While I was developing a module on classical myth for an international summer school in 2012, I made a discovery that changed my approach to that module, and to my practice in general. This new approach shaped the learning experiences of the students who took the module that year; likewise it transformed how a second cohort a year on engaged with mythology, and with broad issues of ownership of the past and their approach to their learning environment. In this posting I outline what this discovery was, how it has impacted on teaching and learning practice both of myself and colleagues, and how it might provide a model for augmenting the learning experience at other institutions. It is fitting that I comment on these initiatives for the HEA blog. For one thing, my initial ideas were presented at a HEA workshop on classical reception pedagogy in London on May 2012. A year later, I co-organised a HEA workshop at Roehampton to share my experiences with colleagues in classics and also across the Humanities. I am currently part of a departmental team developing resources for use in Humanities teaching in the UK and, potentially, internationally.
I was in the university archives at Roehampton researching a chimneypiece panel depicting the ‘Choice of Hercules’ in one of the 18th-century rooms of Grove House, now part of Froebel College, one of the constituent colleges of my workplace. I had gone to the archives to develop a research project rather than in connection with teaching preparation. I was contemplating using the chimneypiece as a vehicle for exploring Georgian receptions of the myth of Hercules for an article. While working through documents relevant to my research, I kept reading about a temple in the grounds of Mount Clare, an eighteenth-century Georgian villa now in the heart of the Alton Estate and the home of university halls of residences and offices. I read that the temple was moved to its current location in the 1920s and before that stood on the site of a building that I do know, the Co-op in Roehampton village, on land that was originally part of grounds of Parkstead House, another of the Georgian villas in Roehampton, built for the Second Earl Bessborough by Sir William Chambers. I had worked at the University since 2004 yet had never heard of the existence of this temple. The following day, I went to find it. I walked round the house and the halls twice starting to wonder whether I’d dreamt about it: then I decided to try walking past a dilapidated shed. I could see what looked like an overgrown path, kept going past stinging nettles, rounded a corner then saw an extraordinary temple ahead of me. It seemed all the more romantic due to its boarded up entrance and the broken glass on the ground around it.
On getting back to the office I decided to rethink the syllabus for the first-year level classical mythology module that I was then designing. I had already decided that, to give a distinctive learning experience for the students – a mix of international students from the US and classical civilisation first-year undergraduates – I would use London as a resource for the study of both ancient artefacts and postclassical reception. To encourage the students to engage with the evidence as reflectively as possible, I decided upon two forms of assessment: a group presentation on a mythological artefact and a blog. In this latter assignment, the students could consider their unfolding experiences over the three weeks of the module, including on the processes of learning about mythology, and the particular challenges and, hopefully, the excitement associated with sessions beyond the classroom, including where they are able actually to touch the artefacts that they are studying. I had planned a handling session at the British Museum and a walking tour through Hyde Park through Green Park culminating at the Athenaeum in Pall Mall. I still went ahead with a trip into central London, but I was struck that I was missing an opportunity closer to home. One thing that had attracted some of the first-year students to Roehampton was its beautiful campus – and the international students were coming to spend several weeks to study here. Why not have the students not just studying on campus, but also studying the campus itself?
Pevsner commented in his Buildings of England: “there is still nothing like Roehampton to get an impression of the aristocratic Georgian country villa” (687). These houses were built when the villa was overtaking the Great House in popularity and Roehampton became a fashionable residential district, aided by its location beside Richmond Park, with its new villas designed to look like continuations of the Park. These villas, which appeared like classical temples enclosed in groves of trees, were furnished with neoclassical interiors to assert the owners’ identities as cultured individuals and to provide suitable settings for classical artefacts brought back from the Grand Tour. I could see that the campus could give a means to explore some of the different layers involved in the study of the reception of classical mythology. For example, to interpret the Choice of Hercules chimneypiece, I could see potential of enabling the students to sift through how they themselves were experiencing the depiction of Hercules from how the eighteenth-century creators, owners and viewers might have received its messages. There was also the potential of exploring how each designer would draw differently on classical imagery. At Roehampton this includes some of the most celebrated Georgian designers including James Wyatt and Chambers. It is also possible that the temple in Mount Clare is the work of either James “Athenian” Stuart and/or Nicholas Revett, the architects in large part responsible for the “Greek Revival” of the eighteenth century.
