St. John's News

St. John’s administrators work tirelessly to ensure that our students are provided with a quality, affordable education that embodies our Vincentian mission. In an effort to give our students, their parents and friends a glimpse into the responsibilities, challenges and concerns of St. John’s leadership, we’re presenting a series of interviews with those who make a St. John’s education the stimulating, student-centered and rewarding experience that it is.

In this interview, Dean Jeffry Fagen talks about his College and its history and the value of a liberal arts education today. Dr. Fagen joined the University in 1981 as an Associate Professor of Psychology and has risen steadily since, becoming a full professor, then chair and ultimately, named Dean in 2000.

Q.: St. John’s College is the oldest of all the colleges at St. John’s University. Is today’s College at all like that founded in 1870?

A: There are some obvious differences: that College was all male, they wore ties and jackets to class, and I’m fairly certain all (or most) of the classes were taught by Vincentian fathers. There were many fewer departments (we now have 17) and courses were taught on only one campus (the original Lewis Avenue, Brooklyn campus) versus five—Queens, Staten Island, Manhattan, Oakdale, and Rome, Italy—today.

I suspect, however, that in many fundamental ways, today’s St. John’s College is not too different. We are still the only “non-professional” college/school of the University with, among other things, primary responsibility for delivering the common core to all of the University’s undergraduate students.

We still stress preparation in theology and philosophy which “play a pivotal role in creating the integral vision of Catholic and Vincentian education that stands at the center of the St. John’s University experience” (St. John’s College Mission Statement). That hasn’t changed since 1870, and it never will.

When I talk to parents and prospective students, I often stress that the components of a liberal arts education, things like critical thinking and analysis, argumentation, excellent written communication skills, and knowing how to learn new tasks, are the best preparation for their careers, no matter what career they end up pursuing.

Q.: Can you talk more about the core curriculum you just mentioned.

A.: The University implemented a core curriculum in Fall 2001 to engage undergraduate students in developing the skills and competencies they’ll need to become successful members of our society. Nine common courses—among which are English 1000, Scientific Inquiry, and our innovative Discover New York course—and other distributed courses (usually determined by a student’s major) are required for all students, and together contribute to an integrated experience. Now seven years in, we are in the process of re-examining how we do that in order to include technology, introduce global issues and keep students connected.

Q.: What are some of the more popular programs and degree options offered in St. John’s College?

A.: Our most popular undergraduate majors are Biology, Psychology, Government and Politics, English, and Speech Pathology and Audiology. At the Master’s level, our most popular programs are Speech Pathology and Audiology, Library and Information Science (Queens and Oakdale campuses), Government and Politics (Queens and Rome campuses), School Psychology (Queens and Oakdale) and Liberal Studies.

Recently, we created an exciting master’s level concentration in Global Development and Social Justice. Students from all over the world attend summer courses at our Rome campus at the beginning and end of their program and, in between are taught by our faculty via distance learning. St. John’s, Caritas of Rome, and the Idente Foundation provide financial support for most of the program’s students. The first cohort graduated from our Rome campus this past summer.

We also offer doctoral programs in Biological Sciences, Clinical Psychology, School Psychology and Audiology. We’re very proud that the School Psychology and Audiology programs—our two newest doctoral programs—were recently accredited by their respective national accrediting agencies (the American Psychological Association for the Psy.D. and the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association for the Au.D.).

Q.: You offer a number of combined degree programs. How do these benefit students?

A.: They permit a student to earn both a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree in five years instead of the usual six. A student accomplishes this by taking a maximum of four graduate courses in the junior and senior years, the credits of which count toward both the bachelor’s and master’s degrees. Not only does this option save time for the student who is eager take his or her place in the world, it also saves them dollars too.

Q.: Faculty is a most important cohort at any university. What makes your faculty special?

The vast majority of our more than 250 full-time faculty are committed scholars who recognize that the role of the university professor is to contribute to the creation and dissemination of new knowledge in their discipline, as well as to be effective teachers and communicators of the existing body of knowledge in that discipline. We also have more than 300 adjunct faculty members who bring special expertise and experience to the classroom.

Q.: Do you still teach?

