It
is the responsibility of each student and faculty to read all
program documents and raise any questions he or she may have about
the content.
I.
GENERAL GOALS OF THE PROGRAM
A.
EXPECTATIONS FOR STUDENTS' LEARNING. Students and faculty
will work individually and collaboratively to realize the basic
goals of the program. The faculty will combine their respective
disciplinary perspectives in an effort to help students develop
the ability to conceptualize and understand the concepts developed
in the program, and to improve on their research, writing, analytical
thinking, and quantitative abilities.
All students will participate actively in the assignments and
the various meetings of the program. Attendance and participation
in all program activities is a requirement. Students will
arrive on time for all program activities.
B.
FACTORS TO BE COUNTED IN THE EVALUATION
PROCESS. Students will be evaluated at the end of each quarter
for the following: the satisfactory completion of assignments;
active participation in meetings; improvement of academic skills;
and demonstration of understanding of the themes, issues, and
techniques under discussion. Seminar leaders will form their
evaluations by examining the writing students post and submit,
their comments in discussion, the projects they present, completed
quizzes and exams, and the strength of their self-evaluation.
C.
LEVEL OF PERFORMANCE EXPECTED OF THE STUDENTS.
The faculty shall assume that students have well-rounded college
level skills. In case of deficiencies in basic skills, students
are expected to work with the Learning Resource Center, the Quantitative
Reasoning Center and program tutors. The faculty members
do not assume that students initially will be conversant with
critical terminology or special techniques for discussing the
works to be assigned. We assume that by the end of the program,
students will have developed the ability--both in the terminology
appropriate for more advanced discussion and in their own works--to
think, to speak, and to write about the issues and themes of the
program. In addition, they will have improved their ability
to participate in the collaborative intellectual activity of the
seminar.
II.
PROCEDURES
A.
EVALUATION OF STUDENTS. Each faculty
member will evaluate students in his or her seminar using the
input of the other faculty members. Incomplete status will
be granted only for reasons of family crisis, illness, or similar
emergencies. Evaluation conferences will be held twice:
half way and at the end of the the academic year.
Credit is not the same as positive evaluation. Students
receive credit for fulfilling minimum requirements and standards.
The evaluation is a statement describing the quality of the student's
work. It is possible for a student to receive credit but
receive an evaluation that describes poor quality work.
It is also possible for a student to attend regularly yet receive
no or reduced credit because of unsatisfactory performance.
B.
EVALUATION CONFERENCES. Unless different
arrangements have been made with your seminar leader, students
should plan on being available for evaluation conferences the
weeks of December 16-20, 2002 and March 17-21, 2003.
At
both evaluation conferences, students will submit a final, typed,
formal evaluation of their seminar leader. Students will
submit a draft self-evaluation before the conference and will
submit a final, typed, formal self-evaluation by the end of evaluation
week. Students have the option of submitting their evaluation
of faculty to the program secretary, who will not release it to
the faculty until the faculty's finalevaluations have been completed.
D.
CREDIT. Sixteen quarter hours of credit
will be awarded each quarter for satisfactory completion of program
requirements. Requirements for credit are the same in all
seminars, and standards will be discussed by the faculty team
to ensure that they are applied uniformly in all seminars.
E.
ACADEMIC HONESTY. Students and faculty
acknowledge and accept that in an academic community, sharing
and taking responsibility for our own ideas is vital. Acknowledging
our use of other people's ideas is equally important. Work
that students submit must reflect their own ideas. When
we are incorporating the views of others, be those published authors
or our seminar mates, we must acknowledge our sources. Since
some of the work in this program will be collaborative and the
ensuing ideas may reflect the contributions of more than one person,
we must get in the habit of acknowledging the people and ideas
that have influenced us.
There
will be times when we will be asked to take individual positions—in
essays, research projects and seminar discussions—and we
must assert our own distinctive interpretations and judgments.
The final work we do must reflect our own judgment and analysis
while also recognizing the contributions of people who have influenced
our learning.
Students
understand that presenting the work of others as their own or
failing to acknowledge their use of other people's ideas is plagiarism.
Any student who plagiarizes materials will be asked to leave the
program and may be required to leave the college.
F.
STUDENTS MAY BE ASKED TO LEAVE THE PROGRAM.
If a student repeatedly disrupts the attempts of others to learn,
one or more of the faculty team members will warn the student
that continuation of this behavior will result in his or her dismissal
from the program. If the behavior continues, the faculty
team will confer and will ask the person to leave the program.
G.
ALCOHOL OR DRUG USE. Any use of alcohol
or drugs at a program event will be grounds for immediate dismissal
from the program.
The
faculty members have agreed to this covenant by the act of writing
it. By continuing in this program and signing this document,
each student recognizes that it specifies the conditions for participating
in this program.
Faculty: Stephanie Coontz, Charles Pailthorp, and Maya Parson
Student Name: ___________________________________
Student Signature: ___________________________________
