Ira Saiger

I have been an adjunct at Mercy since 2004 and have been teaching in higher education for 21 years.

I love teaching in walking distance of Times Square, because my Cognitive Psychology Students seem to really enjoy going to where they drop the ball on New Years Eve and estimating how many feet up it is, and finding out they are WAY off. 

I carry on the tradition of my undergraduate professor, Dr. Susan Handelman, of requiring students to write weekly class letters to each other.  When it works well, she said it is a great “ way precisely  to create   that community in the classroom, that intimate dialogue of persons, that engaged critical and  creative thinking that leads to wonder, discovery, mutual respect, and sparkling  discussion and lively writing”  

As she famously pointed out in her book Slayers of Moses, “word” and “thing” are the same word in Hebrew, and it was only with the rise of Greek civilization that the cleavage of these two words and ideas became distinct.  I try to keep my students focused on words, ideas and things.  The most frequent thing I do in class is emphasizing how important it is to keep up with the readings!