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 Liberal
Studies at St Joseph College
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*** St Joseph College has been serving returning and nontraditional students since
1932.
*** St Joseph has strong traditions, small classes, and a
sense of value, but also flexibility and progress.
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Liberal Studies is a major for students who wish to design their
own interdisciplinary or focused major, or . Liberal
Studies is a major for students who wish to pursue a wide range of courses in a traditional liberal arts manner, with an interdiscplinary
philosophy, or .
Liberal Studies is a major for students who have taken enough courses to be near graduation, with a well-balanced liberal
arts range, but have not found or completed a major. Judging by graduation records, Liberal
Studies has been one of the most popular majors. However, most students take the required introductory and capstone courses
after they have essentially bailed out of another major. As such the Liberal Studies (LBST) major has functioned
as a kind of academic parachute, one which was academically uncomfortable but humane. The credit requirements spread
over the natural and socials sciences was at least demanding. About half the students came from the Nursing program,
which finally decided to develop its own parachute program. Without the required LBST courses, future students may turn to
the INTD major which as no specific required courses and no staffing.
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Welcome ! Here I am as
a teacher. Hi- I'm Rick Rayfield. I
taught from 1997 to 2012 at St Joseph College, usually commuting one day a week from Vermont to West Hartford CT. It
was a great school- interesting students, eager colleagues, and a can-do atmosphere. Previously I taught in Vermont
at Norwich College/Vermont College, and Trinity College. From 1979 to 1986 I taught a did research at Roosevelt University
in Chicago,where I was granted tenure. I left to raise my family near grandparents and take over my family's book shop. I
have taught swimming and skiing in the local schools and rec programs, and I am a long-time volunteer teaching nature and
ecology in the local elementary school.
My college and graduate training was at the University of Chicago. My
pre-Chicago experiences include St Bede Academy, Aurora College and St Dominic College, all Catholic rooted. I spent one summer in Greece and Turkey with
a Northern Illinois University program studying Greek literature and culture, and New Testament. My undergraduate degree
was an interdisciplinary program in philosophy and psychology, housed in the New Collegiate Division. My PhD is in Biopsychology
from The University of Chicago. Among my teachers were Al Rechtschaffen who developed the definitions of sleep stages based
on EEG, Pete and Lori Grossman who pioneered work in neurotransmitter coding of feeding and drinking, Martha McClintock
who discovered human menstrual synchrony, Bob Schuster who became the head of NIDA and later of the WHO drug programs, Elsie
Pinkston who was an early proponent of operant training by parents in social work settings, Eugene Gendlin who was a colleague
of Carl Rogers and developed data-based assessment of "touchy-feely" psychotherapies, including his "focusing"
method, Stuart Kauffman who is a leader in complexity research, Lou Seiden who was a founder of modern psychopharmacology,
Hazel Murphy who demonstrated brain plasticity in adult cats as well as young cat, dogs, rabbit, and monkeys, Eckhard
Hess who was a colleague of Konrad Lorenz and among a wide variety of research interests teased out the factors in egg hatching
synchrony and was a founder of pupillometry, and my doctoral advisor, Israel Goldiamond, known as an operant purist,
with applications ranging from stuttering to bulimia and a crusader in favor of constructional rather than pathological approaches
to treating behavior problems. I studied for a certificate in order to
teach human sexuality when Wardell Pomeroy (second author of both Kinsey studies) was the Dean and one of our teachers at
the Institute for the Advanced Study of Human Sexuality. When I left Roosevelt University, my sections of human
sexuality accounted for about one quarter of the psychology department's total enrollment. I took art history and studio courses while a faculty member
at Roosevelt University, and studied painting conservation and frame construction with the Assistant Conservator Barry Bauman
at the Art Institute of Chicago. I have done research in visual system and taste in cats, treatment with stutterers and heroin addicts,
and operated pigeon and rat labs. My experience includes consulting with Matt Israel to develop accepable methods to punish
self-injurious behavior by institutionalized autistic chldren. For over a decade in Vermont I consulted and hen developed
a replacement for complete control and data acquisition for operant research at the UVM Behavioral Pharmacology Laboratory.
I developed computerized systems used world-wide for measuring maximum oxgen uptake ( VO2 max) in the early days of
personal computers. These were used in research, athletic evaluation, notably in US training camps for the 1984 Summer
Olympics in Los Angeles, and cardiac rehabilitation. I worked with Joan Darby at the University of Kentucky integrating
breathing valves and gas handling with a mass spectrometer to my computer software for evaluating different therapies to alleviate
COPD and asthma.
From 1997 to 2012, I taught at St Joseph College- History and Systems of Pyschology, Human Development, Human Sexuality,
Psychology of Fear, Psychology of Art, and Behavior Analysis. Department needs, the long commute from Vermont,
and disagreement over student grade policy led to my departure.
I was the program director for the Liberal Studies progam at St Joseph from 2007 to 2012. It was licensed as an on-line interdisiplinary
degree program but never had enough courses to fly that way. The Dean who hired me bailed out when the Colege failed
to support the on-line program and decided not to reapply for licensure. Becaaue of student need and my background in interdisciplinary
study, I stayed on so that students who lost their major could exit with a degree. For about twenty
years, I have been a parent volunteer teaching nature and ecology in the Fayston Elementary School. The Four Winds Nature
Institute trains the parents and other comunity volunteers, and then the parents come into the classroom, coordinating with
the teachers there. The five year rotating curriculum is keyed to Vermont science standards, but is notable for getting the
students outside for observations of the classroom material. My other work includes owning a book shop and video rental store, building a house, Freemasons, and art
history. I sing in my church choir, the local community chorus, and as a regular member of the chorus in the Green Mountain
Opera Festival. Since 2002, I have been the songleader for Phi Gamma Delta at the University of Chicago's Interfraternity
Sing. My wife Holliday is a psychiatrist; I have four daughters born from 1985 to 2005. I am an Eagle Scout, served
as a Scoutmaster to an inner city Scout Troop for 13 years, and currently serve as Committee Chair for Cub Scout Pack 798.
