As part of the Program in Speaking and Learning, run by the Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning, Maggor also coached teaching fellows and professors, explaining ways to effectively communicate and to incorporate debates or oral presentations into classes.
While Bisson said the college will do its best to preserve Expos 40 and the Tutors, Maggor’s work with teaching fellows and professors faces a less certain fate. Maggor’s resources were already spread thin.
“There’s an enormous demand,” she says. “This past year, grad students had to wait two to three months to schedule a coaching session.”
“I think the main problems are scale and visibility,” says Visiting Professor in English David Zarefsky, of Harvard’s public speaking resources. “For twelve students a year to be able to take a public speaking course is just a drop in the bucket compared to what students would like to have.”
But Zarefsky, a professor of argumentation and debate at Northwestern who taught two rhetoric classes this spring, acknowledged that Harvard is doing the best it can on a budget, for example by working speaking into already-established classes and looking to expand the speaking tutors program.
Some existing courses integrate public speaking components in subtle ways; for instance, seminars like Human Evolutionary Biology lecturer Judith F. Chapman’s seminar on Human Sexuality. In the course, different students teach material to the class each week through oral and visual presentations.
“You really get to know what you find useful in a presentation,” says Elizabeth C. Balaconis ’10, a student who took the seminar this past spring.
SPEAKING UP
This spring, six freshmen joined together to promote speaking resources at Harvard, gathering support on Facebook and through e-mails. Their group, Harvard Speaks!, does not yet have an official adviser or funding.
Harvard Speaks! hosted a Speak-a-Thon in May in which about 15 students practiced various forms of oration, including a presentation on the history of kissing, recitations of original poetry, and monologue performances.
One of the organizers, Sarah C. Stein Lubrano ’13, says she found the speakers’ enthusiasm encouraging.
“We want [public speaking] more integrated into the curriculum of classes,” she says. “Gen Ed may be the best avenue because it’s still forming.”
Bisson said that her goals and the goals of Harvard Speaks! are very similar—keep Expos 40 alive, encourage speaking exercises in many classes, and sustain the Speaking Tutors program.
But the realistic time frame for these goals may be longer than students wish.
“Sometimes when you hear from the administration ‘yes, we believe in this and we want to make it happen,’ the timeline may not match the needs of the students,” she says.
“It’s a great idea, and we absolutely should support and foster good speaking in our students,” Bisson adds. “But how to help students on skills not only for formal public speaking but also for oral communication in a section setting, for instance, is a challenge. We just don’t have the funds to hire 50 Rebekah Maggors.”
—Staff writer Julie R. Barzilay can be reached at jbarzilay13@college.harvard.edu.