A.: I continue to teach a graduate course in research methods in clinical psychology for the students in our Ph.D. program in clinical psychology. I also continue to research learning and memory in young infants, thanks mostly to a cadre of excellent graduate students and post-doctoral research associates who have assisted me over the years.

Q.: How are you preparing the next generation of students to live in the 21st Century?

A.: Our faculty are very committed to ensuring the success of their students. They embrace cutting-edge pedagogical techniques and make themselves available to students outside of the classroom via their office hours and email, St. John’s Central, Blackboard, blogs, and for some, even FaceBook! Many have completed the Distance Learning Pedagogy course and are teaching some of their courses totally online or a combination of the two.

We’re also very excited about the emphasis the University is placing on global initiatives. We fully embrace Thomas Friedman’s conclusion that today’s world is a flat one and that our students must be citizens of the world. This is why we require St. John’s College students to study a foreign language and become familiar with cultures other than their own. Many of our faculty have created, or are in the process of creating, summer and mini-session courses in South America, Africa, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. They’re committed to the University’s initiative that all students have a study-broad experience and have begun to ask their students, “When will you study abroad?” rather than, “Will you study abroad?”

Q.:  University President, Rev. Donald J. Harrington, C.M., has challenged us to provide extraordinary service to students. How are you doing that?

A.: A few years ago we remodeled the front part of our Queens undergraduate office to make it a more inviting and accessible place for students (the Staten Island office had already been remodeled). Our staff and administrators are highly skilled professionals who understand that their raison d'etre is to serve students. They’re greeted warmly, their needs/issues are assessed, and they are then seen by one of our assistant deans. And we ensure that these meetings take place in the dean’s office to protect students’ privacy.

As good as our assistant deans are, they can’t know everything about the myriad of disciplines that make up the College, and so sophomores who have declared their majors, upperclassmen and graduate students all receive academic advisement from faculty members in their discipline. Those who have not declared a major are advised by assistant deans in the College’s Queens or Staten Island offices. Like all St. John’s undergraduates, our freshmen are advised by the Freshmen Center.

We’re always seeking out and open to new ways in which we can serve students, in and outside of our offices.

Q.: St. John’s College has been involved in several initiatives in Vietnam.  Tell us about them.

A.: Originally, a grant from the Newman Foundation enabled two of the College’s deans—one a Vietnamese expatriate whose family escaped from Saigon after the communist takeover—to take a group of St. John’s students to Vietnam for a joint conference with Vietnamese college students in Hanoi. Since that time, several of our Psychology and Biology faculty have traveled to Vietnam to discuss topics of interest, to teach, perform field work or assist and train Vietnamese faculty in their disciplines. Our men’s soccer and women’s volleyball teams have also visited Vietnam to play exhibition games in their respective sports.

One of the most exciting things we are doing in Vietnam now involves our partnership with the Hanoi National University of Education (HNUE) and Vietnam’s Ministry of Education and Training. Our Psychology Department will train Vietnamese psychologists in modern, empirically-supported assessment and intervention strategies for use with children with emotional and/or learning problems. Psychology Department faculty also plan to teach one or more St. John’s study-abroad courses in Vietnam. In addition to coursework, the students will be involved in academic service learning in collaboration with the Daughters of Charity.

In addition, several Vietnamese undergraduate and graduate students have or currently are pursuing degrees in St. John’s College as well as in other units of the university.

Q.: What would you like prospective students to know about St. John’s College?

I’d like to tell them what I told this year’s freshmen class at the beginning of the year. Quoting from Richard Levin, the President of Yale University, I told them that, “The essence of a liberal education is to develop the freedom to think critically and independently, to cultivate one’s mind to its fullest potential, to liberate oneself from prejudice, superstition, and dogma….[The] liberal education [you will receive at St. John’s] will prepare you to be thinking citizens for a lifetime, to subject the claims of all groups and interests to critical scrutiny, to disentangle arguments, to separate truth from untruth, [and] to resist those who would substitute the emotional appeal of prejudice for the use of reason.”

I suspect that this was part of the goal of the early Vincentian fathers/professors. It remains our goal today.