Michael and Daniel Dobbs are brothers with a deep bond. So when it came time for Michael to present at this year’s University Day, Daniel wanted to be there to give him support. And that’s just what he did.
Michael said, “We were in Dr. DeFelice’s Class HTY 491: Women/Sex Greco-Rome. Everyone in the class had to give a University Day presentation. He broke us up into four groups containing three people each, and we all decided on a topic that related to the course that we were taking.”.
Michael presented with his partners Connor Murphy and Kate Asam. They did their presentation on gender roles and Greek mythology. Michael said, “We wanted to show how gender could be viewed through the lens of mythology and the Greek culture.”
It was a bit difficult because of the long distance Michael had to travel to work with his group. Michael said, “We started off doing independent research. Then we had a meeting in the CIL building on campus. Connor and I met down at the Houlton Center and we talked to Kate through Facebook messenger as we were building our slide show portion of the presentation.”
Most of their research came from their textbooks, university library and the internet. Michael said, “I learned a couple of things. One, when you are looking at history gender roles, you have to take it with a grain of salt because the only documents that survived give a very male point of view. The second thing I learned is working as a long-distance group is extremely difficult. I think University Day is a great experience and that every student should take part in it.”
Daniel, who was there to support Michael’s presentation, was there to watch other presentations that day, too. Daniel said, “The most interesting presentation I enjoyed was on the Greek Homosexuality in Ancient Greece.
Daniel went to more than one presentation that day. He said, “I attended three presentations with my brother Michael. I watched his presentation on Gender Roles and Greek Mythology, Greek Homosexuality in Ancient Greece and went to watch the Chinese culture one.” Why did Daniel go to more than one presentation? He said, “The reason why I attended different presentations was because there weren’t any that were the same. I went to the ones that struck my interest.”
All students have a favorite thing they did on University Day. Daniel said, “My favorite part of University Day was supporting my brother and learning about the Chinese culture.”
The University Day theme this year was “This I Believe.” These two brothers who attended University Day together certainly fit that theme.
