Dr. James Snyder Becomes Interim Dean for Communication and the Arts: What He’s Learned at Marist After Nearly 12 Years
Dr. James Snyder can hardly walk from one building to another without bumping into a familiar face. After nearly six years as the Honors Program’s director and almost 12 years at Marist, his cachet on campus precedes him.
“The second you step into his office, Dr. Snyder has a unique way of making you feel like the most important person he’s talked to all week,” said Ellie Petraccione ‘20.
This fall, he will step in as the interim dean for the School of Communication and the Arts (SCA) while a committee seeks a permanent replacement for Dr. Lyn Lepre. While overseeing one of the largest academic schools at Marist, he will continue his work on the Marist Core, First Year Seminar and the Honors Program as the Interim Dean of Academic Engagement.
He’s not the first dean to step into a temporary leadership role –– Dr. John Ritschdorff, associate vice president of Academic Affairs, has served as the interim dean for SCA as well as the School of Social and Behavioral Sciences. It will likely be a year before the search can be completed, and until then, Snyder has a brimming agenda.
“The things I want to focus on this summer are making as smooth a leadership transition as possible. We’re working with the department chairs on our core scheduling for the fall, to focus on pedagogy and look at how to best offer these courses under the current conditions,” Snyder said.
He has been working with Digital Education and the Center for Teaching Excellence on developing modules to help the SCA faculty complete their courses virtually after Thanksgiving. These digital resources will empower them to reimagine how they teach and utilize Marist’s technology.
But even with responsibilities mounting, Snyder’s priority remains absolute:
“The most important people to me are the students. Everything else is secondary.”
Snyder’s Superpower: Listening, Remembering and Connecting
Just after graduating from Manhattan College in philosophy in 2000, Snyder spent some time reporting for the Albany Times Union. Here, he learned firsthand about the power of listening.
“There is something so phenomenally exciting about asking students what their interests are, never knowing what you’re going to hear, and storing it in your head, then doing the same thing with a faculty member and their work,” Snyder said. “It’s my intuition that college students do not feel properly heard.”
Needless to say, this penchant for dialogue makes him quite the busybody on campus –– and he’s the first to admit it.
“He has an incredible ability of recalling even the most minor details of my life, which seems routine to him, but makes all the difference in making his students feel special.”
On campus, Snyder spends his days visiting various departments, attending plenaries and constantly meeting with students. His former office on Fontaine’s second floor welcomed a steady flow of students (Dr. Janine Peterson, associate professor of history, recalled nearly tripping over groups of eager students waiting to meet with Snyder). Once inside his office, a meeting with Snyder might come with introductions to peers and professors, an array of discussion topics, and, on occasion, jazz or classical music in the background.
His dedicated note-taking during formal meetings and casual conversations alike aid his remarkable memory. A binder in his office contains the degree audits for every student he will work with. Handwritten notes decorate the audits as he learns new things about his students.
“What are their aspirations? Did they say something funny?... Making a ritual out of it. If you do that, it sticks,” Snyder said. His wealth of collected observations have produced incredible pairings for seminars and undergraduate research projects.
Source: Dr. James Snyder
“A student says they’re interested in X, and six months earlier I had a conversation with a professor who is interested in X as well. Now, I can connect them with a simple email and that becomes an Honors-by-Contract or Thesis project, or even a course,” Snyder said.
His efforts do not go unnoticed, Petraccione said.
“He has an incredible ability of recalling even the most minor details of my life, which seems routine to him, but makes all the difference in making his students feel special,” Petraccione said.
Transforming Honors: Snyder’s impact
An Honors Program director will typically serve in the role for a three-year period –– Snyder held his title for nearly six years. When he first stepped into the position of Honors Program director in 2014, he immediately set out to implement a new Honors curriculum. During his tenure, he increased the program’s enrollment from a little over 200 students to almost 550.
“I really found my stride professionally and personally in that role,” Snyder said. He found the position to be the “fullest realization of what a professor can be” –– developing new curriculums, working closely with students to support their undergraduate research and organizing an optimal housing experience.
Snyder’s curiosity as a philosopher yields creative results in classrooms and in advising sessions. He experiments, describing the Honors program as a “laboratory.” He seeks inspiration from academic journals and publications like The Chronicle of Higher Education to breed new ideas or possible topics for Honors Seminar courses. A colleague’s passion can turn into one of the best classes offered on campus.
“It has to be something that’s not just going to be challenging academically, but also encourages students outside of their typical learning environments, gets them engaged with one another, and produces experiences that will change their lives,” Snyder said.
Those explorations into new environments tend to leave lasting impressions and invite valuable insights. As director, Snyder frequently accompanied students on these learning quests, figuratively and literally driving them toward life-changing epiphanies. One such drive through the foggy Berkshires in the dead of night fostered discussions about race in the arts following a performance of “Hamilton” the musical. Other seminars have led students to Zen monasteries, studios of successful artists, and even up and down the Hudson River via boat.
In an Ethics of Migration seminar taught by Dr. Sasha Biro, Honors students in Florence questioned the meaning of citizenship and the nation-state while walking past immigrant protests on their way to class. That semester saw the fatal shooting of a Senegalese street vendor near the Ponte Amerigo Vespucci in 2018.
On an academic visit to Florence, Snyder sat with a small group of students –– just a short walk from where the racially-motivated killing occurred –– as they presented their ideas on immigration-related issues around the world.
