Dr. Andy Woolley: resident director and English professor on The Catalyst
Our students have learned from Dr. Andy Woolley in very special ways since The Catalyst was founded. Few scholar-teachers any of his faculty have ever known can rival even parts of what he knows and loves to share with students. He is our program’s resident director as well as our lead faculty member in Second Session Catalyst. He is a joy for all of us — students and faculty alike — in every way. Now in his words…
When I turned eighteen, I went to Europe to pick up a Volkswagen that my father had purchased. Two friends and I drove about 6,000 miles in six weeks — from Luxembourg to Naples, from Naples to Vienna, from Munich to Stockholm, from Copenhagen to London — we covered the continent. We met some friends in Zurich and took an overnight train to Milan, arriving for cornetti and cappuccinos before heading to see the Duomo and the Last Supper. The trip back to Zurich involved a quick detour to Zermatt so that we could see the Matterhorn.
Needless to say, the trip changed my life. During my freshman year in college, in Survey of Western Civilization or History of Art, I had moments in which I would be back in Rome or Paris or Munich; it wasn’t just reading about some painting or battlefield or monument — it was reliving an experience.
The Catalyst allows me to do all that again — an intense educational experience which cannot be duplicated by any classroom setting, no matter how sophisticated the digital images or descriptive the text. And I jump at any chance that enables me to teach in this way. I was thrilled to be a part of the British Studies Program in London every other summer from 1993 to 2009. In the early years with the program, I was assisting with a class on the legend of King Arthur. Arthurian literature is great fun to read, but even more exciting were those days at Tintagel, a Cornish chalk headland overlooking the ocean. The waves come crashing against these jagged coastal promontories — it’s the kind of place that, if Arthur wasn’t born there, he should have been. And I have been there in all kinds of weather — driving rain, blistering, airless heat, fog and drizzle — and the effect is always the same — mystery, grandeur, drama. But being in London was just as much fun — a day at the Tower or an afternoon at the British Museum helped me understand medieval fortifications or Egyptian hieroglyphics better than any number of hours in the library.
As dear as my time on British Studies is, The Catalyst is even better. For one, the experience for the student is more intense and independent. It’s not that students don’t develop friendships on The Catalyst; the friendships are quickly formed as four or five head off to Prague or Nuremburg or Barcelona during Acceleration Tavel. Yet, one is meeting the new cities head on — and adjusting and making decisions and developing self-reliance in daily living and ways of learning. One morning in Paris, I talk about the French Renaissance while we sit in the Places des Vosges; in the afternoon, we are in the Louvre, looking at the paintings from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. But we don’t go around as a group — group tours often leave some people out, at the edge of the group, not quite getting to look at details and brushstrokes before the leader decides to move to the next painting. We go through as individual viewers; I wander from room to room, answering questions, making comments, pointing out favorite paintings. The student has the time and opportunity to look or wander at his or her own pace. Also, we generally allot the afternoon for a museum visit; in some museums, the student might be through fairly quickly; in others, such as the Van Gogh museum, some students stay for three or four hours. And the same schedule has already been established in London and will follow follows in Berlin and Prague.
Recently I saw some Catalyst alumni in Monroe and Tyler. They were full of stories of how The Catalyst had changed them; more importantly, I could see how The Catalyst had changed them — more poised, more certain, more comfortable with themselves. And, more ready for their careers, and not just in history or literature or art, but more ready for careers in business, banking, nursing, communication, and psychology. I’m not sure I can explain how all this happens, but I know that The Catalyst takes bright and interesting students and makes them professional citizens of the larger world.
