Liberal Arts
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"I have been teaching the Japanese language for more than 10 years. My Berklee students are all really interested in Japanese culture and language. I think most of them want to go to Japan. And another thing is they have Japanese friends here, and they want to be able to communicate to their friends. Every semester I have at least two or three students who have boyfriends or girlfriends who are Japanese. That's the reason they come to the class. They will study for one semester, and then when they have a vacation they will go to Japan and see their girlfriends' and boyfriends' parents. I think it's a good incentive to learn a language!"
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Ron Clark, Associate Professor
DEPARTMENT : Liberal Arts Department"I hope that students are able to apply these lessons to future tasks without my guidance. I make connections to real-life writing that students will need to do for their careers, such as cover letters, reports, scholarship applications, and press kit materials. They need to see that writing a good essay is really the same as writing a good cover letter."
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Rekha Menon, Professor
DEPARTMENT : Liberal Arts Department"I've always been interested in the interdisciplinary nature of the arts, and at Berklee I have the opportunity to integrate music, dance, and visual art and teach courses such as Indian Art, Music and Dance, Asian Art, and Global Perspectives in Post-Modern Art. Music doesn't stand alone, but works together with visual art and dance, with its emphasis on breaking down the categorical boundaries between 'distinct' art forms. The interdisciplinary nature of my courses gives students the opportunity to see how art history, music, dance, and philosophy are mutually related."
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Sally Blazar, Professor
DEPARTMENT : Liberal Arts Department"Especially with first-year students, a lot of what I'm doing in addition to teaching English is introducing them to college, to a different way of thinking and interacting with others. I have a background in ESL, as well as literature. This background has led me to approach language—in academic essays, in literature, in speaking—as a means of communicating."
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Douglas Kohn, Professor
DEPARTMENT : Liberal Arts Department"I look for readings that are interesting both to me and hopefully to my students. I won't use anything in class that I don't think is well written. In the literature classes, I tend to draw from the literary end of popular fiction. I find something contemporary, then make the connection to a classic. So, for example, if I wanted to teach Oedipus I would find a modern version, then go back to the original."
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"This college being what it is, I try to integrate music into the fabric of my classes, even the classes in literature. When Sal and Dean drive cross-country in a '54 Hudson, what's on the radio? It's mostly bebop, but they might have had an ear for rock and r&b as well: Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, Fats Domino."
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Anne Squire, Associate Professor
DEPARTMENT : Liberal Arts Department"Being in a musical environment, it makes sense to use songs as a learning tool. Singing canons, translating lyrics, and listening to popular or art songs have been fun class activities. As a native of France, I consider discussing French culture as another important aspect of my teaching. And because of the international student body of Berklee, comparing our cultures always lead to very interesting exchanges."
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Emma Romeu, Assistant Professor
DEPARTMENT : Liberal Arts Department"Students need Spanish in many senses. They need it to communicate with the public sometimes, because they have many kinds of audiences. They need Spanish to speak with producers who can hire them in other countries, to speak with other musicians. If they have a group and they have a pianist who speaks Spanish, they can make the situation more comfortable for everybody. They need Spanish to sing, too. They ask me a lot of musical terms. All the time I have in mind that they are artists. I don't forget it."
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- M.F.A., University of Pittsburgh
- Published in local and national newspapers and magazines
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"In addition to wanting my students to consider things from more than one perspective, I'd like them to take away a real sense of how connected they are. They talk a lot about how hard that can be: how fast-paced things are and how even with technology you can stay connected but you're not in the same room. I think a lot of things they experience at Berklee do let them feel a sense of community—and not just the college community, but also Boston and the much larger global community they're interacting with on a regular basis."
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