“It doesn’t get more relevant than that,” Snyder said. “I was at an apartment across from the central Arno River, and I watched thousands of people protesting down the street. I was just thinking about how [the students] were front and center in terms of being equipped with the ideas of thinking about migration.”
Peterson, a friend and collaborator of Synder’s since his arrival in 2008, similarly emphasized the transformative nature of these innovative courses.
“Being exposed to a different perspective outside your normal little box just prepares you to be so much more flexible and so much more attractive in the job market and also in your life,” Peterson said.
Dr. Janine Peterson, associate professor of history and coordinator of medieval and Renaissance studies, with Dr. James Snyder. Source: Dr. James Snyder
The Honors Thesis represents the culmination of these expanded and enriched interests. At the end of each semester, the program hosts an exhibition –– once a simple display of essays on tables for passersby to observe now welcomes hundreds of attendees per semester. Thesis projects have ranged from animating horror films to studying groundwater pollution in the Hudson Valley to mastering the art of smoking meat.
The Senior Seminar and an evolving approach to teaching
To best understand Marist’s Honors program and Snyder’s influence, one need look no further than the Senior Seminar –– a microcosm of the entire Honors experience. When Snyder became director, the one-credit course at the very end of the curriculum included a brief and ambiguous description. Snyder studied Harvard’s “Reflecting on Your Life,” Stanford’s “Designing Your Life,” and other similar courses offered across the country.
“I started reading books on happiness and well-being. My students take on a lot; their goals and aspirations are very serious. I was worried there was not a space for them to ask those questions that are not necessarily academic in nature,” Snyder said. “I tried to create a space for students to have that ultimate voice, and be playful in imagining different options for their lives.”
Several years of classroom experience informed Snyder about how to properly create that space. In his acceptance speech for the 2017 Board of Trustees Award for Distinguished Teaching, Snyder recalled his career journey –– from his first Donnelly Hall philosophy class in 2008 to his successes with the Honors Program. Newly graduated with a Ph.D. from the City University of New York, Snyder had what today he would consider to be a “narrow sense” of what it truly meant to teach.
“I tried to create a space for students to have that ultimate voice, and be playful in imagining different options for their lives.”
“I saw myself as primarily concerned with the advancement of ideas through my own research; I measured my value by the yardstick of my CV. My work in the classroom came second,” Snyder said in the speech. He started listening closely to his students not just during, but before and after class –– their needs, their concerns, their anxieties.
These observations and reflections radically changed the direction and focus of Snyder’s career. While an associate professor of philosophy, he worked on initiatives focusing on professional development opportunities for philosophy students (including a conference now in its 11th year). In his third year at Marist, while teaching an Honors Seminar on Cosmopolitanism, Snyder noticed three seniors looking anxious. He put aside the material for the first half hour and asked about their concerns.
“It just came out of them, pretty raw. That was very definitive for me as a teacher,” Snyder said.
Fusing the philosophy of fulfillment with room to candidly discuss fears and aspirations alike, the Senior Seminar became a seminal aspect of an Honors education at Marist. Examining different career and life paths and identifying values are at the core of class discussion, culminating in the “Last Lecture” –– a spoken reflection on one’s academic and personal journey. The informal presentations have sparked tears, laughs and catharses.
“There is a philosophical underpinning to my work with students that is directly shaped by a framework borrowed from Classical Greek philosophy called ‘Virtue Ethics,’” Snyder said in his Board of Trustees Award speech. At the center of this theory lies “eudaimonia” –– loosely translated as happiness. Eudaimonia really signifies fulfillment, valuing the well-being of the entire person rather than their individual actions or achievements.
“This approach has helped me see our students as more than a CWID, a major, or an internship or a name on one of those spreadsheets. According to this theory, our students are people who thrive only when they develop a wide-range of academic, social and artistic capabilities,” Snyder said.
Snyder’s eudaimonia: how he discovered meaning and purpose
In his own search for eudaimonia, Snyder has experienced hardship and loss. Both of his parents passed away when he was young, and many of his proudest achievements have been bittersweet due to their absence. A week before the fall 2018 semester started last year, his brother died tragically at a young age, leaving behind two children.
“Very human things have happened to me over the years and a huge source of strength for me has been knowing that I have purpose in my work,” Snyder said. “The deep reservoir of meaning that comes from guiding students and helping them in their accomplishments has contributed a lot to my happiness.”
Dr. James Snyder with his wife, Krista. Source: Dr. James Snyder
Integral to Dr. Snyder’s advancement as an educator is the love and support of his family. He met his wife, Krista, at a young age, and they started dating during her first year of college.
“Having a very close relationship with my wife is the most critical thing, but also that ability to see the joy in my work has uplifted me so much,” Snyder said.
Many professional milestones in education arrived alongside familial ones: Snyder learned of his tenure less than an hour after his daughter Beatrice was born. He spent his son Finn’s first summer among the marble statues of Florence while completing research on the Renaissance. While handing out screwdrivers and duct tape during the humid move-in process on the eighth floor of Champagnat Hall (the Honors Floor), he was preparing for Finn’s first day of kindergarten. His kids have shared pizza with Honors students at the Green Lantern during a trip to the Wassaic Art Project.
“I’m hyper-cognizant of how fleeting all the great things are,” Snyder said. “That allows me to focus my energies and break down walls of fear.”