Nathan’s final chapter of the book focuses on the lessons that she has learned while working in the field of college culture. Her findings were not meant to be prescriptive advice for students and professors, but “rather as food for thought” on how to better the relationships between them (132). We appreciate how Nathan chooses not to force her ideas and findings on us, but use them as mere suggestions.
We find it interesting that Nathan’s main lesson learned in her sabbatical year was compassion after living as a professor among students. If our professors at UW-Eau Claire spent time living in our dorms among students at our school, we feel the same result would occur. Our professors would learn our way of life if they had to live our lifestyle, and they too might become passionate. On the other hand, if we as students lived with a group of professors, we would pick up on their way of life and learn to respect it, too.
We found it surprising that Nathan had not realized the racism on campus until she had spent her first afternoon in the cafeteria observing how students sit together when eating lunch. We would think that a teacher who spends hours per weeks with her students would notice racism on campus, but this late observance showed how professors do not pay close attention the personal lives of their students.
A very realistic occurrence in this chapter to us in this chapter is when Nathan was studying with a close friend in the dorms for a French exam the next day. Nathan remembered asking why they should study a certain portion of the course if it was not going to be on the exam, to which the other student replied, “Don’t you want to learn to speak French better?” (Nathan 142). Nathan had previously hypothesized that it’s inappropriate for students to question the value of their education when learning in classes. Nathan discovered that it is appropriate for close friends to give advice about not cutting corners in studying, and this experience surprised her. We can relate to this experience because we are comfortable with speaking seriously about education with only our very close friends.
In the Afterword, Nathan reflects further on why she chose to publish the book anonymously. She also admits to coming out as a professor three separate times while working in the fields. Nathan’s reasoning for publishing anonymously is logical to us because she did not want to jeopardize the privacy of those students who she observed. She was in disguise the entire time as a student, and by not telling her peers what her true intentions were, she was deceiving them. As students living in the dorms, we would also feel tricked if an adult used our opinions and experiences that were shared in confidence as scholarly research without informing us.
Nathan’s choice to only use direct quotes when she interviewed international students makes more sense to us now that we know she revealed herself as a professor to them before the interviews. We previously thought that Nathan’s research only “scratched the surface,” but now after she has explained her position of privacy and why she can’t reveal very specific events in order to protect her students, we understand that she did indeed become a part of the culture.
The way in which Nathan chooses to end the book with an experience and confirm her reasons for publishing anonymously is an effective way to close her observations. She ends with a quote from a student who found out her real academic identity outside of a classroom the year after her sabbatical work: “I can’t believe that…I feel fooled” (167). Nathan’s choice to publish her book under a pen name is critical in regards to giving students the respect and confidentiality that they deserve.
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