SYLLABUS

The purpose of the syllabus is to briefly

outline the work of the program,

establish a few basic guidelines and standards for work, and

clarify the evaluation system and the process by which credit is awarded.

advice on keeping your head together: getting organized

THE WORK:

In this program you will be responsible for learning— study and inquiry— in a variety of disciplines and by various means.

The means of learning include:

note-taking and responding to lectures

independent research

creative and expository writing

book-seminars

film-seminars

visual arts

field observation

field activities

reading and writing workshops

adventure

peer review

independent and group projects

Disciplines include:

Environmental history

Environmental philosophy

Art history

Art philosophy

Literature

Eco-tourism

Printmaking

History

Cultural studies

Key Concepts/Central questions of the program include:

What is Nature?

How is our relationship to nature connected to history?

In what ways are art, nature, and history related?

What is your personal relationship to nature?

What physical, intellectual, and emotional experiences enhance your sense of wonder and curioisity about the world?

What are our culturally received notions about nature, how are they transmitted, and how do these affect public policy and behavior?

How has nature shaped our culture? Our civilization?

How does nature shape our daily lives?

How has nature been defined/experienced in the past?

What are our assumptions about the "nature of things"? How do these assumption play a role in cultural and political issues?

What constitutes effective stewardship of the environment?

How do local and global history intersect to create a sense of place?

How does our relationship to nature change?

How can human history be integrated with the history of the natural world?

How does our personal and communal history connect us to the natural world?

How is the hisory of a nation tied to landscape?

Why do people seek adventure in nature?

What is the role of art in reflecting and changing our relationship to the world around us?

What do we mean by nature? Is it a useful, meaningful word? How does our use of it compare to our use of "wilderness," the "wild," and other euphemisms for the "non-human world"?

What are people for? What is art for? What is nature for?

DOING THE WORK:

As a full time student, you should expect to spend at least 40-50 hours a week on course work.

These 40+ hours will be taken up with:

class meetings (15* hours),

meeting with a writing tutor (1 hour),

reading (6-12 hours),

writing papers (3-6 hours),

use of open studio times (4-8 hours),

journal-writing and research (3-5 hours),

meetings with faculty,

meetings with peer groups (2 hours).

*This course also includes a great deal of mandatory time off campus, on field trips, and on other outdoor program activities that require additional time commitments and a great deal of energy and engagement.

ATTENDANCE:

The importance of attendance cannot be stressed enough. Besides missing out on valuable information and ideas, poor attendance can alienate you from the learning community, make it difficult for faculty to assess your engagement in the work of the program, and ultimately jeopordize your credit. Writing tutor meetings count as class-meetings. A missed (and not rescheduled) tutor meeting counts as an absence.

After 3 absences, you are at risk of losing credit.

The loss of credit due to absence may occur regardless of whether work was made up. When you must miss class, it is your responsibility to notify the faculty and to check with faculty and students to find out what you missed. Whenever possible, notify your seminar leader well in advance of missing class.

Even notifying faculty members on the day of an absence has a remarkably positive effect.

LATENESS: At the beginning of each class session, faculty will take attendance, collect assignments, and take care of other program business. It is your responsibility to make sure faculty know that you have come in late and to find out what you have missed; otherwise, you may be counted as officially absent.

CREDITS:
You will earn full credit for doing the minimum requirements for the program—being prepared by having done your readings, attending all program activities, collaborating effectively within groups, and completing project assignments. The quality of your work and its strengths and weaknesses will be reflected in your evaluation. If you do not meet the minimum requirements and complete all of your work, you will lose credit. Credit awards are not the equivalent of grades, but are based on fulfilling the requirements of the program. We will give you a mid-quarter notice and schedule a conference if we feel you are in danger of losing credit.

COLLABORATION:
Collaborating with group members is a critical part of Evergreen life, and the learning of everyone in the program is directly related to each others’ preparation, engagement, and contributions. We’ll be doing a lot of work to build group communication, collaboration, and conflict resolution skills, particularly in the first quarter. We will be monitoring groups closely and getting frequent updates on your work together, and will incorporate group evaluations into the program to help ensure a smooth process.