John Simpson, in his then role as Chancellor of the University commented in his forward to Nigel Watson’sStory of Roehampton University of 2010 that “the buildings that are part of this beautiful campus carry their fascinating stories” (7). I decided to explore a selection of these stories with the students: those that related to the mythological artefacts around the campus.
I organised sessions at three specific locations on campus, the first being the room housing the chimney piece which is known as the Adam Room because its style is akin to that of Robert Adam, who along with Chambers was setting the agenda for the Georgian reception of the classical world. In fact, it was not Adam’s work but that of Wyatt in Adam’s style. During this first session, I also planned to take the students out on the terrace of Grove House to study its pre- and post-Georgian classical artefacts including Victorian statues by Aristide Fontana and a Venetian wellhead mixing Christian and classical imagery. Secondly, I organised a session at Parkstead House now the central building of Whitelands College, to be held in the rooms designed by Chambers. I planned to give the students the opportunity to compare and contrast the different uses of classical motifs by the two designers: Adam’s simpler style as against the more flowing style of Chambers. The third session would be a trip to the Mount Clare temple to study the one mythological representation that can currently be seen on the exterior temple, a panel showing Bacchic revellers. This visit could also let the students experience a building kept difficult to access for its own protection in contrast to the Adam Room and the Chambers Rooms which are in regular use for meetings conferences and also weddings.
When the trip took place, I was concerned that the students seemed underwhelmed by the visit as they seemed quieter than usual, although they did ask some pertinent questions, including on the architectural order of the building. Then I read their blog entries which showed that they had been deeply moved by the experience. For example, a Roehampton classical civilisation first year student commented: "Knowing that there is history right here with us on campus opens my eyes to what kind of history London lives and breathes." An international student reflected as follows: "I felt as if the temple told the story of long ago jubilation, a bittersweet meory of its former glory."
The other sessions in neoclassical sites on campus stimulated the students in ways that are not possible in a more traditional classroom setting. For instance, one of the Roehampton Classical Civilisation students wrote on the session in the Adam Room: "The Adam room…is absolutely gorgeous; I felt extremely privileged to be able to study in such a beautiful room." Another wrote about on Grove House: "There was so much history within this whole house it was just incredible….I didn’t realize what, or even how much history the campus actually had. It makes me see the university in a different light… "
After the first iteration of the course, I teamed up with Dr Alannah Tomkins, an eighteenth-century specialist at the University of Keele, to organise a HEA-funded workshop on teaching neoclassicism. As we set out in the notification of the event “Classical motifs were employed in almost all walks of the life in the self-consciously named 'Augustan' era, but how can we convey to students the research and learning potential of a cultural topic that can seem either well-worn or impenetrable?” The event sought to consider a range of means to engage students in the study of the topic, including the value of legwork via a tour of the temple. It aimed to draw together participations from a range of disciplines to share examples of practice – and succeeded in this aim. Participants included academic from Classics, History, and English who have made use of local resources including those at their own institutions. For example, Dr Emrys Jones discussed his use of the architecture at the Old Naval College at the University of Greenwich to deepen students’ understanding of how eighteenth century English poetry is steeped in classical references. My colleague at Roehampton, Dr Sonya Nevin, has previously taken students on the Historical Research MA at Roehampton to neoclassical sties in Greenwich.
The workshop showed that there is potential for teaching using campus resources but that more a model is needed to demonstrate how this can be done effectively. I am currently involved in a project funded by the HEA’s Departmental Grant Scheme which aims to provide that model. This project is developing a module for second year undergraduate students that uses the Roehampton campus as a learning resource. This will be a project module for students across the Humanities department, a multi-disciplinary department encompassing Classical Civilisation, History, Philosophy, Ministerial Theology and Theology and Religious Studies. It is not only the University’s neoclassical heritage that will be studied, but a range of histories and references of which the campus and the University are part For example, there are strong links between Whitelands College and leading figures in the Arts and Crafts Movement, including John Ruskin, Edward Burne-Jones and William Morris. The University and its traditions offer a range of project topics including Janet Stuart’s impact on education and the Froebelian educational movement. We expect that the results will be applicable to institutions that offer any of these subjects and whose campuses are historically interesting, enabling them to make use of the sustainable resources they possess to enrich student learning.
