Professor Alexander R.H. Smith, Ph.D., a faculty member in the Physics Department, has been awarded a fellowship from the Nielsen Center for the Liberal Arts at Eckerd College.
As part of the fellowship, Professor Smith will explore what it means to be a Liberal Arts educator, a concept which is more than applicable to a Saint Anselm education.
Participants receive a stipend to attend three in-person workshops which delve into the history and purpose of the Liberal Arts.
According to Professor Smith, the workshops challenged both himself and his fellow educators, asking them to “reimagine [their] teaching practices and the ways [they] measure student growth.”
A regular participant in multidisciplinary and interconnected academic programs, this fellowship is just the most recent of his intellectual endeavors.
Professor Smith holds a B.Sc. in Physics from the University of Waterloo and went on to achieve an M.Sc in Theoretical Physics from the University of Toronto. In 2017, he obtained a Ph.D. in Theoretical Physics from the University of Waterloo and a second Ph.D. from Macquarie University.
Following in the vein of John Wheeler, Professor Smith is fascinated by pushing theories to their extremes, believing that unique insights into nature can be discovered when ideas must confront one another head-on. His research focuses on quantum information science, quantum field theory, and relational quantum dynamics, motivated by questions arising in the quantization of gravity.
As he’s taken a step back to observe the impact of this experience, Smith believes that the fellowship opportunity arose at just the right time - when students need instructors who can guide them through the complexities of the contemporary world.
“Students today are bombarded with information that is full of unexamined assumptions,” he said. “During this fellowship, it became clear that a liberal arts education equips students to face this situation by challenging the very habits of mind we often take for granted.”
“By encouraging inquiry across disciplines, and embedding deliberate reflection, critical analysis, and student-driven research into our curriculum, students learn to question easy answers, to understand why they believe what they believe, and ultimately become the thoughtful leaders we need,” Professor Smith went on to explain.