ASSIGNMENTS:
All assignments are due on time. If you expect to be absent, your work is still due via email. All assignments must be typed in 12 point, 1.5 space between lines (it’s easier for us and your response groups to write comments that way.) Please back up all computer work. A "crash" or a lost file is tragic, but not an excuse for late work.

PORTFOLIOS:
You should get a notebook or portfolio in which you can keep all of your work as the quarter progresses, including rough drafts of work. An organized and contextualized research, project, and writing portfolio will be due with your self-evaluation at the end of the quarter. Collecting your work this way helps you see the progress you’ve made, and helps us determine your process and growth throughout the quarter.

Evaluations
At your evaluation conference, you are required to submit a self evaluation and faculty evaluation. Credit will not be awarded until all evaluations by the student are complete.

Getting Help
You are welcome to come and discuss assignments, problems, requests or suggestions about anything at any time. You can also discuss any concerns or ideas with Theresa, the Academic Advisor assigned to our program

Lots of your general advising questions might be answered here.

You can get assistance in the Writing Center during your required weekly appointment with the writing tutors who will be working with our program.

In addition to seeing you in class, we will be keeping in touch with everyone in the program via email. We will be using your Evergreen email address, so if you would like mail forwarded to your personal account, make arrangements in the Computer Center. Please check your mail twice during the week—we will be checking ours daily. Much of our program communication, notices, etc. will also happen through our program web site, which you can find by going to http://www.academic.evergreen.edu/curricular/ourplace/

There are many more resources available in addition to those listed here—just let us know what you need and we’ll hook you up. The most important thing to remember about getting help is seeking it out as soon as you think you need it—it’s what we’re all here for.

Primetime Academic Support Center
Is located in “A” Dorm, room 205, Phone x: 5112
Writing tutors available 6 to 10 pm Sunday through Wednesday, Academic Advisor available 6 to 9 pm Monday and Tuesday.

Writing Center
Is located in Library 3407. Phone x: 6420
Monday-Thursday                    10am-8pm
Friday                                      11am-3pm
Quantitative Reasoning Center
Is located in LIB 3402,on the 3rd floor of the library next to the Writing Resource Center. Phone ext: 5547.
Mon-Thurs       10am-8pm
Friday              10am-5pm
Saturday           11am-2pm

K.E.Y. Student Services
Is located in Library 1407  Phone: x 6464
Academic and other support services for students who qualify

General Principles of Education at Evergreen

We Believe...
The main purpose of a college is to promote student learning through:
Interdisciplinary Study
Students learn to pull together ideas and concepts from many subject areas, which enables them to tackle real-world issues in all their complexity.
Collaborative Learning
Students develop knowledge and skills through shared learning, rather than learning in isolation and in competition with others.
Learning Across Significant Differences
Students learn to recognize, respect and bridge differences - critical skills in an increasingly diverse world.
Personal Engagement
Students develop their capacities to judge, speak and act on the basis of their own reasoned beliefs.
Linking Theory with Practical Applications
Students understand abstract theories by applying them to projects and activities and by pulling them into practice in real-world situations.

Evergreen Is About Learning ...It is about creating a community that works together to build knowledge, experience and insight. Everything we do is designed to foster collaborative learning among students, among faculty and between students and faculty. Our faculty is dedicated to teaching, to helping students learn to think critically, solve real-life problems and make the connections that lead to greater understanding.
Seminars and other aspects of Evergreen programs promote active learning. We believe it is not enough for students to receive information passively in a large lecture hall. At Evergreen, students discuss ideas in seminars, write about ideas in collaborative and individual assignments, explain ideas in presentations and practice applying ideas in laboratories and workshops. They challenge their own and others' ideas.
Students demonstrate PERSONAL ENGAGEMENT in their learning by planning their course of study at Evergreen. Students prepare an annual Academic Plan that they discuss with their current faculty; this plan will change to reflect students' evolving interests and academic needs.

