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Meeting Minutes
January
17, 2006
Announcements:
Rooms are need for the small discussion groups because the
Hubbard Center is not set up yet following their move to the new
building. Alexandra and Laurie will make arrangements for the
discussion groups they lead in February.
The subcommittee putting together
the “Critique of the Core Curriculum” for the next forum will be
meeting sometime this week to organize the presentation. The
critique will cover curriculum, instructional staffing,
administration, and assessment.
It was
decided that the Jan. 27 forum will only cover this critique.
The models will be presented at the forum in February. This was
rescheduled to Feb. 22, 3-5pm, so as not to overlap with our
retreat on Feb. 24.
There was inquiry on whether
anyone had tried the Wiki website that Ann Viles organized. No
questions at this time.
Subcomittee Reports:
(1) Community Colleges and High Schools
There will be a meeting on the 26th from 3-5 at the Broyhill.
(2) Alumni-Employers
Greg Rhoads has assumed the Chair of this subcommittee. There
was a request for additional volunteers since Dave Haney has
withdrawn from the group. Ann Viles volunteered.
Presentations: Watauga College (Joe Gonzalez, Jay Wentworth,
Harriet Buchanan, and David Huntley) and Honors Program (Lynn
Sanders)
These are the two oldest
interdisciplinary programs on our campus.
Watauga College:
Watauga College has a somewhat
confusing curriculum but there are general goals that are
fulfilled. The faculty teach subjects of interest to them while
meeting broader goals. We can restructure the curriculum without
changing our general goals.
Our classes have grown in size due
to matrix pressure. Joe Gonzalez taught 120 students this fall
in one large class, but no one felt like the class was too
large.
We team teach pairing social science and humanities faculty. Our
courses are topic focused rather than disciplinary focused. We
start with a topic base in general, and classes are discussion
based to a large extent. We teach students how to discuss and
argue while maintaining respect for others’ points of view.
We have a four semester progression building in conceptual
difficulty. There are linked classes (social science linked to
humanities). They do not take them as a cohort so the students
are forced to make the conceptual linkage.
We move from very close guidance in the beginning to independent
research by the end of the sophomore year. We move them through
this progression almost imperceptibly.
Service
learning has become an important part of the program. Each
freshman summer starts off with Appalachian Trail maintenance
service.
We blend the residential with the academic at the LLC. We have
representatives from Residence Life, Judicial Affairs, student
teachers, and international students.
Team teaching is labor intensive and somewhat restricting, but
it allows for an effective interdisciplinary approach. We highly
recommend it.
As part of the curriculum, students and faculty are scheduled to
eat lunch together three times a week. This fosters community.
A problem is
that Watauga College is an expensive program; we have been
working to reduce expenses. We lost a position. We are
increasing class size.
Of the 12 principles of the Gen Ed program listed in Strong
Foundations, there is one we fall short on: Assess what you do.
We have students evaluate the class
Watauga College was founded in 1972, with professors in English,
Philosophy and Art. The first principle was to integrate living
and learning. This process helps students to become conscious of
the questions they need to be asking. It turns the residence
hall into a lab. Questions of community, communications, gender,
race and class are relevant and can be practiced. We integrate
faculty, students, and staff so that learning becomes collegial.
We have an open door policy of all faculty being around for
conflict resolution. A housekeeping course has been taught on
solving the problems of living together. We help students take
responsibility for their learning and education.
We try to empower students, asking
them to take responsibility for their own education. They do
demanding work. We read Guns, Germs and Steel for last summer’s
reading. It challenges them.
We structure classes to move from
teacher-centered at the beginning to teacher as model learner to
student-led classes with the teacher as facilitator. Turn
students into the leaders asking questions. We also give them a
lot of responsibility. The committee to design the LLC was
chaired by a 2nd semester freshman. Students are given the job
of creating rules for the residence halls, and they created the
“four respects”: ourselves, each other, community, and
environment. There is an active garden club. We use students as
discussion leaders. We use an interdisciplinary approach to
understand problems, themes, and topics. The trick is that it is
more than multi-disciplinary: We have to move beyond History and
English and figure out how to integrate. The movement of
interdisciplinarity focuses on how to move toward something more
than analysis and synthesis; it focuses on how to integrate
Joe created the “Utopia class”
last semester in which they search for the ideal community.
