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 13-17, 2004 and March 14-18, 2005.
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 Dan Leahy
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"I
have read and agree to the Program Covenant for Contemporary
Social Issues."
Student Name: ___________________________________
Student Signature: ___________________________________
(Print or copy this concluding statement and
give it to your seminar leader.)