We believe that if teaching and learning are to be effective, they must draw from many perspectives and include a multiplicity of ideas. This is true for teaching across disciplines; it is also true for teaching across differences. Evergreen believes in preserving and articulating differences of ethnicity, race, gender and sexual orientation, rather than erasing them or pushing them to the sidelines, and this belief is reflected in the design and content of our programs.
This distinctive approach means that the day-to-day experiences of Evergreen students differ in significant ways from the experiences of students at most colleges and universities. For example, education at Evergreen is not sectioned into traditional academic disciplines like mathematics, English and biology. We do not believe in isolating bits of learning and presenting them as if they had no connection to other types of learning.

Evergreen faculty members typically work in teams of two, three or four to create these programs. The focus on interdisciplinary learning means program participants might look at problems in health care from the points of view of biology, history, philosophy, sociology, economics and literature. Or they might study the physical world through the interplay of physics, chemistry, philosophy and mathematics.
Students learn to apply their ideas and theories and skills in the "real world." At Evergreen, we call it bridging theory and practice. Students may work with real-world communities as a program assignment or develop an internship that allows learning and the application of that learning to take place within a business, public agency or a nonprofit organization.
Those interactions contribute to another distinctive process central to Evergreen's educational philosophy-the narrative evaluation system. At the end of a program, students discuss their academic progress one-on-one with faculty and receive written evaluations of their progress. Students also prepare self-evaluations, discussing their accomplishments, learning environment, new understandings and goals for the future. As students prepare for graduation, they work with a faculty advisor to create a SUMMATIVE SELF-EVALUATION, reflecting on their entire undergraduate experience, and their achievement of their own learning goals. And students evaluate their faculty, as well. Evaluations are an important part of the learning experience, and students receive support from their faculty and from Academic Advising as they learn to reflect on and articulate their experience.

These principles infuse the Evergreen curriculum and guide academic planning for both faculty and students. We believe that they will provide the context within which our graduates can meet the following expectations:
Expectations of an Evergreen Graduate
1. Articulate and assume responsibility for your own work.
A successful Evergreen graduate will know how to work well with others, not only in the workplace or social contexts, but as an active participant in the struggle for a more just world. You will assume responsibility for your actions as an individual and exercise power responsibly and effectively.

2. Participate collaboratively and responsibly in our diverse society.
A successful Evergreen graduate will understand that by giving of yourself you make the success of others possible. A thriving community is crucial to your own well-being. The study of diverse worldviews and experiences will help you to develop the skills to act effectively as a local citizen within a complex global framework.

3. Communicate creatively and effectively.
A successful Evergreen graduate will know how to listen objectively to others so as to understand and accept a wide variety of viewpoints. By developing a genuine interest in the experiences of others, you will learn to ask thoughtful questions, to communicate persuasively, and express yourself creatively.

4. Demonstrate integrative, independent, critical thinking.
A successful Evergreen graduate will have the ability to appreciate and critically evaluate a range of topics, across academic disciplines. As you explore these disciplines, you will develop a greater curiosity toward the world around you, and its interconnections, that will enhance your skills as an independent, critical thinker.

5. Apply qualitative, quantitative and creative modes of inquiry appropriately to practical and theoretical problems across disciplines.
A successful Evergreen graduate will understand the importance of the relationship between analysis and synthesis. Through being exposed to the arts, sciences and humanities, and coming to your own critical understanding of their interconnectedness, you will learn to apply appropriate skills and creative ways of thinking to the major questions that confront you in your life.6. As a culmination of your education, demonstrate depth, breadth and synthesis of learning and the ability to reflect on the personal and social significance of that learning.
A successful Evergreen graduate will be able to apply the personal frame of reference you develop as a result of this unique education in order to make sense of the world. This understanding will allow you to act in a way that is both easily understood by and compassionate toward other individuals across personal differences