Performance Works: Telling Stories

INTRODUCTION

This document discusses your rights and responsibilities as a student in this program. Please read it carefully. You will be asked to sign it. Our goal is to provide an optimum learning environment and to be clear about the expectations in this program.

1. Be mindful and aware of others in the program, respecting diversity in gender, race, age, ethnicity, class, religious and political affiliation, sexual orientation, learning styles, and emotional, mental and physical abilities. For faculty to consider your disability (in giving extra time on quizzes for example), it must be documented by the access services director and you must notify your seminar faculty in writing by the second class. If you smoke, please stay within the boundaries of the designated smoking areas on campus and be polite about it. Cologne or perfume should not be worn at all.

2. Please help create an optimum learning environment for our class community. Show respect when a faculty member, guest speaker, or another student is talking to the class or listening to the speaker. Talking, whispering, eating, text messaging, cell phone ringing, or using laptops is disruptive to the presenter and to those listening. One whisper or cell phone ring affects everyone in the room. If your cell phone rings more than once during the quarter, faculty will note this in your evaluation. Texting is an inappropriate use of your learning time; if you would rather text your friends or check e-mail or Facebook during class time, please enroll in another college. If you have questions, ask the speaker and not someone else. If you are late for a class, please have your books out and coat off when you enter the classroom. No swearing, insults or inappropriate language. Laptops are acceptable to use for note-taking in lectures, but not for e-mail, web surfing or other non-program activities during class. Laptops should never be used during seminars.

3. Read and follow the Students Rights and Responsibilities page on the College website. It includes the Evergreen Social Contract, the Student Conduct Code, and the Campus Sexual Harassment Policy.

4. Attendance is required at all class sessions. There will be a sign-in sheet at the beginning of class. However, if you are ill, it is best to stay home and recover quickly rather than extending (and spreading) your illness by over-exertion. If you are ill or must miss a class for any reason, contact your class “buddy” for handouts, notes, and announcements. You should check if your buddy is present at each class meeting and call him/her the next day if s/he is absent. If you miss 3 classes in a row, e-mail your seminar faculty and leave a brief message before the start of the third class. If we do not hear from you, we must call the dean who will call your parents or the police to begin a search. (If you marked “confidential” on your enrollment, federal regulations prevent us telling anyone besides law enforcement that you are a student here.) The first few minutes of each day may involve important announcements such as a discussion of the assignments or changes to the syllabus, so be sure to talk with your buddy if you are late.

5. Bring all appropriate books to class on the appropriate day. Bring the syllabus to each class. The faculty absolutely expects you to bring and refer to your book(s) for that day during seminar. Good seminar discussions depend on frequent citations to specific page numbers in the book. Thus, we must all use the same edition of each book so that our page numbers are identical. Almost all handouts are available on the program website. Faculty do not carry around extra copies of any handouts.

6. If there is snow or inclement weather, first call 867-6000 to check on campus closure. If the campus is closed, class will not meet. If the campus is open, but there is heavy snow or flooding, call 867-6623 to check Sean’s outgoing message after 8 a.m.

7. Disagreements and differences of opinion happen in all groups (including faculty). If it seems reasonable to do so, talk with the person involved directly, but if you prefer, send an e-mail to your seminar faculty or talk with him or her in person. A heartfelt apology offered in a timely manner can work wonders in conflict resolution.

8. If you wish to bring a relative or friend to class, please inform the faculty and inform your visitor of items 1 through 3 above. The visitor should not ask questions during the lecture or seminar. You are encouraged to invite visitors to your presentations at the end of each quarter.

9. All forms of academic dishonesty, including cheating, fabricating, and plagiarizing are reasons for dismissal from the program with zero credit. Know the difference between plagiarizing (literary thieving) and appropriate referencing. See one or two plagiarism websites if you require further clarification. In particular, see the pages on plagiarism at the Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL). While visiting the OWL, notice some of their other excellent webpages on writing such as the grammar page.

PORTFOLIO

Your portfolio should be well organized and kept current. It consists of your class notes and all your assignments. Your class notes include your notes from lectures, films, texts, and seminar discussions. Your name and date should be at the upper right of all homework assignments and multiple pages should be numbered, stapled together and have smooth edges for college-level work (not torn out from a notebook).

WORKLOAD

Expect about 14 hours of in-class time and about 32 hours of out-of-class time per week. (This is typical for 16 credits.) Our rough estimate for the time required for your out-of-class activities: 4 hours - review your lecture and seminar notes; 12 hours - active reading and note-taking; 16 hours - writing, thinking, quiz preparation, presentation preparation. TOTAL: 32 hours per week. Studies show that students who work at a job for fewer than 10 hours per week do as well as those without a job. But there is a sharp drop in grade point average when students work more than about 12 hours per week at a job. The main reason students fail or do poorly in college is not due to the difficulty of the material (although it is challenging), but due to a lack of sufficient hours of out-of-class work.

SEMINAR EXPECTATIONS
1. Be Kind. Treat others with respect. It is fine to question someone’s statements or reasoning, but do so in a kind, mature, and professional manner.
2. Be Mature. If you have not read the book, don’t talk. Be aware of your behavior. Listen actively. If you talk frequently, choose silence sometimes, or draw out the quieter members of the seminar. If you don’t talk often, choose to participate sometimes. (It is your responsibility to participate in the discussion at least once per class. You can even read your writing.) Silence is OK. It gives us all time to think and it gives time for those who aren’t as aggressive to speak.
3. Be Professional. Refer to the text frequently during the discussions! Take notes on the discussion. Try to tie your comments to those that went before. Learn and use the names of those in your seminar group. Learn to express your views clearly, concisely, accurately, and with elegance by observing yourself and your peers. Hone your critical thinking skills by reading actively and striving for the author’s evidence and main points. Ask your faculty for feedback periodically by making a short appointment at least once a quarter.

EVALUATIONS

Plan to stay through Friday of evaluation week at the end of fall and winter quarters. (That’s December 12th and March 20th.) Do not make (or let someone else make) your airline reservations ahead of this time. These are official weeks of the academic year. Evaluation conferences are required. If you miss your evaluation conference, you agree to accept your evaluation as written without changes.

Your self-evaluation is due at the registrar’s office within 2 days after your last quarter in the program. The registrar will not send out your transcript and credit may be lost if you do not file your self-evaluation. Bring a nearly-final draft self-evaluation to your conference. There are very strict guidelines for granting incompletes, and they are almost never granted.

You may write whatever you want in your self-evaluation, but here’s a possible outline.
1. Why are you here? (That is, why are you attending college, why did you choose TESC and this program?)
2. What did you learn? (Tell a few stories about what excited you, NOT a list of the topics covered. These are discussed in both the program description and the faculty evaluation of student sections of your transcript.)
3. HOW did you learn? Employers and graduate skills seek those with high “meta-level” skills: attendance, on-time work, group work/collaboration, organizational skills, critical thinking skills, professionalism, etc.
4. Where are you going from here? What are your future plans? Be sure your self-evaluation reflects your best writing!

You must also bring faculty evaluations of each of the 3 faculty on separate sheets of paper to your conference. The student self-evaluation and the three faculty evaluations are your entry ticket to the evaluation conference. If you prefer to give the faculty evaluations to the program secretary, do so before your conference. The secretary will give us your evaluations of us after you leave the program. The self-evaluation is one of the most important aspects of an Evergreen education. In this program, you are required to submit your self-evaluation to the registrar to become part of your transcript.