My name is Jeff Lantis, I am a professor of
Political Science at the College, and I've
been here for 16 years. Almost my entire life
I have been fascinated by politics and by
global affairs. As a young person I grew up
with interest watching television, reading
the newspapers, and learning about a particular
issue going on often in the United States.
But then I began to develop a boarder perspective
about the world and be curious about what
goes on. Working with students here at the
college, in the classroom on Independent Study
projects, and in other ways also fuels that
curiosity on their part, but also on my part
in exploring key topics and wanting to know
more about them in terms of current affairs
and also thinking about future developments
and so research and scholarship and teaching
combine in a very nice way, I think, at Wooster
to promote an exploration of those issues.
I’m very pleased to be working and living
in a liberal arts college environment it gives
me a chance to interact with students in a
broad variety of programs and activities,
both formally on campus and informally when
I run into someone in the community or attend
a sporting event or a theater program or a
cultural event. These interactions were really
important to me, a student who went to a liberal
arts college and it’s for sure that I wanted
to get back to that kind of environment then
professionally. With programs on campus, forum
events, speakers with debates across campus
both in the classroom and out that foster
a level of engagement, that is there is always
questions that Wooster students, Wooster faculty
members are wrestling with and exploring and
I think that makes a small liberal arts college
environment distinctive.
A typical Wooster student is a student who
is intelligent, interested in an engaged educational
environment and by that I mean they want to
be in a small college environment where there’s
an expectation for them to interact with professors
both formally and informally, to speak and
engage in classroom discussions and debates,
to participate in co-curricular activities,
to be engaged.
The independent study program at Wooster is
distinctive. It is the real deal and it gives
me a chance to work with students on topics
they care about and that I come to care about
as well. Some of that research begins to feel
collaborative in nature and indeed I’ve
had experiences where I’ve worked with students
on these undergraduate senior research projects
that we have then developed into publishable
articles or monographs for publication and
dissemination to others in political science
and international relations.