At a time when UK institutions are looking for new ways to enhance student engagement the project looks like a timely opportunity to enrich the experience of students at many institutions.
I was in the university archives at Roehampton researching a chimneypiece panel depicting the ‘Choice of Hercules’ in one of the 18th-century rooms of Grove House, now part of Froebel College, one of the constituent colleges of my workplace. I had gone to the archives to develop a research project rather than in connection with teaching preparation. I was contemplating using the chimneypiece as a vehicle for exploring Georgian receptions of the myth of Hercules for an article. While working through documents relevant to my research, I kept reading about a temple in the grounds of Mount Clare, an eighteenth-century Georgian villa now in the heart of the Alton Estate and the home of university halls of residences and offices. I read that the temple was moved to its current location in the 1920s and before that stood on the site of a building that I do know, the Co-op in Roehampton village, on land that was originally part of grounds of Parkstead House, another of the Georgian villas in Roehampton, built for the Second Earl Bessborough by Sir William Chambers. I had worked at the University since 2004 yet had never heard of the existence of this temple. The following day, I went to find it. I walked round the house and the halls twice starting to wonder whether I’d dreamt about it: then I decided to try walking past a dilapidated shed. I could see what looked like an overgrown path, kept going past stinging nettles, rounded a corner then saw an extraordinary temple ahead of me. It seemed all the more romantic due to its boarded up entrance and the broken glass on the ground around it.
On getting back to the office I decided to rethink the syllabus for the first-year level classical mythology module that I was then designing. I had already decided that, to give a distinctive learning experience for the students – a mix of international students from the US and classical civilisation first-year undergraduates – I would use London as a resource for the study of both ancient artefacts and postclassical reception. To encourage the students to engage with the evidence as reflectively as possible, I decided upon two forms of assessment: a group presentation on a mythological artefact and a blog. In this latter assignment, the students could consider their unfolding experiences over the three weeks of the module, including on the processes of learning about mythology, and the particular challenges and, hopefully, the excitement associated with sessions beyond the classroom, including where they are able actually to touch the artefacts that they are studying. I had planned a handling session at the British Museum and a walking tour through Hyde Park through Green Park culminating at the Athenaeum in Pall Mall. I still went ahead with a trip into central London, but I was struck that I was missing an opportunity closer to home. One thing that had attracted some of the first-year students to Roehampton was its beautiful campus – and the international students were coming to spend several weeks to study here. Why not have the students not just studying on campus, but also studying the campus itself?
Pevsner commented in his Buildings of England: “there is still nothing like Roehampton to get an impression of the aristocratic Georgian country villa” (687). These houses were built when the villa was overtaking the Great House in popularity and Roehampton became a fashionable residential district, aided by its location beside Richmond Park, with its new villas designed to look like continuations of the Park. These villas, which appeared like classical temples enclosed in groves of trees, were furnished with neoclassical interiors to assert the owners’ identities as cultured individuals and to provide suitable settings for classical artefacts brought back from the Grand Tour. I could see that the campus could give a means to explore some of the different layers involved in the study of the reception of classical mythology. For example, to interpret the Choice of Hercules chimneypiece, I could see potential of enabling the students to sift through how they themselves were experiencing the depiction of Hercules from how the eighteenth-century creators, owners and viewers might have received its messages. There was also the potential of exploring how each designer would draw differently on classical imagery. At Roehampton this includes some of the most celebrated Georgian designers including James Wyatt and Chambers. It is also possible that the temple in Mount Clare is the work of either James “Athenian” Stuart and/or Nicholas Revett, the architects in large part responsible for the “Greek Revival” of the eighteenth century.
John Simpson, in his then role as Chancellor of the University commented in his forward to Nigel Watson’sStory of Roehampton University of 2010 that “the buildings that are part of this beautiful campus carry their fascinating stories” (7). I decided to explore a selection of these stories with the students: those that related to the mythological artefacts around the campus.
