Board members of most organizations often oversee things from a distance, but Madison Sowell, who joined Southern Virginia University’s board of trustees earlier this year, immersed himself in the university’s academic culture by teaching a class this summer.

During Southern Virginia’s month-long June term, which concluded this week, Sowell taught a class on Dante’s “The Divine Comedy” to four students and four professors. His expertise in Dante is augmented by his service as a mission president in Italy for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and his 30-years of teaching Italian and comparative literature at Brigham Young University, where he also serves as director of the honors program and associate dean of undergraduate education.

“I can't imagine many opportunities to go this in-depth into “The Divine Comedy,” especially with the insight of a professor who is intimately familiar with the original Italian,” said senior English major Brenna Saunders. “It was a combination of things that made the class so worthwhile.”

Sowell said he was impressed with the student body and faculty when he first visited Southern Virginia in March 2006 to speak about Dante at a university forum. Teaching this course was the perfect opportunity for him to get to know the university even better.

Sowell was pleased that the students in the class were not intimidated to be learning along with four of their own professors. “The students did not seem at all hesitant to raise their hands or make comments,” he said. “I didn’t feel like the professors dominated the discussion but they contributed greatly to each and every class.”

Saunders said she enjoyed getting to know her professors on a whole new level. “There was an equality of sorts among all of us, in that we were all learning together,” she said. “I found I still had plenty of opportunities to comment and contribute, even though they were all active participants.”

Class members read from an English translation of “The Divine Comedy” side by side with the original Italian in which Dante wrote the epic poem, sometime between 1308 and 1321. It was first published in 1472 in Foligno, Italy, more than 150 years after Dante’s death.

In addition to Sowell’s thorough instruction, he also provided an enriching visual experience for the students. Throughout his career Sowell has collected images of paintings and illustrations of “The Divine Comedy,” which is one of the most illustrated poems ever written. With medieval manuscripts, renaissance paintings and modern illustrations, Sowell had a visual representation of each of the 100 cantos.

“[Taking this class] made me realize how much more beautiful Dante is than I initially thought,” said Doug Himes, visiting associate professor of art at Southern Virginia. “The course couldn’t be better. Sowell is a passionate Dante scholar.”

Having an art professor in the class enhanced the level of discussion, Sowell said. Because of Professor Himes’s knowledge of art and art theory, he was able to make critical commentary on the artworks to complement the instruction Sowell provided.

Randall Cluff, an associate professor of English at Southern Virginia, teaches Dante’s “Inferno” in his classics of western literature course, which is part of Southern Virginia’s core curriculum. He believes that his experience with Professor Sowell will enhance the way he teaches Dante in the future.

“I have never had such an in-depth experience with Dante before,” Cluff said. “There are organizational and linguistic patterns and other nuances of “The Divine Comedy” that I now understand having studied with Professor Sowell.”

Others who took the course include John Armstrong, Southern Virginia’s associate provost and an associate professor of philosophy and Greek, and Carrie Brotherson, director of Southern Virginia’s exceptional travel study program, which takes students on academic trips to countries around the world, including Italy. Students Lena Griffin, Brigham Magnusson and Andrew Evans also took the course.

Sowell spoke of the benefit of having professors in the class. He said that while Professor Himes provided commentary on the art and Professor Cluff made connections between Dante and modern literature, John Armstrong, who is trained in the classics, shed light on neo-Platonic and Aristotelian thought in Dante’s work. Carrie Brotherson, who has a master’s degree in English, was very sensitive to the poetic nuances and rhetorical flourishes in the text, he said.

“[Teaching this class] has been an idyllic experience from almost every point of view,” Sowell said. “The brightness of the students, the collegiality of the faculty, and the generosity of the administration were just idyllic.”