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As she prepares to leave for Morocco and service with the
Peace Corps, Hilde Hein finds the post-classroom life anything
but retiring.
By Pamela Reponen
 Last
December, Hilde Hein, associate professor of philosophy
at Holy Cross, completed her end-of-the-semester duties
for the final time. After teaching 29 years at the College,
she decided to retire and gear up for her next challenge:
serving as a Peace Corps volunteer.
Since retirement, Hein has been busy tidying up the countless details that emerge
when planning a two-year sojourn out of the country—making the necessary
financial arrangements, finding a tenant to lease her apartment, selling her
car, providing care for her 13-year-old dog, Gorby. “And,” she adds, “making
time for the many medical appointments and follow-up tests required for acceptance
into the program.”
Reflecting on her decision to join the Peace Corps, Hein explains that she would
have volunteered when the agency was first founded, but family responsibilities
deterred her. “I like traveling,” she says, “but not as a tourist.
And I like the idea of working with people as a way to get to know them better.”
Hein’s destination is Morocco, a kingdom situated in northwest Africa. “I
was really pleased,” she says, “because Africa was my first choice.
The location is wonderful—it’s close to Europe and the Middle East.” During
her stay, she hopes to have the opportunity to travel and explore this area of
the world.
Scheduled to leave at the end of June, Hein
will complete three months of training before beginning
her two years of service teaching English to adults. She
describes the assignment as “teaching for special
purposes”—finding out what the students’ needs
are and tailoring the program accordingly. “I will
not be doing a ‘one size fits all’ course,” she
says. “The approach involves problem solving, which
I like.”
According to Hein, the Peace Corps will provide more detailed
information about her placement as the time of her departure
nears. “At this point, I do
not know specifically where I will be stationed or what my living quarters will
be,” she says. Hein notes that the Peace Corps does provide a stipend that
enables the volunteer to maintain the same standard of living as the local residents.
Reflecting on the steps that led to her acceptance into the program, Hein describes
the process as “lengthy.” Approximately two years ago, she attended
an orientation meeting in Boston under the direction of return volunteers. Impressed
by their enthusiasm, she was also encouraged by the range of ages of the participants. “While
the majority of volunteers are young,” she says, “I had the idea
that older people are also welcome to serve.”
As part of her preparation for the trip, Hein has been regaining her fluency
in French by watching foreign films and speaking with a friend who is a native
speaker. While Arabic is the official language of Morocco, French, Spanish and
Berber are also spoken. She says that the three-month training program offered
by the Peace Corps will include instruction in Berber, which is spoken primarily
by the inhabitants of the mountainous regions.
Since retiring, Hein has also been intent on bringing two writing projects to
completion. Given a March 11 deadline by her publisher, the Smithsonian Institution
Press, she has been busy making the final edits on her book, The Museum in Transition:
A Philosophical Perspective. Scheduled to be released this fall, the book examines
the function of museums from a philosophical point of view. “There is a
long tradition that museums are collectors of objects,” Hein says, “but
more and more their focus is on the production of experience.” Her approach
is to consider how the museums’ use of objects to generate a response in
the visitor affects their essential definition in terms of ethics, aesthetics
and educational function. “This raises questions about how museums differ
from other cultural experiences such as Disney World,” Hein says. “Disney
is becoming more educational while museums are becoming more spectacle-oriented—it
turns out to be a fascinating subject.”
The second project involves editing a collection of essays titled Public Art
and Its Purposes; she hopes to have her work on this completed by the time she
leaves in June. “Public art is generally defined as ‘statues in public
parks’ and ‘war memorials,’ while it actually encompasses more
than that,” she says. “‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ is
public art—a parade is public art.” Hein explains that one of the
objectives of the book is to point out the complexity of defining the term—given
the constantly changing nature of public art and the impact of outside influences
such as public policy and environmental constraints on its expression. Her responsibilities
have included soliciting essays for inclusion in the book, contributing an essay
of her own and writing the introduction.
Tucked away among the trip preparations and publishing deadlines are snippets
of time for professional and personal activities—attending conferences,
speaking in the public forum, interacting with colleagues. Hein is also pleased
to have found a new source of intellectual stimulation: “One of the first
things I did after leaving Holy Cross was to join a book group, and I love it,” she
says. “We meet once a month, and we read books, and we talk, and it’s
great.” The mother of two daughters and a son, Hein finds time to spend
with family; this spring she plans to go to California to attend her oldest grandchild’s
high school graduation.
Comfortably seated in her living room one afternoon in mid-February, she takes
a moment to assess this new phase of her life. “It has been almost two
months since I’ve retired, and, so far, I’ve really been enjoying
it,” she says. “I find the finiteness of it very appealing because
I’ve never not worked. If it were completely open-ended—a kind of
indefinite future—I don’t think I would like it as much.”
When asked about her plans after the Peace Corps, Hein says with a smile, “I
really don’t know. That’s the great thing about it.” After
completing her two-year service commitment, she intends to return to her home
in Auburndale, Mass. “After that I’ll decide what to do,” she
says. With the onset of spring, the months begin to put distance on Hein’s
teaching career at Holy Cross. Already looking forward to the new challenges
before her, she describes the future as a “window,” opening out to
endless possibilities.
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