Those who had already lived in the LLC were asked to come back
and serve as volunteer instructional assistants. There was also
a graduate assistant who did the grading. The course was a
success as the students bonded with leaders, and a big class was
made small. Instructional assistants began to make the jump from
students to teachers. There were challenges: 10 people assisted
and consistency was hard to maintain. We have created a course
now to give discussion leaders credit. They do not get paid.
Students as freshmen take 9 hours
within Watauga College and 6 or 7 hours outside the college.
Q: Are there
specific learning outcomes and assessment?
A: We have courses with titles that are encompassing goals.
There is a need for better assessment. Another way to assess is
to look at students’ products. If students are allowed to
establish the goals, it is harder to assess on the basis of
universals.
Honors Program
We are right in the midst of
curriculum changes. We can’t make substantial changes until the
GETF makes its recommendations. We want to change the course
titles and descriptions which date to the founding of the
program.
The honors program dates to about
1970 (the history is a bit vague). The English Department had
the first departmental honors program.
Honors is not
as integrated a curriculum as Watauga College. Not all students
take the courses as a cohort. Chancellor’s Scholars (25
students/year) must take the general honors courses.
Honors has
suffered from a lack of visibility. Watauga College has done a
better job of marketing itself. We hope the Heltzer bequest will
provide better programming and facilities. We are looking for
ways to attract more high ability students. We were in Coffey
Hall, now we are in the basement of East. We hope for a new
Honors building. The facility shapes the program to some extent.
Not all
Honors
students live in the Honors facility.
We’re doing
all sorts of great learning community things. In terms of the
success of Honors to this point, team teaching is the key. The
Honors core is offered through team teaching. All are taught by
two professors from two different departments. Honors theses
have to be directed from within a department and read by someone
outside that department.
The Holocaust
course taught by Rennie Brantz and Zohara Boyd has been a major
success.
Our General
Honors courses have vague course descriptions that allows
faculty to plug in their own interest. We rely on volunteers
from the faculty. Honors buys them out.
Sixteen
departments offer honors courses in their department. The
program relies a lot on departmental course offerings. Some say
we can’t afford to teach small classes. We try to cap classes at
20. Some departments want to opt out because they want larger
class sizes. Funding is critical here. Frankly, if we want
students to have a great small group discussion experience, we
need some money.
I have been
accused of trying to turn Honors into Watauga College. We do
have a living learning component. Honors is a four year program,
if they end up in a major that offers an honors degree. 900
students a year take honors courses. We graduate 50-75 with
honors every year. Many are deterred by the thesis.
We have started teaching a course invented by two undergrads and
taught by peers. It is titled “Self and Society.” It contributes
to building community. This fall, we offered five sections. Tina
Hogan is going to help assess this.
We took two
classes to Mount Mitchell. We’re still experimenting with this.
This group does feel a lot more a part of the honors community;
more living learning stuff.
We would like
to inform GETF of the decisions that the Honors Task Force makes
on curriculum.
Finally, a
good bit of this is about money. Money issues: trying to get
more cost effective. We have small classes. We’re not
considering getting rid of team teaching.
Time for
questions of both presenters:
Q: Do Watauga
College courses go through A P & P?
They were approved as blocks of hours allowing flexible
structuring.
Are there other colleges like Watauga College nationally?
There are some at universities like Evergreen and Hampshire
College. Other programs have come and gone. The problem is in
having a dedicated faculty.
There is a four year program at Miami of Ohio that is a good
model. Greensboro has one also.
Q: How many
Watauga College students graduate with Honors?
No data on that. Watauga College has a level of commitment that
makes it difficult to do both.
Q: The
sciences are not involved in either Watauga College or Honors
(only Chemistry). Is it hard to get faculty involved?
Honors begs for faculty. Ozzie said he had a hard time getting
faculty to teach. I have said you can do anything if you come
teach some freshmen!
Q: If the
university goes to clusters, would Watauga College integrate or
stay separate?
We have a very unique identity – the risk takers come to us. I
think we would survive.
Q: Is there a
specific content to be learned in Watuaga College?
Watauga emphasizes process, in-depth study. I think we should
have both: content and process. There is also the need for
interdisciplinary synthesis. Instead of thinking “either/or,” it
should be “both/and.”
Honors
students have to take at least 6 hours of general honors core
curriculum courses. They are included in the core.
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