 Good morning sir. I'm Rob Crawford and I'm a political science professor and anything more you want to know about? Political science, I mean UBC is the department that I've organized university as you know, which means that everybody belongs to a department or vice versa, so I'm a political scientist but I've obviously been in arts one for a long time as well. I've taught in arts one since 1995, continuously, which is probably some kind of a record. Yes, I mean it's great, I mean I've been, my connection to arts one was back a very long way because I took it as a student, which would have been 1978, 79, not about then. So I didn't plan on coming back, but you know, it just happened that way. I mean many, many memorable experiences, I don't know if you want a good one or a bad one but I remember a student, I won't use names, I don't know her name, in fact she was somebody else's student but it was memorable in the sense that it was the first time I'd ever lectured on Shakespeare and she approached me after the lecture and in tears she told me that I'd written the text for her which wouldn't be a favorite memory at the time, but she did come back two weeks later and say that she understood that the point of a program like arts one was not relying on high school interpretations of the text but thinking for yourself and that I had helped her do that. It took her about two weeks to come back and say that it wasn't really an apology but it was a moment of enlightenment. It's a strange moment to sort of identify as a favorite but given what arts one does and is meant to do, I mean I would say that it was kind of I mean at the time it wasn't a happy thing because she was so upset but she did come back and she did acknowledge that in her own way that she'd been wrong and that she now understood something about the program that she didn't before so I think that's probably, you know, if I had time to think about it I'd probably come up with more but that's a, I'd call it a powerful moment. So from a teaching point of view it was a favorite moment. Changes, you know with themes change every couple of years so I always get excited about a new theme so I'm really interested in this theme this theme is called resistance and authority or maybe authority and resistance I should know because I wrote it but anyway it's both of those things in case it doesn't matter which comes first. I do look forward to new themes, you know, the second year of a theme is great too but the first year you're really finding out whether or not the theme is going to work and it is kind of a classic I think, a classic arts one theme and I think it's going to work well and I'm looking forward to test driving. Well my former students won't be surprised if I say Hobbs is the life, it's a favorite but I especially look forward to reading it now because it's been a few years since I've made an appearance somewhere, it's my reading list and I think you can make a very powerful argument for Hobbs is Leviathan being on the list if you know anything about the text it's like a hard core text about authority and someone say justification for authority, you know, a careful reading would suggest that it's not as, you know, that Hobbs is not as big of an authority as it appears to be but anyway it's a favorite text of mine or one of my favorites and I think students will probably wonder why because it's very difficult to dance text and it certainly wasn't my favorite when I read it as an arts one student but you know it's like an acquired taste I guess I'm acquired but I'm looking forward to the whole list to be honest but Hobbs is a special favorite to dust them off and get them back into action it's an odd reading, you know, it's not like reading a novel you can't pick it up or you can't go oh that was great it really takes a lot of sustained attention but it's the power of the inside that I find compelling and believe it or not he's actually kind of got a sense of humor we have to do really hard to find that but you need to understand that it was written, you know, in 1651 so it's not, while it's in modern English it's also in a kind of archaic style which is quite inaccessible at first but once you sort of persevere and get through it well I mean you may or may not, it's like Guinness you may or may not acquire the taste I think it kind of anchors something, I mean I really think in some ways that you can make that case for Sophocles' play Antigone as well which is the first text we're reading I have to lecture you on it maybe even more than Hobbs that's the text that anchors the theme as a whole but Hobbs is offering a kind of philosophical exploration political philosophical exploration of the themes of authority and resistance or rather non-resistance in Hobbs's case that I think is dramatized in the Antigone play in a very powerful and enduring way I think you could argue that that play remains relevant probably always will remain relevant so I think that I would have to put Hobbs on a par with that text in terms of its relevance to the theme I don't know if I could but if I'm only allowed to have one I would say inspiring I was going to say challenging but that sounds a little too frightening for prospective students challenging and exciting Czech sighting, something like that the same as I've expected and gotten from every previous class as I've been teaching here has won that is a lot of very bright very interested people and very motivated and self-motivated but also good people who are interested in ideas and are willing and able to show up and put those ideas on the table and discuss them openly and I think that's what we're getting because that's what we always get well you know I don't read right my prof but I've had people read it to me my children for example tell me what's out there my nephews delight in telling me what people say about I mean I guess I'm lying when I say don't read it I sort of peek every now and again I have heard it said that I'm a tough grader I don't think of myself that way I think of myself as a very demanding grader I guess that's maybe a semantic distinction but I mean if it's there it's there and I think you know I don't think students it's put it this way I've never believed that students come in with 100% and I sit there and pick stuff off and reduce it it doesn't work that way you earn it I think why I'm large they do and I think at the end of the year students recognize come to understand what it's about what I'm about I don't hesitate to give very high grades if I think that you know they're there but you know I'm a demanding it's put it that way I think I'm demanding be prepared to work be prepared to talk be prepared to pull your weight show up bring the book read the book you know talk of course you know it's very important to participate but it's also very important to participate in a way that shows that you're engaged in the readings you know that's meeting me half way I think students are prepared to be engaged and to work and not ridiculously heavy workload but I mean it's a decent amount of reading but you know arts one is 18 credits have to remind students of that and you know you're getting three full courses in one shot so I don't think when you measure arts one against other courses and against a regular timetable that it's an enormous amount of work it's hard to say it's not an enormous amount of work but it is challenging and you know you have to want it you have to like it you know halfway through the year isn't the right time to find out you're in the wrong course so you know I assume coming in that students have a genuine interest in the reading list and that they'll and they generally do and that they'll be fulfilled by then but jeez that's the one thing I want them to know that I'm very passionate about my interests and I think it's okay for them to be passionate about their isn't and if I'm allowed to mention those interest in class they're allowed to mention their isn't and you know I'm a big Morrisons fan you should probably know that I'm generally speaking a Manchester music guy you know I love the verb I love Oasis I play guitar I wouldn't say I'm a great guitar player but I love playing that material you know I don't know if that's something they need to know about me or should know about me it's certainly something they will know about me because I have a very tough time keeping that stuff hidden and I am convinced that you know I had a colleague once who was convinced that Moses and Genesis in general is the most relevant thing that you can read in the Western Larry tradition I would argue that it's the music and wisdom and lyrics of Morrissey I would say it's not a part of Moses so that's kind of my life it's a little bit overstated of course but I think it's okay to be passionate about something it shows students that hello welcome you made the right choice you definitely made the right choice not because you're taking it with me if you're taking it with me but because you're taking one of Canada's very best foundation year programs in fact we're the one that I don't know if I should say this on camera but we're the one that just about everybody else copies especially in Canada the program has been around a long time it's got a good reputation it's a little bit under a role right now which I cannot understand because I think maybe people think that if you come in and study jobs and play it over and so on you're not really well positioned to get a job which is completely untrue and I want students to know that it's completely untrue in fact research shows that humanities and social sciences students have most of the high-paying jobs and there was a major study in Britain that demonstrated that in the British Civil Service for example so it's a great beginning I took parts one, I loved it and in some ways I'm still a kind of an arts one student because I'm teaching it and teaching the material is also learning the material but also it really does or really can change the way you think and in my case for example although I'm a political scientist I remain very interested in cross-disciplinary studies and that's been a hallmark teacher of my research and teaching so I think arts one does that I think it just kind of ignores the straight jacket of disciplinary boundaries and opens up other possibilities and that can have permanent effects good or bad but I think that something that even haubs himself probably can't say he only read what happened