The Magic Mountaineers: Assumption History Professor Uses Pandemic to Reconnect and Collaborate with Alumni
During the stay-at-home order issued for Massachusetts as a result of the global pandemic, the Assumption community found innovative ways to stay connected. Thomas Wheatland, Ph.D., associate professor of history who specializes in German history and modern European intellectual history, maintains relationships with his current and former students by recommending relevant novels and films to his students to continue the learning outside of the classroom. During the spring semester, he took this engagement a step further by creating a book club with alumni of Assumption’s history program.
“I’ve fallen back on the one thing that I enjoy doing more than anything else – teaching and contributing to the educational mission that Assumption offers to its current students and alumni,” said Prof. Wheatland, who is currently working on a new book project but his research has been partially interrupted due to the current situation of this global pandemic.
Prof. Wheatland was inspired to form the book club when a current student reached out to him on the first day of remote learning to inform him that she had followed a recommendation of his to watch Schindler’s List. With the idea of gathering former students for a book club already forming in his mind, this prompted Prof. Wheatland to extend an invitation to a group of former students in hopes of starting this book club.
Prof. Wheatland’s enthusiasm for history and continuing to learn even after graduation is shared by his former students, as evidenced by the overwhelmingly positive response to his idea. “Nearly every student who I contacted got right back to me and wanted to join,” he said.
“I saw this as a renewed opportunity to catch up with Prof. Wheatland but also explore a more intellectual genre of history, something I’ve missed since my graduate school days,” explained Natalie ’11 Geeza, who earned her M.A. in history from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst in 2013 and has taught at Brooklyn Middle School in Brooklyn, CT, for the last seven years.
Geeza and her fellow book club members—ranging from a variety of class years–include former students who have taken some of Prof. Wheatland’s intensive classes and have shown interest in his area of expertise. The club meets virtually through Zoom every other week to discuss the novel The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann, a tale of education and growth set in a tuberculosis sanitarium in Davos, Switzerland. During the bi-weekly meetings, attendees of the “Magic Mountaineers” club share their questions and thoughts that encourage thoughtful discussion.
“This is a book that celebrates the interiority of a quarantine,” said Prof. Wheatland. “It demonstrates how much productive thought and growth can happen in the midst of social isolation. And, it’s a very funny novel, though much of the humor is very dark humor. From my vantage point, Mann wrote this as an allegory for all that he found wrong with European civilization after the Great War. I thought perhaps this is a book that might speak to us at this current crossroads in history and shed some insight into our current moment.”
John Donegan ’13, a Cranston, RI, city councilor who works for Travelers Insurance and holds an M.A. in modern European, and American history from Providence College, never missed an opportunity to take a class with Prof. Wheatland as a student and welcomed the opportunity to continue his conversations with his favorite professor and fellow alumni. “Dr. Wheatland has the unique ability to not only effectively communicate historical facts, but also make history alive for his students, past or present,” he said. “The commentary Mann espouses in The Magic Mountain on the concepts of time and death are applicable in any era, but especially so as we find ourselves isolated from many loved ones, and grappling with the horrifying death toll of the COVD-19 pandemic. Dr. Wheatland’s book choice is no coincidence, and its content perhaps more relatable than ever.”
Prof. Wheatland has recommended The Magic Mountain as summer reading to all of his seminar classes since he began teaching at Assumption. He added that the complicated novel was chosen because it emphasizes “the distinctive value of an Assumption liberal arts education not only for instilling the best practices for life-long learning, but also for confronting problems and circumstances like the ones that we collectively find ourselves in right now. Because the book deals with such large and timeless questions, it is ideally designed for Assumption graduates. Because all of our students gain such a solid grounding in the liberal arts, they are ideally prepared to grapple with and follow the existential questions that form the basis of Mann’s inquiry — questions such as, who are we, why are we here, and what is the purpose of our existence?”
The book club has allowed Prof. Wheatland to reconnect with his former students and for students to share their passion for learning and collaboration. “Reading this book has reignited my interest in historical thought and reminds me of my deep-rooted (but often buried) passion for German history,” said Geeza. “Taking the time to read The Magic Mountain and discuss it with other alumni and Professor Wheatland has reminded me to slow down and make time for other hobbies from time to time. Ultimately, this book club has given me a better sense of balance for my life while also leading me to consider what else we can learn from the past. … It really is an interesting and thought-provoking read for our current climate and I must give my sincere thanks to Prof. Wheatland for organizing this book club.”
Donegan agreed. “The book club has forced me to take a time-out from the news, social media, work, politics, etc. and escape – which, I recognize the ability to do so is a privilege,” he said. “The Assumption community is one that I hold very dear, and I am fortunate to still be in contact with many of my classmates and friends. The opportunity to reconnect with other history alumni, and Dr. Wheatland is a welcomed one.”
As for the next book, Prof. Wheatland plans to leave it up to the alumni to decide if they’d like to continue the club and if so, he’ll let them choose. “I would love to continue doing this,” he shared. “It’s incredibly rewarding to reconnect with students around common interests and to see how much they have changed as well as how they are putting their educations to use.”