This article is featured in the 2025 Winter Carnival Special Issue.
From dance to theater to music, Dartmouth boasts a world-class performing arts faculty. Though, faculty in those departments are not the only ones pursuing the limelight. While balancing academic work and artistic hobbies can be a challenge, a number of Dartmouth professors who do not teach the performing arts still manage to take the stage.
Creative writing professor Katherine Crouch, for instance, has been working the local stand-up comedy scene for around three years.
“I just started listening to a lot of comedians while I was walking,” she said. “I started going to the Vermont Comedy Club in Burlington, Vt., to take classes and do open mics. I was like, ‘I could do this.’”
Former government professor Linda Fowler, who retired in 2014, has been involved in the Handel Society, a choral group which has been open to Dartmouth students and faculty, as well as Hanover community members, for more than two decades – having joined 10 years before her retirement.
“The Handel Society is the oldest town-gown chorus in the country,” Fowler said. “I started with the Handel Society in 2004, and I’m still singing with them. It’s a very different way to interact with undergraduates.”
In addition to her participation in the Handel Society, Fowler delved deeper into her singing pastime by founding Upper Valley Baroque in September 2021. According to Fowler, the organization is “devoted to bringing professional musicians and singers together to play music from the Baroque period.”
“The audience for classical music is not expanding, so that was one of the biggest motivations for starting Upper Valley Baroque,” Fowler said. “It’s pretty specialized. The people who love it love it passionately. It doesn’t have mass appeal.”
Psychological and brain sciences professor Melissa Herman has also participated in various regional choral groups, including the Handel Society, Gospel Choir and the New Hampshire Master Chorale.
For Herman, music has been essential since childhood. A former summer camp folk singer and high school choir member, Herman decided to continue her music journey when she arrived at Dartmouth.
“I’ve sung at Dartmouth since probably 2006,” Herman said. “I sang in all of the school choirs I was ever eligible for throughout my elementary, high school, undergraduate, graduate and postdoctoral experiences.”
Performing professors have also found ways to incorporate their passion for the stage into the classroom. Crouch, for example, said she has incorporated stand-up into her creative writing course curriculums.
“We look at monologues and callbacks — I think it’s very relevant to the short story and novel form,” Crouch explained. “I like to break down the circular nature of a comedy bit.”
Crouch also noted that the vivid imagery comedians use to depict characters aligns with the descriptive nature of fictional storytelling.
“Comedians will also describe people very vividly with one or two details,” Crouch said. “It helps show how we can quickly create a character that we can remember and relate to.”
Fowler, too, implemented elements of the arts — including some beyond the realm of music — into her government courses during her time teaching at the College.
“In my Congress class [GOVT 3, “Introduction to American Politics”], I used to play The Capitol Steps, which was a parody music group,” Fowler explained. “In my lectures, I often used … traditional artworks, famous paintings [and] film literature. I always used to have my students read excerpts from Mark Twain’s ‘The Gilded Age’ in my Congress class.”
Although the art Fowler incorporated into her classes was sometimes “different” from her interest in singing, she said she felt the pieces were “classics” that her “students should know about.”
For Herman, the use of music in her social psychology class, PSYC 23: “Social Psychology,” has helped her explain key concepts, specifically in the “obedience to authority” unit.
“One of the things I do is I say, ‘Okay, everybody stand up. We’re going to sing the Star Spangled Banner,’” Herman said. “And I see how many of them do it, because when an authority figure tells you to stand up and do something, usually you do it.”
While these professors have found ways to incorporate performance arts into seemingly unrelated courses, balancing their involvement in the arts outside of the classroom can be a bit more difficult.
“I went to concerts [while teaching], but not as many as I would have liked,” Fowler said. “My schedule was just very full with my work and raising my family.”
Herman also acknowledged the challenge of balancing work and concerts — though she noted that the opportunity for creative expression makes it worth it.
“During the week of a concert, I’m extremely busy with extra rehearsals,” Herman explained. “It’s hard to sometimes squeeze it all in, but mostly I find that it helps me to stay healthy and balanced in my life, to have a creative outlet.”
Despite the challenges of balancing a busy schedule, professors treasure the experiences fostered by the arts. Crouch said stand-up comedy has also acted as a means of fostering connections within the surrounding community. She explained that her sets “bring joy to both her audiences and [herself].”
“It’s the same thing with writing a book,” Crouch said. “Having people come up after and say, ‘Wow, I really connected with that,’ or, ‘I totally got where you were coming from.’ That’s the best part — talking to people who get your humor.”
Arts can also bring classrooms closer together. For one, Herman said she has cultivated connections with her students through a mutual interest in and passion for the arts.
“I usually tell students when I have a concert so that they can come,” she said. “And I ask my students when they’re performing, and I try to go if I’m available to see their performances.”
In addition to her own students, Herman said she enjoys being able to connect with other Dartmouth undergraduates.
“I like the fact that I’m able to interact with students in a non-hierarchical, non-judgmental way,” she said. “It feels very human and real to do that. Singing together just brings joy, and there’s a visceral connection between people who are doing the same thing at the same time.”