I bake bread twice a week for my family and the local food shelf. I try to maintain the simple web sites I built
for my masonic lodge, my Cub Pack, the Interfraternity Sing, my grandfather's fishing club, and the food shelf, and my book
shop. I perform weddings as a Justice of the Peace (or minister) and serve of the local Board of Civil Authority. This web site was started to communicate to students, friends, and family about my
recovery from a stroke in 2005 (see tab). Now I use it to stash all sorts of information (as you can see) where
people (like me) can have easy access to it. Rick
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LINKS
Blackboard, the platform used
for most courses. Sign in as student, with password student. Click on the sample course to help you decide
if on-line learning will work for you. http://bb.sjc.edu Turnitin organizes
students' papers, and makes sure they are in a format which the instructor can access and read from any computer. It
also does plagiarism checks. Ten Commandments is my essay, based on 35 years working with computers,
on how to use them more efficiently. Get more work done for less effort by setting up your screen and keyboard correctly
etc See
Computer Wisdom tab at left
Lectures
from my Psychology of Fear course. Much of life is oriented toward
getting what we want. But fear is the ubiquitous multi-faceted emotion which accompanies all we do to avoid and to escape
things we do do not want. The weekly theme and lectures start with the F sound- Forest and Farm Fear, Phobias, Final
Fear, Fantasy Fear, Physiology of Fear, Foreign Fear, Federal Fear, etc. The course was readings, lectures, discussions,
and short papers. I start with First Fears -about how we learn basic fears. Lecture 2 Fun Fear has stills
from horror movies in class we watch excerpts. See tab at left for rough drafts of the
lectures.
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Major Freedom through Hybrids . St
Joseph College has three main divisions: . The Women's College is mostly daytime classes
for live-on-campus and commuter students. . The Weekend program for Adult Learners
is mostly evening and weekend courses. . The Graduate School offer Master's degree
programs. . We say that Liberal Studies gives you Major Freedom. The three
kinds of hybrids provide you with flexibility and choice. . A. You can take courses
on-line, or you can take classroom courses on campus. . B. Many courses are
hybrids of teaching technology- Blackboard-based, video, PSI, collaborative, backyard laboratory, and many
more. . C. Liberal study is multidisciplinary. You choose your courses
from a wide range, making up you own major, or integrating many fields of knowledge into a coherent education to help
you in your professional, academic, and personal worlds. Four Winds Nature Institute Four Winds professional
staff members train parents. Parents go into the elementary school classroom and teach a five-year revolving curriculum
on nature and ecology. I have been a parent volunteer in this program at the Fayston Elementary School for about twenty
years. Fayston School has scored as high as fifth in all New England on Science NECAPS, in part due to the Four Winds
program.
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Reason and Rhetoric: Bickering for Humanity As part of LBST120 Foundations
Course, students will watch seven feature films. All are great films, award winners, great acting, faculty favorites.
The primary focus of the films is how persuasive arguments are constructed, flow, and resolve. Rhetoric is classically the
first Liberal Art. The secondary theme is modern scientific debate- evolution, genes, cosmology. (Liberal arts have outgrown
rhetoric, grammar, logic, arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy.) LBST120 in an on-line course.
Students must borrow, buy, or rent these films. I can copies to lend if necessary. I will screen the films on-campus
for students and course visitors if requested. Rick Rayfield, Instructor Inherit
the Wind(1960) 128 mins.
Courtroom giants Darrow vs Bryan.
Spencer Tracy, Fredric March, Gene Kelly .
Great book, great play, great film.
Evolution on trial while the country watches.
Twelve Angry Men (1957) 96
mins
Ordinary citizens on a jury.
Henry Fonda and all-star cast directed by Sidney Lumet.
Everybody who sees this film gets pulled in,
and everyone is moved. What is justice?
Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967)
108 mins
Family persuasion AA Katharine Hepburn,
Spencer Tracy, Sidney
Portier
Interracial love disrupts a well-educated liberal family.
Lion in WInter (1968) 135 mins
Royal family bickering AA Katharine Hepburn,
Peter O’Toole are King and queen with razor tongues
arguing over which son should succeed. Proof (2004) 99
mins
Campus furor on sanity & genius Gyneth Paltrow
Jake Gyllenham Anthony Hopkins
A mathematical proof needs checking and an author.
Rivetting. Copenhagen(2002) 117 mins
Nobel physicists argue the universe Tony Award winner
by Michael Frayn, Brilliant playwright (Noises Off)
imagines with clarity two geniuses and rivals, Bohr and Heisenberg, arguing
atomic politics and subatomic rules. Gattaca
(1997) 106 mins
Evidence of what is human in genetically twisted future
Ethan Hawke wants to be an astronaut,
but his hippie parents did not get their genes cleaned.
Contact Admissions, or Program Director Rick
Rayfield rrayfield@sjc.edu
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Download these files of interest
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