My “Div IV:” Roger Mummert 74F Reconnects with the Hampshire Method

Retirement challenges us to find new meaning. When I turned in my office ID card three years ago, I immersed myself in a personal project that, in a very fulfilling way, reengages me with issues I explored in my work at Hampshire. It’s great to again feel the intensity of learning that I knew in my college years.
 
I’m heartened to find that the modes of inquiry from my Hampshire experience in the 1970s still apply. I hear guiding voices of faculty mentors. I take hikes in local nature preserves (one with an apple orchard) to wrestle with my thoughts. And I’m driven by a work ethic that, after considerable goofing off, I forged by graduation time and honed over the course of a 40-year career in publishing.
 
My third year at Hampshire, I spent a semester in Paris. I went with no sponsoring program; I curated my own experience. I took a class at Alliance française to revive my high school French and then explored libraries, book shops, and museums, tirelessly walking the streets as a neo-flâneur, lost in thought.  
 
In retirement, I’ve rekindled my love of Paris through research and visits. I recently created a website, TheParisProject.net, which explores the history of Paris as a city where ideas flourish — especially now. Age-old ideas about equality, secularity, art, and culture that I studied a half-century ago are hotly debated today in the greening of Paris, the urban agriculture and bicycle movements, immigration and cultural expression, and issues of equitable housing, education, and nutrition.
 
Despite the current spike of anti-intellectualism, this is a fabulous time to benefit from learning techniques that college provided. My Hampshire experience was largely about finding out how to find out. As per the adage, Hampshire “taught me how to fish.” The lessons of a liberal arts education are lifelong tools, and the opportunities to apply them have grown exponentially.
 
I’m accessing online courses, podcasts, and videos, as well as traditional resources such as the New York Public Library and its remarkable collections of antiquarian maps, books, and prints. I visited Paris to further my research with original materials, and I was stunned to encounter an oceanic amount of historical and literary materials on perhaps the most visited and documented city in the world.
 
Sorting out a huge amount of information can be paralyzing, but I often recall the encouraging voice of Hampshire Professor Emeritus Leonard Glick: “Don’t wait till you’re the world’s expert on a subject to begin writing about it because you’ll never be the world’s expert — so get started now!” He was appealing for papers from us slackers, papers that were not forthcoming. Well, Len, here’s my paper now, a bit tardy. 
 
On reflection, I still believe in the Hampshire concept of open inquiry, self-directed learning, seeking equality and sustainability, and sharing and debating the truths and conundrums as we uncover them. These principles continue to guide me as I explore a world of ideas. Even in retirement, in fact especially so, Hampshire keeps giving me more.
 
 
Roger Mummert (74F) created www.theparisproject.net as a learning resource on how ideas form a neural network in the City of the Enlightenment. He recently presented the webinar “Paris: A City of Ideas” for the Federation Alliances Françaises, which you may view on YouTube.