Professor Christian Caron teaches SOC101 in Convocation Hall every year. This year, as part of the Series "Inside Con Hall, U of T News caught up with Professor Caron and interviewed him about his experience lecturing in the iconic U of T building. You can read the entire article online here. We have pasted an excerpt below.
Innovations in teaching: Inside Con Hall with Christian Caron
“I was scared, to be quite honest”
In just a few weeks, Convocation Hall will begin hosting graduation ceremonies for an expected 13,500 University of Toronto students.
But during the school year Con Hall also serves as the largest classroom at the largest university in Canada.
So what’s it really like to learn in a room with 1,500 fellow students? And what’s it like to teach in that famous rotunda?
In this series, U of T News student reporter Krisha Ravikantharaja goes Inside Con Hall to see why some of U of T’s most popular professors and classes can be found under the dome.
“When you start out, it’s a room full of strangers,” Christian Caron says.
A really big room. Filled with about 1,500 strangers.
When Caron began teaching Introduction to Sociology (SOC101Y1) in Convocation Hall he says the prospect of such a large class and such a huge space was frightening.
“I had taught classes of 400 or 450 students before teaching in Con Hall, but there’s something different about the size,” Caron says. “I feel very comfortable with public speaking, but something about being in Con Hall brought back the nerves, the fright, the ‘oh my gosh, I’m not prepared,’ the butterflies that I used to have back in high school. I was scared, to be quite honest.”