difference and desire PROGRAM COVENANT winter 2013

Good faith compliance with this Covenant is a requirement to earn any credits in difference and desire.

The inquiry and experiences we have before us as members of this program require a common commitment to the tasks ahead and to one another. Our work together will be most fruitful when we overcome our creative inhibitions, prepare ourselves carefully to address the assigned program material, and bring our most careful academic reflections to our discussions. Our learning will depend on the mutual, reciprocal, and thoughtful contributions of each one of us. There must be a common agreement and commitment to do the assigned work, meet assigned deadlines, participate in all program activities, and to bring to our common inquiry a respect for our individual ideas.

As a learning community, we commit ourselves to TESC’s five learning foci and the six expectations of an Evergreen graduate.

FIVE FOCI

1. 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.

2. Collaborative Learning — Students develop knowledge and skills through shared learning, rather than learning in isolation and in competition with others.

3. Learning Across Significant Differences — Students learn to recognize, respect and bridge differences – critical skills in an increasingly diverse world.

4. Personal Engagement — Students develop their capacities to judge, speak and act on the basis of their own reasoned beliefs.

5. Linking Theory with Practical Applications — Students understand abstract theories by applying them to projects and activities and by putting them into practice in real-world situations.

SIX EXPECTATIONS

1. Articulate and assume responsibility for your own work.

2. Participate collaboratively and responsibly in our diverse society.

3. Communicate creatively and effectively.

4. Demonstrate integrative, independent, critical thinking.

5. Apply qualitative, quantitative and creative modes of inquiry appropriately to practical and theoretical problems across disciplines.

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.

In general, students and faculty agree to:

• Participate fully and faithfully in program activities. Attend—and arrive on time for—all scheduled program activities. Students agree to notify faculty of expected absences from the program, but students must recognize that there are no “excused absences.” (There are times when one might not be able to attend program activities. You should tell us when you cannot attend, but we do not want to be forced to judge the adequacy or legitimacy of “excuses.”)

• Accept that this is an experiential, year-long learning program and absence from scheduled meetings will diminish learning and achievement in the program. Frequent absences or the emergence of a pattern of absences, regardless of their larger circumstances, will be reflected and discussed in faculty evaluations of the student.

• Stay informed about the program and its schedule, including active monitoring of the class web sites and your campus email account. These will be official channels of program communication, and everyone in the program is responsible for any information posted on the web pages or sent to campus email accounts.

• Make an initial commitment to remain in the program for the academic year.

• Communicate in a direct and timely way about intended absences, problems, changed plans, misunderstandings, needed accommodations, etc.

• Respect staff, facilities and equipment. Theft or deliberate damage of equipment is grounds for dismissal.

• Be fully present and work safely. This means, in part, that no one should come to class impaired by the use of drugs, licit or illicit, or alcohol.

• Maintain clean individual and collective workspaces. This includes, specifically, bodies.

• Work cooperatively in sharing and building on each other’s contributions. Be willing to learn by being open to new ideas, suggestions, points of view, and methods of instruction. Recognize that everyone, students and faculty alike, will blunder into mistakes, lapses in good judgment, indiscretions, poorly, even objectionably, phrased comments, and so on. Everyone must be willing to point these out, honestly and gently, and continue learning from and with the other members of this program.

• Be individually responsible for any work submitted as one’s own. This means, in part, not plagiarizing work. Plagiarism is to pass off as one’s own the words or ideas of others. Plagiarists could lose credit, be removed from the program and may be required to leave the college. Ask faculty if you have any questions.

• Engage in respectful, honest, open and well-intentioned exchange and investigation with one another.

• Refrain from unjustifiably offensive behavior or language.

• Abide by the principles of the Social Contract and Student code of Conduct. (Basically – respect differences, honor rights, seek understanding of self and other.)

• Resolve disputes directly and without rancor. All members of the program should abide by the principle of honest and face-to-face resolution of conflicts. In case of a conflict, if you do not feel successful in resolving the situation, bring your concerns to the attention, first, of your faculty. Any conflicts that cannot be resolved by your own efforts or the efforts of your faculty will be referred to formal college grievance procedures.

• Respect each other’s lives outside of the program, which means follow through on obligations made to others in teamwork situations.

• Take responsibility for contacting Access Services (867-6348, Lib 1407D), in the first week of the term, regarding any health condition or disability that may require accommodations to participate effectively in this class.

Every student specifically acknowledges that to receive credit he or she must:

• Submit all assignments on or before due date.

• follow guidelines for all written work: No separate title pages are necessary. No plastic covers, please. No font smaller than the equivalent of Times 12 or Arial 10. All written work should be word-processed, spell-checked, and double-spaced with appropriate margins and scholarly citation.

• follow guidelines for all photo work: Meet your commitments and responsibilities to the best of your ability and on time. Plan ahead to borrow cameras from Media Loan or from another source. Make sure you have film, papers and supplies. Follow assignments. Nothing sexually graphic or explicit. Meet deadlines for critique. Submit an organized portfolio folder to faculty for evaluation.

• Pay all fees properly assessed.

• Attend all program activities.

• Complete a self-evaluation and academic statement.

• Write a faculty evaluation.

• Attend an evaluation conference.

Faculty specifically agrees to:

• Review work in a timely manner.

• Be available to meet during office hours or by appointment.

• NOT accept late student work.

• Schedule an evaluation conference and prepare a written evaluation to accompany each student’s self-evaluation.

• Allow no one to carry an INCOMPLETE beyond the end of the program except in truly extraordinary circumstances,

• Ask a student to leave the program if his or her behavior is consistently disruptive, antagonistic and impedes the program from progressing. Any student who is asked to leave and wishes to appeal may do so by arranging to meet jointly with faculty and program’s academic dean. Such a decision will be binding, although students always have access to the college’s formal grievance procedures.

• Ask a student to leave the program if he or she misses two weeks of class/program activities.

AWARD OF CREDITS

The faculty will award full credit to every student who satisfactorily completes the assigned program work. Final decisions about credit and evaluations will be made by the program faculty at the end of the quarter. Full credit will be awarded when faculty judges that the student has sufficiently fulfilled the college-level requirements and standards of the program, including academic performance and commitment to/fulfillment of the learning community.

Full credit and superlative evaluation are not the same thing. A student can receive full credit, but also receive evaluations that reflect a poor quality work. On the flip side, a student could attend classes and submit assigned work regularly but receive partial or no credit because of careless or poor quality work. Academic credit is awarded based on consideration the quality of the final product, as well as the time and effort that went into producing that product.

FERPA LAW

Students acknowledge that under the federal law known as the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, faculty are prohibited from discussing anything about their enrollment or work in the program or at the college with anyone else. Among other things, that means the faculty cannot respond to inquiries from parents, friends, loved ones. Students may complete a waiver with the Registrar that allows faculty to discuss matters of the student’s enrollment with specified other people. Even if there is a waiver in place, the faculty will be reluctant to discuss the work in the program with anyone other than the student.