In the last installment of the Faculty Fellows Speaker Series, Donna Swaim, a senior classics lecturer, spoke about forming better connections with others Wednesday in the Gallagher Theater.
Swaim said she believes "each one of us is a metaphorical bridge." She said she wants to rid students of the misconception that faculty members are unapproachable, and faculty of the misconception that students are uninterested, rude and sleep through class by bridging the gap between the two.
"I think the purpose of life is to build bridges," Swaim said.
Swaim said she bridged the faculty-student gap last year when she helped Ivan Radenovic, an undeclared sophomore and men's basketball player, become acquainted to life in America. By doing so, she said she was able to bridge the gap of her own ignorance of Serbia. Radenovic came to the United States from Serbia to play basketball and attend school in November 2003.
Swaim said human beings can build metaphorical bridges with things they have in common such as age, geography and economics, which enable them to learn from and help those otherwise different from them.
As an educator, Swaim said she has worked with many 18- to 24-year-olds, and sees a bridge between them and young adults from around the world. She talked about the film "20-year-olds in the Middle East," in which she saw young people with the same worries as Americans of getting a job after college, getting married and starting a family, and facing the chance of going to war.
Swaim said the most important bridge we can build is that between self and self-awareness. She spoke of psychology professor Robert Bechtel, who recently admitted to his students and university administrators that he killed a classmate while in college in 1955.
Swaim said she was proud of Bechtel for becoming self-aware and sharing his experience with those around him.
"Unless we become aware of human perspective, we cannot change our behavior," Swaim said.
Swaim said she gained a stronger perspective of self-awareness in 1978, when she worked as an academic adviser in a prison. She said her experience of watching young men learn about themselves in prison allowed her to expand her sense of reality.
"Every now and then, a teaching moment will arise," Swaim said.
She added that people have to think about how to take advantage of those situations when they arise.
Swaim has been a UA employee for 47 years. She helped found the Faculty Fellows program in 1984.
Faculty Fellows was created to connect students with faculty outside the classroom. It is part of the Building Academic Community Initiative of the Dean of Students Office, and won the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators Innovative Programming Award in 1999.
The Speaker Series is coordinated by Jeffrey Warburton, an associate theater arts professor, and sponsored by the Faculty Fellows, Dean of Students Office, UofA Bookstore and the Arizona Student Union Memorial Center.
The Faculty Fellows Speaker Series will continue next semester with speakers every Wednesday.