Grad student follows in his father's footsteps

Eleanor Harte

March 11, 2013

As students trickle in for a political science class, a short man dressed in dark jeans and a light blue button-down shirt stands at the head of the room, greeting each of the thirty students with a smile. He asks a student what he thought of the last English Premier League soccer game, another their views on the situation with North Korea. He starts class exactly on time, warming up the room with a joke and then jumping into the material for the day. He fields questions from students with ease, as if he’s been doing it for years. To the contrary, this is his first semester teaching a class.

Sam Fayyaz comes from a long line of academics. His father, grandfather, and great-grandfather were all university professors, so it’s no wonder that Fayyaz is in the process of becoming one too. An Iranian-American who grew up and attended college in Madison, Wisc., Fayyaz is a Ph.D candidate at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. This semester he is teaching a class on the history of modern Iran and another on professional development. Speaking of the experience, Fayyaz, who is in his early thirties, said that “when teaching is at its highest highs, when I feel like everyone’s getting it, it’s great. When it goes really well I love it. But most of the time I'm just trying not to mess up. A lot of the time I'm just hoping I'm making sense.”

Katie MacLeod, a sophomore political science major, is in the modern Iran class, and said of Fayyaz: “Even if he does not know every single little thing about Iran, he does a great job communicating what he does know and tries his best to answer all of our questions.”

Fayyaz has spent his academic career studying Iran, the country where his father grew up. "It weirded my dad out that I went to such great lengths to find out about his history and his country, since he's a science guy and I'm the exact opposite. I feel like he never really got me. But now it's whatever, he's accepted it,” said Fayyaz, waving his hand as if to suggest it no longer matters.

His father, a botany professor who himself was educated at the University of Wisconsin Madison before returning to Iran to teach at the University of Tehran. He brought his American wife and two-month-old Sam, and they stayed for nearly a year. “But then the Iran hostage crisis happened, and we were there for that, and it really freaked my mom out,” explains Fayyaz, speaking of their move back to America.

Since then, Fayyaz has traveled to Iran on his own multiple times to do research for his dissertation, which he is writing on the self-help and positive thinking movement that’s especially popular among middle-class Iranians and the ways it affects political movements.

“The state television of Iran was promoting books that were selling this idea that you’re responsible for your own happiness,” he said. "If that were the case, why would anyone join a labor union? Why would anyone join a movement to overthrow a tyrannical ruler? I don't buy it. It seems cynical. I argue that it reinforces authoritarianism, because how can you say that for a country that's in a bad place, a bad economy, the sanctions, all that stuff, how can you say that people's happiness is only dependent on themselves?"

Students feel that Fayyaz’s youth makes him relatable. MacLeod said, “He’s really cool and he likes comics and he rock climbs.” She feels having a professor who makes an effort to get to know his students as people, not just bodies in the room, like some other professors do, she said, makes a difference in class. Fayyaz, who has instructed his students to call him ‘Sam,’ jokes with his students and seems to get what they’re going through, MacLeod said.

Tanvir Faisal, a sophomore political science major, said he finds Fayyaz’s easygoing manner appealing both as a professor and as a person. “Show me someone, whether it be a student, faculty member, or whoever else, who claims he or she doesn’t like Sam, and I will show you a liar,” said Faisal.

Fayyaz’s time as the undergraduate advisor has allowed him to get to know the students in the Political Science department, and this has clearly worked to his advantage when it comes to building relationships with his students. On the first day of the semester, he already knew the majority of the 30 students in his History of Modern Iran course by name.

Fayyaz got his start in academia at the University of Maryland College Park, where he pursued his Masters Degree under the guidance of Professor Jillian Schwedler. When Schwedler accepted a job at UMass Amherst, she encouraged Fayyaz to check out their Ph.D program in Political Science. Fayyaz was intrigued by the faculty, and said that for a Ph.D, "who you work with is important. I liked what the faculty here was doing. The critical perspective in this department is different than at a lot of other universities. Here, people don't just ask the questions, but they ask why we're asking the questions."

Fayyaz transferred to UMass in 2008, and since then has held numerous teaching assistant positions, research assistantships, and now serves as the chief undergraduate advisor for the Political Science Department. Compared to teaching, he says that advising "is a lot more concrete, tangible. If you help a student find an internship or figure out a class plan, they're like ‘Thank you so much, you saved the day,’ stuff like that. With teaching, for anyone, I don't think that happens much. Advising has an immediate payoff. You feel like you matter more."

Outside of the university, Fayyaz, who resides in Northampton, is particularly passionate about soccer, where he roots for Barcelona and Arsenal, and on the side writes about soccer online. He is also a self-described music fanatic and he likes rock climbing and exploring Northampton.

Fayyaz loves working at the university. "Being in a university setting is infectious,” he said. “The faculty are the furniture. They're always here, and that's great. But then there's this regeneration of students, and they're so excited about being here, as they should be. There's so much going on, speakers and events and the whole thing of becoming an adult, figuring out who you are, even more than the curriculum and the classes, it's that other stuff that's important. That's what I miss about being in college."