I organised sessions at three specific locations on campus, the first being the room housing the chimney piece which is known as the Adam Room because its style is akin to that of Robert Adam, who along with Chambers was setting the agenda for the Georgian reception of the classical world. In fact, it was not Adam’s work but that of Wyatt in Adam’s style. During this first session, I also planned to take the students out on the terrace of Grove House to study its pre- and post-Georgian classical artefacts including Victorian statues by Aristide Fontana and a Venetian wellhead mixing Christian and classical imagery. Secondly, I organised a session at Parkstead House now the central building of Whitelands College, to be held in the rooms designed by Chambers. I planned to give the students the opportunity to compare and contrast the different uses of classical motifs by the two designers: Adam’s simpler style as against the more flowing style of Chambers. The third session would be a trip to the Mount Clare temple to study the one mythological representation that can currently be seen on the exterior temple, a panel showing Bacchic revellers. This visit could also let the students experience a building kept difficult to access for its own protection in contrast to the Adam Room and the Chambers Rooms which are in regular use for meetings conferences and also weddings.
When the trip took place, I was concerned that the students seemed underwhelmed by the visit as they seemed quieter than usual, although they did ask some pertinent questions, including on the architectural order of the building. Then I read their blog entries which showed that they had been deeply moved by the experience. For example, a Roehampton classical civilisation first year student commented: "Knowing that there is history right here with us on campus opens my eyes to what kind of history London lives and breathes." An international student reflected as follows: "I felt as if the temple told the story of long ago jubilation, a bittersweet meory of its former glory."
The other sessions in neoclassical sites on campus stimulated the students in ways that are not possible in a more traditional classroom setting. For instance, one of the Roehampton Classical Civilisation students wrote on the session in the Adam Room: "The Adam room…is absolutely gorgeous; I felt extremely privileged to be able to study in such a beautiful room." Another wrote about on Grove House: "There was so much history within this whole house it was just incredible….I didn’t realize what, or even how much history the campus actually had. It makes me see the university in a different light… "
After the first iteration of the course, I teamed up with Dr Alannah Tomkins, an eighteenth-century specialist at the University of Keele, to organise a HEA-funded workshop on teaching neoclassicism. As we set out in the notification of the event “Classical motifs were employed in almost all walks of the life in the self-consciously named 'Augustan' era, but how can we convey to students the research and learning potential of a cultural topic that can seem either well-worn or impenetrable?” The event sought to consider a range of means to engage students in the study of the topic, including the value of legwork via a tour of the temple. It aimed to draw together participations from a range of disciplines to share examples of practice – and succeeded in this aim. Participants included academic from Classics, History, and English who have made use of local resources including those at their own institutions. For example, Dr Emrys Jones discussed his use of the architecture at the Old Naval College at the University of Greenwich to deepen students’ understanding of how eighteenth century English poetry is steeped in classical references. My colleague at Roehampton, Dr Sonya Nevin, has previously taken students on the Historical Research MA at Roehampton to neoclassical sties in Greenwich.
The workshop showed that there is potential for teaching using campus resources but that more a model is needed to demonstrate how this can be done effectively. I am currently involved in a project funded by the HEA’s Departmental Grant Scheme which aims to provide that model. This project is developing a module for second year undergraduate students that uses the Roehampton campus as a learning resource. This will be a project module for students across the Humanities department, a multi-disciplinary department encompassing Classical Civilisation, History, Philosophy, Ministerial Theology and Theology and Religious Studies. It is not only the University’s neoclassical heritage that will be studied, but a range of histories and references of which the campus and the University are part For example, there are strong links between Whitelands College and leading figures in the Arts and Crafts Movement, including John Ruskin, Edward Burne-Jones and William Morris. The University and its traditions offer a range of project topics including Janet Stuart’s impact on education and the Froebelian educational movement. We expect that the results will be applicable to institutions that offer any of these subjects and whose campuses are historically interesting, enabling them to make use of the sustainable resources they possess to enrich student learning.
At a time when UK institutions are looking for new ways to enhance student engagement the project looks like a timely opportunity to enrich the experience of students at many institutions.