2003 Accinno Teaching Award
Assistant Professor of Political Science

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from providence magazine, summer 2005

Cammarano's disputatio for dignity

Joe Cammarano says some things you might not expect to hear from a college professor: "There is far too much lecturing on the campus" and "my students are smarter than I am" are just two of his surprising pronouncements. He will also tell a magazine writer when he thinks a question is "tiresome and unproductive."

Yet the outspoken assistant professor of political science is still kind enough to answer those tiresome questions and is surprising in his modesty regarding the Accinno Faculty Teaching Award, stating that several of his Providence College colleagues are more deserving of it. Taken all together, this outlook outside the norm likely played a role in Cammarano being named the Accinno award's first recipient three years ago.

Cammarano's penchant for candor is part of what he considers his role at the College, in which he emulates the Dominican tradition of disputatio: the ability to engage different perspectives and identify truth within them to move toward a fuller understanding of veritas.

"That sometimes means taking on popular wisdom and dominant cultural beliefs," he said.

Cammarano joined the PC faculty in 1997 after teaching at Syracuse, Drew and Mansfield universities. He also taught at Rutgers University, where he earned his Ph.D. in 1994. He has authored articles and presented papers at academic conferences around the country, as well as co-edited the book, Education For Citizenship. His research specializations include political socialization, communication and psychology, gender and politics, and voting behavior.

His current academic projects include a study of presidential leadership from Johnson through the younger Bush, focusing on education policy; an examination of the factors behind fluctuating abortion rates; research into the political involvement of two generations of adolescents; and a study of how college communities perceive Title IX.

In short, Cammarano stays busy outside the classroom, although by all accounts he is at his best inside it.

A Different Way
Cammarano's classes on American politics, political institutions and behavior, public law and policy, and quantitative methods are "informal, conversational, and sometimes chaotic." Like the best political mavericks, he is not afraid of throwing out tradition in favor of results.

"I specifically reject the notion that students need to be lectured or talked to in order for them to learn," he said. "Instead, I believe in the use of serendipity to engage and motivate our learning community. The best way to do this is through participatory learning strategies, community-based learning, and application of academic concepts to contemporary issues."

He dislikes what he calls the "banking model" of education. "This approach presumes that the best way to educate students is to place a bunch of learned people in front of them, have these professors talk about what they know, and then test students to see if they have become 'smart,'" he said, adding that lecturing has its place but is an incomplete technique. Cammarano prefers a learning model in which "students discover and discern knowledge, rather than having knowledge revealed to them by us."

Student Advocate
He also believes the PC student body is the finest he has encountered. "I constantly tell my students they are the best students I have worked with in my career. They are technically very capable and personally decent human beings," he said. "I refer to them as the 'worker bees of the professional class.' This means they may not get all the attention given to the Queen Bee-or, as Aquinas called it, the 'King Bee'-but they will do all the work needed for our social, economic, and political system to succeed and sustain itself."

That does not mean, however, that even these beloved pupils escape Cammarano's frank commentary. "They are as smart as those at any institution at which I have worked," he said. "They are also less creative and more intellectually cautious than students I have worked with elsewhere."

Yet statements of this kind are just tough love, as Cammarano considers his greatest contribution to PC to be his advocacy for "marginalized" groups on campus and "politically powerless" students whom he deems to have been treated unfairly.

This advocacy is part of his most important motivation: the promotion of human dignity. "I believe that the best route to human dignity is treating everyone as an equal," he said. "This partnership results in collective as well as individual learning that is deeper, more lasting, and more meaningful than a process that encourages rote memorization and teaching to tests."

In Cammarano's case, one might call this the dignity of disputatio.

"He is one of the most dedicated scholars and teachers I know. As a scholar, he is constantly reading anything and everything written in his field, and uses his scholarship not only in his own writing but to improve and update his courses. As an educator, he regards his relationship with his students as just as important as the content of his courses."
             -- Dr. Richard M. Battistoni, professor of political science

"Joe spends more quality time working with his students than anyone on the faculty.  His office door is always open and, most of the day, there is a student or two sitting with him discussing political science.  . . . He cares deeply about educating the whole student, not only imparting cognitive knowledge but helping students become good people.  . . .  Joe is always teaching, whether in front of a class, talking with students in his office, or working with them at a service site.  Our students adore Joe because they know that they are his first priority. "
           -- Dr. William E. Hudson, professor of political science