Christian Roots Program Covenant

This program involves an examination of medieval European culture and its transformation to a Renaissance or "enlightened" culture. We will attempt to answer the following questions: How did Christianity shape the way medieval Europeans knew the world? What might we learn from medieval relations with nature that could bear on contemporary efforts to live more sustainably in the world? What phenomena of the Middle Ages still appear in our contemporary culture? Does our understanding of the medieval person influence our life today?

As we address this questions, we are also creating a community within which we can share both intellectual and personal understandings. This community forms the context for conversation among us. Conversing well means that we have to conscious and self-reflective about how we speak and act, how we use our time, and how we do our work individually and collectively. That is, we cannot assume that the community will happen to us naturally; rather we have to choose the principles by which we will live and the activities we will support.

Fostering community entails sustaining disagreement, differences and diversity in a spirit of equality and mutual respect; it does not mean agreement and uniformity. In order for us to successfully build our understandings within our community, each one of us must agree to the following principles and actions:

Respect

To create and participate in a community capable of sustaining intense, but respectful, interaction and discourse we must:

Strive to be aware of how our actions affect others and be honest with others about how their actions affect us;

Read and act in accordance with the Evergreen Social Contract (published in the Student Advising Handbook), the Student Conduct Code and the Sexual Harassment Policy;

Give all people opportunity and encouragement to speak;

Maintain a reflective and respectful approach to the study of our own and others’ experiences and knowledge.

Engagement

To be engaged in our individual and community work means generating and sharing personal interpretations and understandings such that we make the material and ideas our own. Doing so requires at a minimum, fulfilling our responsibilities to:

Attend class and keep appointments punctually;

Prepare assignments and evaluations promptly;

Notify the group of intended absences and schedule changes

Attend and be actively involved in all program sessions unless prevented by sickness or outside responsibilities.

Special Responsibilities of Students

Attend all all-programs, seminars and workshops except when illness or other serious circumstances prevent attendance; (Students need to notify faculty on the day they miss class by phone or e-mail to receive an excused absence. More than two unexplained absences per quarter will result in a loss of credit.);

Complete all assignments on time, including maintaining a journal, essays, workshop homework, responses to peers’ draft essays, readings, the print portfolio, exams and other occasional assignments and projects. If assignments are not complete or submitted on the due date, a loss of credit may result;

Maintain a portfolio of your work and evaluations;

Write a self-evaluation and faculty evaluation and participate in an evaluation coherence each quarter;

Special Responsibilities of Faculty

During the fifth week of each quarter, notify students who as of mid-quarter will not receive full credit for that quarter;

Give prompt and carefully considered responses to student work;

Make time available for individual conferences with students;

Handle all disputes in a spirit of respect and goodwill;

Refrain from talking with students about students’ problems with other faculty members except with the permission of the other faculty involved or in joint consultation with said faculty and then only after the students themselves have talked about the problems with the faculty member in question;

Conduct their interactions with each other collaboratively and professionally, and actively participate in faculty seminars and business and planning meetings.

In an academic community sharing and taking responsibility for our own ideas is vital. At the same time, acknowledging our use of other people’s ideas is equally important. The work we submit must reflect our own ideas. When we are incorporating the views of others, be those published authors or our seminar mates, we must acknowledge our sources. Since much of the work in this program will be collaborative and ensuing ideas will reflect the contributions of more than one person, we must get into the habit of acknowledging the people and ideas that have influenced us.

Failure to make such acknowledgements or to present the work of others as our own is plagiarism. Any student who plagiarizes material will be asked to leave the program and may be required to leave the college. Because college policy makes the consequences of plagiarism so severe, ask your faculty members if you have questions.

Resolving Conflicts

Academic and personal conflicts are common and to be expected in academic communities. The Social Contract lays out expectations about how e all should deal with such conflicts:

"Evergreen can thrive only if members respect the rights of others while enjoying their own rights… All must share alike in prizing academic and interpersonal honesty, in responsibly obtaining and providing full and accurate information, and in resolving their differences through due process and with a strong will to collaboration"

(The Social Contract – WAC 174–120-020

We expect all members of the program to abide by these principles of honest and face-to-face resolution of conflict. In the event you do not feel successful in resolving a conflict, bring your concerns to the attention of your seminar leader or to the faculty team. Any conflicts that cannot be resolved by your own efforts, those of your seminar leader or the faculty team, will be referred to our program dean or other mutually agreed upon mediator.

Any disputes about credit or the content of an evaluation must first be addressed to the faculty member who wrote the evaluation. If a student is not satisfied by a discussion with the faculty member involved; the issue will be brought before the faculty team. The program faculty will make final decisions about credit and evaluations.

Credit Policy

Faculty will award each student 16 credits per quarter for doing college level work, for attendance and punctuality at all program events, and for completing all assignments on time. Faculty may award less than 16 credits for work which fail to meet these criteria, but they will do so only after consultation with each other.

 Signed Date

 

Faculty ,