The Art of Donning

The annual senior-don dinner is when that four-year table for two you’ve enjoyed is now set up for guests: those other students who may have started out in your freshman studies class and shared your don. Every graduate knows, of course, that no one really can share your don. Each relationship is as singular as those who comprise it, shaped both by the problems to be solved and by the personalities who will solve them. By mutual desire, you may discuss your deepest feelings, or nothing more intimate than your interest in Sufi mysticism; you may change dons during your SLC stay; you may never again be taught by your don after your first-year course; your don may be Bill or Nancy, or perpetually Mr. Park or Ms. Baker—but that relationship, and your don, is yours forever.

“I loved having students, and I loved having donnees. I enjoyed that part about the College. Of course, I enjoyed all the College—   I shouldn’t say I didn’t; I did. But I mean, it was unique to Sarah Lawrence to have donnees, and I was glad I was there instead of some other college.”
Kathryn Mansell, Literature Faculty, 1936 - 1966  

“My own taste in donning is, as much as possible, to take the lead from the students. I don’t look for problems. But I can help—and I have helped—students. I don’t feel I’m a don that students feel close to or dependent on, but close enough so that we can have a meaningful conversation about whatever problems the student raises.”
Edward Cogan, Mathematics Faculty, 1963 - 1991

“Donning is a wonderful part of what Sarah Lawrence has to offer: an advisor who cares, listens, helps you think through your academic program in relation to your life, even providing resources if you are going through a personal crisis. But I think the word (don) is pretentious and misleading. What goes on here is deepened, extended advising, making for very special relationships that are important to dons as well as their donnees. I remember my donnees over years and years—in different ways, always with an interest in where they are now , what they are doing—and some have become colleagues and friends.”
Margery Franklin, Psychology Faculty, 1965-2002

“When I think back on it, the donning system gave a chance for students to say what they really feel, because you learn how to trust your don. And what they say is almost invariably smarter than they thought. And then they see the reaction in the faculty member’s eyes and brain, and they say to themselves, ‘Hey, this is smarter than I thought.’ And that interplay can’t be beat.”
Joseph Papaleo ’49, Writing Faculty, 1960-1992

“That’s why I found Sarah Lawrence a very hard and tough place to teach in: Sometimes you were face-to-face in the narrow confines of your little office and had weepy students. I was a teacher who always had an adequate supply of Kleenex on his desk and cookies and jelly beans. I remember telling my faculty don that I was continuously losing my voice—I was very hoarse. And when I said this, he said, ‘I don’t think that you belong at Sarah Lawrence.’ I said, ‘Why not?’ He said, ‘You’re not supposed to talk in Sarah Lawrence, you’re supposed to listen!’ Donning gave me a chance to see, if not the whole student, more of the student as a personality than I would in the classroom or from reading her paper. We greeted each other. We laughed. We shared our enthusiasms, our disappoint- ments. And I learned to listen.”
Hyman Kleinman, Literature Faculty, 1964 - 1984

“Every don needs to know something about each course taught and the person teaching it, to advise his students properly for a single year’s program and for the sequence of her courses during her four years. Paradoxically, the more the curriculum has grown, and the more there is to know about, the less time is left for us to find out about it by informal communication with other teachers. Those unscheduled, in-between moments at lunch, in the cafeteria, are a vital part of our curriculum.”
Rudolf Arnheim, Psychology Faculty, 1943 - 1975