Our Talented Program Assistants
Each summer we bring together a very select group of outstanding college and graduate students through a nationwide talent search for Program Assistants for the Great Books Summer Program. Program Assistants are chosen from hundreds of applicants based upon their academic excellence, intellectual enthusiasm, outgoing personality, experience in working with younger people and maturity.Our 2009 staff hailed from colleges and universities such as Dartmouth, Yale, Stanford, Amherst, Columbia, Northwestern, and Harvard. They brought many diverse talents to the program and a shared love of great books. We had Greek scholars, philosophy majors, blossoming novelists, guitar players, rugby stars, debate team members and artists.
The Program Assistants help facilitate seminar discussions, collaborate with students on their electives, and organize all kinds of fun indoor and outdoor activities. Each Program Assistant is assigned to a "pod", a group of 6-8 boys or girls on their dorm floor. They lead informal evening discussions in the dorm, assist their students with daily camp life, and make sure that everyone has a wonderful experience.
Interested in joining the team for 2010? If you would like additional information about the position or our program, please read our job description or email us at info@greatbookssummer.com. Or simply go here to start your application!
Meet some of our 2010 Program Assistants!
Thea Goodrich
Thea Goodrich, a rising junior at Kenyon College in Ohio, is excited to return for her third summer as a PA (her sixth as a member of the GBSP family). She is an English major with a penchant for poetry who also enjoys making playlists for her radio show, doing crossword puzzles, and watching movies with a bowl of M&Ms at her side. She's always up for a game of speed Scrabble or a Flight of the Conchords sing-along. In pursuit of an Art History minor, she will be studying gelato and cannoli (and maybe some paintings) in Rome come the fall, so remind her to practice her Italian.
Thea Hogarth
Thea is absolutely thrilled to be returning for her third summer as a PA at Great Books! A rising sophomore at Haverford College, Thea has spent the past year becoming old and wizened – and maybe wise – as a way to better assert her position as a member of the Great Books staff. Please forgive her misguided dream of authoring the next Great American Novel; all things pass in time. In the meantime, you should know that she gets her kicks from reading, baking, and online Scrabble. Experts have predicted a 99% likelihood of a major in Comparative Literature.
Isaac Ericson
Isaac is a History major at Columbia University with a Special Concentration in Human Rights. A New England native, Isaac is excited to spend a second summer at Amherst, though he has also worked as a PA at the Stanford Branch. His academic interests lie primarily in international humanitarian law and transitional justice, but also include literature and film. There are few things Isaac appreciates more than a well crafted sandwich or a sinking curveball that paints the corners of the Fenway Park batter's box.
Gabriel Baker
Gabe is from Pennsylvania, and currently attends Oberlin College in Ohio where he is a double major in Classical Studies and Comparative Literature. Gabe is a "Classics" enthusiast who reads and enjoys nothing more than the Greek and Latin languages. Gabe also plays guitar in an instrumental rock band, loves to throw frisbee, and enjoys the sun, rain, and snow.
Tina Groeger
Tina grew up in Cambridge, MA and graduated from Harvard College with a concentration in Social Studies. This major was originally going to help her pursue an interest evolutionary psychology, but morphed into the study of German philosophers for the better part of three years. A few themes she always comes back to are questions of objectivity, human nature, and the role of the intellectual in society. Next year she will set off to Berlin to master the German language and continue studying philosophy. She also loves singing and harmonizing, photography, construction paper, and the soft-serve ice cream of Amherst dining hall. This is her fifth year as a PA at Great Books and she is thrilled to be back for another summer!
Matt Boyas
A rising sophomore at Dartmouth College, Matt hails from Pittsburgh but has spent most of the past year in rural New Hampshire studying 6th Century African explorers, the brain, and cows. Consequently, he still doesn’t have a major, but he’s both an avid clarinetist and an internationally certified Future Problem Solving evaluator! In his free time, Matt can be found either watching an episode of Ace of Cakes or learning how to play klezmer clarinet so he has some marketable skills. Matt is thrilled to be returning to Great Books as a PA after two excellent summers as a camper.
Josh Hosmer-Quint
Josh is entering his sophomore year at Knox College, in Galesburg, Illinois. He plans to major in psychology and minor in music. This will be his second summer working at Amherst for Great Books. His interests outside academics include Frisbee, jazz, and, of course, reading. His favorite authors are Cormac McCarthy, Chuck Palahniuk, Susanna Clarke, and Jorge Luis Borges. He can’t wait to get back to the Great Books Program
Esther Mobley
Esther is a rising senior at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts. She is an English major, but she does not confine her study of literature to the English language alone: she has a passion for reading in Spanish and Latin too. Esther cannot wait to spend her first summer as a PA at Amherst and share her love of books with other similarly passionate individuals. She rows for the Smith Crew team, and she also enjoys John Ford movies, folk music, Spanish food, and her ancestral home, Kentucky.
Madeline Horan
Madeline Horan is Southern girl going to a Minnesotan college: St Olaf. Needless to say, she can adapt to any kind of climate. She is obsessed with FS Fitzgerald, and she even displays a huge poster of his wife Zelda in her dorm room. When she is not talking about Fitzgerald, the Lost Generation, or the Romantic poets, she speaks Japanese with a Southern accent. After spending her golden and glorious summers at Great Books as a camper, she can't wait to return as a PA this summer!
Kelsey Westphal
From the verdant valley of Ojai, California, Kelsey Westphal is most likely to be seen somewhere up a tree, prancing around, or curled up in a corner with some kind of tome. A second year French and English major at UC Berkeley, she loves to draw comics, taste cheeses, and read books while wearing lots of voluminous clothing. She is very excited for her first year with Great Books and cannot wait to meet everyone!