In a corner of the Ablah Library, freshmen stood next to creative poster presentations while library visitors listened to rehearsed speeches about a host of topics, from groupies and indie music to nerd culture and Elvis Presley. At a glimpse, the group may seem like a club — in reality, this public display developed from a first-year seminar: History and Rock ‘n’ Roll.
Lillie Ellison, a first-year nursing major, did her poster on rumors in pop culture history.
When describing Jeff Hayton, the associate professor teaching the course, Ellison said that as a “flashy teacher,” it was “very much in his range” for him to publicly display students’ posters. Regardless, Ellison said she appreciated his “unique style” of teaching.
Mason Rhoads, a student who did his project on the widespread influence of the band Black Sabbath, said that Hayton was “hands-off” for this research project, an aspect that is complementary to his usual style of teaching — open-discussion and student-led.
“Usually, he talks and (lets students) butt in whenever, so it’s an open discussion, ” Rhoads said. “He lets us work on our own and come to him with feedback.”
For Hayton, allowing students to rely on their critical thinking skills and own interests was intentional, rather than committing to a strict set of directions.
“Everybody chose a topic they were interested in, and as far as I was concerned, it didn’t matter too much,” Hayton said. “Really, what we’re doing in this class, and in this assignment, is developing our research skills that they’re going to use for all of their different classes throughout their university career.”
Take Ellison. When discussing her project, she offered insight into the larger context behind rumors — like people faking their own death — in history, rather than just the basic facts.
“People start rumors to explain the unexplainable,” Ellison said. “That can tell us a lot about the people who start them, based on what the rumor is.”
As for her classmate, Joshua Welch, rather than talking about a specific artist, he took a creative angle and did his project on rock muses, or as he put it, “the people that influenced influential songs.”
While Welch is a computer science major, he said the class has helped him “love music even more now that I’ve taken the class.”
Jasmine Sosa, who visited the event, said she enjoyed seeing people appreciate the music she grew up listening to, genres like heavy metal and classic rock.
“It was just really interesting to see, and refreshing to know people like these subjects still,” Sosa said. “And, you know, are talking about the good times, but also some of the bad, crazy times about rock and roll.”
While it may seem rigid to put first-year students’ finals up for public airing, Hayton said the decision was in part to help develop much-needed skills for their college career such as “learning how to use the library” and learning “how to present their work to others.”
“In so many of our classes, we do assignments that nobody gets to see … or eventually goes in a closet or something, and we never are able to show off what we’ve done,” Hayton said. “They (students) were interested in what other people had to say as well. So I think that that was really beneficial for them.”
