I owe you lots."
----------------- "Thanks so much for this year. Although 9 a.m. was an ungodly hour to be up in the morning, I really enjoyed the class and feel like I learned a ton from you and my classmates. Hopefully I'll be this lucky in CC next year. Thanks again."
----------------- "I really enjoyed your class this year. You not only taught us well, explained clearly, and always made time for our questions, but you kept class interesting and gave us confidence."
"I really enjoy your class, it's my favorite class, I will very likely concentrate in Russian and spend a semester in Russia. […] Thanks for everything."
----------------- "Now that the grades are in I feel I can be honest with you: There was not one day that I did not look forward to our class meetings. You turned the tarnished jewel in the crown of Columbia's Core Curriculum into an intellectually exciting experience. Additionally you are someone who (or whom, I was and am very shaky on that rule) I respect, and that is a very small group of people. Thank you very much."
----------------- "Your class was a delight, not merely because it was fun to be on the other side of the table after so many years but because you brought such verve and brilliance to it. Beginning Russian at this age has been a lesson in modesty, but you made it a very agreeable one."
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