Intellectual Exemplars

                                 

Dr. Camara Jules P. Harrell

Dr. Harrell is my Intro to Psych teacher. I decided to interview him because he is a very lively and personable man and I find his class very interesting. Because I am a psychology major, he was nice enough to help me map out my academic course load as well as grant me an interview.

Dr. Harrell got into psychology by simply electing to be a psych major at the undergrad level at the University of Colorado. He studied clinical psychology in graduate school at the University of Illinois, and part of his training involved research and teaching. He did not do an internship because during his studies in graduate school, he discovered that clinical psychology was not what he wanted to do. He says he is not patient enough and too emotional, and that all the people he saw seemed to get sicker.

Dr. Harrell chose his more research-oriented path because of his experience as a clinical pyschologist. Through his classes and his reading of scientific research, he discovered a love for research psychology (more than he had for applied psychology). He found that there were very interesting questions to answer and things that he thought he could do differently and, through his own innovation, improve upon. Nowadays, he spends a small percentage of his time actually teaching, and most of his time during the day on research.

When I asked Dr. Harrell what he thinks makes a successful student, he simply said a successful student is one who goes beyond the requirements of the classroom by seeking research and practical experience. He said that mastering the information is not enough, a student must take it further, and really get involved in their major. That way the stuff from the classroom will really stick.

                         

Charles Richard Drew (June 3, 1904- April 1, 1950) did pioneering work in the field of blood transfusions, and was able to develop a new technique for blood storage using blood plasma, which contains no cells and therefore can be frozen, which he used to create the huge blood banks during World War II, which saved the lives of many Allied troops. He was also the first African American to receive the Doctor of Science degree, and the first black surgeon to serve as an examiner on the American Board of Surgery. He was also on staff here at Howard as an instructor in pathology, and later the head of surgery, at the Medical School. Our male freshman dorm is named after him. He only lived for 46 years, but his work will live on forever.

Charles Drew attended Dunbar High School in Washington, DC. Although segregated, it had a reputation for being one of the finest (black) public schools in the country. He was also an athlete, winning letter in track, baseball, football, and basketball, and received a partial scholarship which allowed him to attend Amherst College in Massachusetts.

Drew was always interested in a career in medicine. His sister Elsie, died in 1920 of the pandemic influenza, after having been afflicted with tuberculosis. This may have been what influence him to want to study medicine. He went to medical school at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, where he studied under John Beattie. Beattie was studying techniques and problems associated with blood transfusions, discovering that patients often died from loss of blood after accidents, and that there is a way to replace that blood, that there are four types of blood, and that the body would not reject blood of the same type. Drew undertook to discover the solution to the problem of finding a donor in an emergency (eventually leading him to the creation of blood banks).

I think that if asked what would make a successful student, Drew would answer passion and curiosity. An intriguing and very relevant problem spurred all of his research and discovery. His impetus was the death of his sister. I think he was driven by her memory and his love of learning to his success. I think he would say that if a student is sufficiently motivated and applies their talents to solving a problem that was personal and has bearing on their life, they will be most rewarded by their life work.

The Second Learning Community

Our second learning colloquia for Freshman Seminar was, to be perfectly honest, quite dull. It began late, with Dr. Carr passing out a checklist for all the assignment we should have completed thus far  in the class. To his surprise (but not mine), most people have not been as diligent as I have in completing the assignments. But Dr. Carr's infectious, upbeat attitude got a rise out of some people, especially when he reminded everyone that the student with the best portfolio at the end of the semester will win a prize, and divulged that the committee has considered buying the winner a new laptop.

Eventually, the lecture started. Put it this way, the topic was "Biological Anthropology Human Genre Historian". I got bored just reading it. And, no offense to Dr. Harris, the presenter, but my prejudices were not dispelled by his speech. Dr. Gary Harris is the director of Howard University's Nanoscale Science and Engineering facility. He began his lecture with a promise to not use random technical jargon to confuse and bore us. Instead, he said he intended to discuss black scientists and engineers, and their contributions to our society.

He started with a kind of tie-in with our topic for next week, Intellectual Exemplars. He gave us two exemplary men to remember. "Grandfather" Imhotep was the father of medicine and the co-author of the first medical textbook. The Greek name for him was "Apollo the physician", and to this day, whn doctors take their oath of profession, they swear to him. Cheikh Anta Diop was the founding director of the Radiocarbon Dating Lab, a historian, mathematician linguist, and author. He wrote The African Origin of Civilization.

He then launched a discussion of the condition of African Americans. He said we have lost things: our names, our way of life, our culture, our memories, our land, our independent production capacity, our control over ourselves and our institutions, our sensitivity, and worst of all, our solidarity. He then went in on how Earth is somewhere between 210 and 175 million years old, and that until about fifty million years ago, it was all one big mass (Pangea). Then, continental drift pulled the pieces apart. He told us that the maps have distorted reality, however. The North is eighteen million square miles, whereas the South is comprised of thirty-eight million square miles. The old Soviet Union is 8.7 million square miles, whereas Africa is comprised of 11.7 million square miles. Yet, the maps made it appear that the North and the Soviet Union were bigger than the South and Africa. He said our first objective is to get the map right, using a model called Peter's Projection, or the equal-area map. He reminded us of the evolutionary importance of Africa, home of the first three (of six) human forms. In fact the oldest discovered woman, "Lucy", is between two and three million years old and was from Africa.

But, he says that Africans and African Americans have made other, more recent, contributions, that have had many practical uses. He talked about the great Pyramids of Giza, and other symbols that have affected the world over. Apparently, the French built the Eiffel Tower so they would have a monument comparable to those in Africa. And African symbols are rampant in American culture: the pyramid with an eye on our dollar bill, the Rx we use to mean prescription (but is actually the symbol of Osiris). Also, at least eight black people worked on the Manhattan Project to create the atom bomb, one of which was a sixteen-year-old Ph.D. He gave examples of great inventors, like Granville Woods, who had over sixty patents, and successfully sued Thomas Edison twice for infringement on his patent rights, and Garrett Morgan who created the traffic light and the gas mask. In fact, by 1913, African Americans owned over 100 patents. He tried to make these things exciting, but it was lost on us, the audience.

In closing, he left us with a motivational speech. I have a strange aversion to motivational speakers, so this lost him favor with me. These are what he calls "The Graduation Principles":

1. Free Your Mind- he said you must believe that what you want (graduation) can happen; you cannot do what you cannot imagine.

2. Time Management- he said there are only 168 hours in a week, to part of which classes, sleep, eating, etc. already lay claim, so you must make time for studying and have rules for yourself.

3. Use All Your Resources- these include other students, teachers, textbooks, other book, the Internet, etc.

4. Use A Buddy System- he said have a friend in each class to take notes for you if you absolutely cannot make it.

5. "No Pain, No Gain"- he said that this is a one-time opportunity, and if you work hard and study hard, you will still be able to party hard.

he closed with this quote: "In this world you may not always get what you paid for, but you will certainly pay for what you get."