Letter from Rebecca Bates '88

January 9, 2011

Professor William Wagner

Dean of the Faculty

Williams College

Williamstown, MA

Dear Dean Wagner,

I am writing to you today concerning Professor Sheafe Satterthwaite.  As one of Sheafe’s former students, I have recently been contacted by other Williams alumni who shared with me their sincere concern that Sheafe's contract will no longer be renewed.  As a newly tenured faculty member at a small liberal arts college, I respect how difficult it is to make personnel decisions, especially in this economic climate.  However, I cannot let this moment go by without expressing my sincere hope that this decision might be reversed for two reasons. First, given the length of his service to Williams, Sheafe should be granted the dignity of retiring at a moment of his choosing; second, Sheafe has been a pioneer in using creative pedagogies to engage a broad spectrum of students in his courses--something to be valued even in difficult economic periods. 

Like most other graduates of Williams, I received an excellent education: it was the foundation of my professional career as a historian and teacher.  I also believe that my time at Williams transformed my life and Sheafe was the central figure in that process. As such, I would like to share with you my experience as it speaks to what Williams will lose when Sheafe leaves.

I came to Williams from Cambridge, New York.  My education in the public school in this small town, just over the Green Mountains, had barely prepared me for the academic challenges at Williams.  I received very little guidance from my high school regarding higher education and applied to Williams only because my Sunday school teacher spoke so highly of the education he had received at Williams when he studied with Sheafe.  Here begins the influence of Sheafe as a great teacher:  building a reputation for Williams and attracting students to the campus without even knowing it!

As I walked onto the Williams College campus, a new world opened for me and I was eager to turn my back on where I had come from. I remember quite distinctly telling my parents that they were never to come to Williamstown without my permission. I certainly was not eager for my peers to know that I was the daughter of a plumber whose work commitments in his teen years meant that he had struggled to graduate from high school, or that my parents’ annual contribution to my college education was $400.

Needless to say, while at Williams I worked each term through the federal work-study program.  It was in this capacity that I first met Sheafe, as I was assigned to work at the library at the Center for Environmental Studies (CES).  As a first year student, I was quite honestly overwhelmed when Sheafe took the opportunity to speak with me at length and to ask me about my hometown and life in Cambridge, New York.  As anyone who has met Sheafe will attest, he has the chief characteristic needed for all learning: curiosity.  As I saw later in his classroom and in his conversations with community members, his enthusiasm for learning is infectious.

So many of the fine instructors I encountered at Williams certainly share with Sheafe this love of learning and curiosity.  However, for me, Sheafe stands apart from these others because his curiosity transcends disciplinary boundaries and actively illustrates his respect for all individuals.  What I observed in my first year working at CES was that Sheafe was profoundly dedicated to Williams.  He treated students, staff, and faculty on equal terms and respected them all.  He clearly illustrated his belief that “Mother Williams” was at her best when everyone was treated with dignity. 

Sheafe’s respect for others profoundly shapes his teaching. In my first year, one of my tasks at CES was to file student papers written for his class in American landscape history.  These papers, which had been arduously commented on by Sheafe, are a testament to his excellent teaching methods.  Well before collaborative learning had become an educational buzz term, Sheafe’s respect for student work and knowledge meant that he assigned students to read other student papers and to learn from each other.  These techniques were used in the classroom as well.  He knew every student and where he or she came from, and created an environment in which students were comfortable speaking and listening to each other. He also created an environment in which the students could apply knowledge that they already had to new circumstances. Whether you played lacrosse, were the daughter of a farmer, or a new immigrant to the United States, Sheafe engaged you in the subject matter by asking you to reflect upon your own knowledge and to engage with new ways of thinking.

 Another central element of one of his classes was a very elaborate field trip in which the class travelled from Troy, New York to points in Washington County.  I still cannot imagine the hours that Sheafe puts into his teaching or into his students.  This field trip, is also another example of innovative teaching (thirty years ahead of its time) and would now be categorized as “engaged learning” or “deep community-based learning,” for students are put into situations in which they apply classroom knowledge within the community.  The trip encouraged students to interact actively with a variety of individuals from diverse socio-economic backgrounds who were not of their own age. Williams College has always been profoundly shaped by being an isolated town nestled in the Purple Hills, Sheafe has used this to great advantage in teaching.  Most of the students aren’t from the Berkshires or rural New York – and so he has helped his students to see the world in a new way. 

Circling back to my own experience, after my first year at Williams I began to work for Sheafe, in addition I took one class with Sheafe and he supervised a Winter Study project in my senior year. During the four years that I knew Sheafe at Williams, he was continually asking me to consider new ways of thinking.  At times, he “simply” handed me a book.  As a British social historian, how can I express my gratitude now for the teacher who introduced me to E.P. Thompson’s The Making of the English Working Class and James Agee’s Let Us Now Praise Famous Men?  More frequently, he guided my thinking with a series of questions.  Or, he would ask me to go talk with “an expert” in the field.  Sheafe has an incredible network of experts to whom he often refers students, many of these are alumni, however, I learned from Sheafe that expertise is not always gained by formal education.  Experts in labor were people who spent all day stooped down picking vegetables, cultural experts in my village of Cambridge, New York included my father who had been inside a majority of the houses through his work as a plumber and knew the families' histories and places within the community. 

I came to Williams eager to “escape” my background, my home.  However, from Sheafe I learned skills of observation and a respect for all people that allowed me to bring the world of the mind together with the “real world”.    In the professional realm, Sheafe’s influence has shaped the questions I ask and the very subjects I investigate as witnessed by my writings on the relationship between philanthropy and the working class in Britain.  Likewise, Sheafe was a model teacher and as I enter my own classroom, I continually seek to be a teacher of his caliber.  But most significantly, my time at Williams, thanks to Sheafe, was a transformative education that allowed me to appreciate where I came from.  Through his influence, I believe I became a cosmopolitan thinker who could appreciate others – including my own family and community. I now teach at Berea College an institution devoted to "Learning, Labor, and Service." Most of our students come from socio-economic backgrounds similar to my own, and many have doubts about the value of a college education and their ability to complete their degree requirements. As their teacher, I draw upon the model Sheafe provided me: I seek to engage them for who they are, to push them to expand their vision, and to support them with timely advice.

Sheafe does not know that I have shared this with you, nor written this letter.  I hear, from alumni, that he would like to continue teaching at Williams for another year or two. As my story puts forward, I believe that Sheafe is not only an excellent instructor, but also one who promotes dignity for all.  With this in mind, I hope that Williams will reconsider this decision and instead retain Sheafe, so that his retirement from Williams will be cause for celebration rather than sorrow.

Sincerely yours,

Rebecca Bates, Ph.D. (Williams 1988)

Assistant Professor of History

Berea College

Berea, KY 40404

batesre@berea.edu

cc: Adam Falk, President of Williams College

Hard copy sent by US mail, January 10, 2011.