Wabash Study

A short description of the Wabash Study is forthcoming.

Wabash Task Force
A task force met to discuss the Wabash Study in 2007-08.


 * Basic Summary of data gleaned from Study: [[File:Summary of Wabash National Study 2006-2007.pdf]]
 * Student version of their report, distributed in Fall 2008: [[Media:Wabash_Task_Force_Report_Nov08_Students.pdf|Media:Wabash Task Force Report Nov08 Students.pdf]].

Wabash and Putting “Challenge” in Context: Support, Motivation, and Community at Hampshire
By Aaron Berman

The Wabash Study develops a complex picture of learning and community at Hampshire. While much of our discussion has centered on the question of challenge, less attention has been given to the issue of student support. This is the subject I would like to address here. The founders of Hampshire assumed that students would “do the work” because they would want to do the work. They believed that eighteen year olds were prepared to live a life of the mind. To this day, there are relatively few incentives for students to keep up with class readings or complete assignments other than the fact that they design their areas of study and should want to.

In marked contrast to the ideal, our students, in Wabash and other studies, tell us that they have very low confidence in their ability to focus on their chosen areas of study. They have passionate interests but fear that they lack the skills and discipline to pursue them successfully. Experience has shown that for many of these students, the fears that they will not be able to complete what they start are perceptive and realistic. Their sense of failure is often profound. When these students arrive at Hampshire, they encounter a culture that romanticizes the “independent study” and mythologizes the “independent project.” The academic program provides relatively few support structures and fails to create collaborative and supportive learning structures (beyond classes). As a faculty, we value the creativity and flexibility of teachers and students. Nurturing creativity and exercising flexibility requires great skill as a teacher. At our best, we set high standards, set limits, and provide the support that allows students to succeed. However, sometimes, when we are not at our best, we fail to set the structures that prevent creativity and flexibility from spinning out of control; at our worst, we give the impression that we don’t care.

The challenge for us as we respond to the Wabash Study is to provide students with the structures to succeed while not losing the creativity and flexibility that are central to the Hampshire experience. One important step is to foster more collaborative learning at the college. I understand how much students value independent study, but I believe it is more important to create situations that force our students to work as teams and with communities. As an example, Michelle Bigenho co-teaches a January Term course every year on Bolivian music and culture. With the help of a visiting composer, Michelle takes students, some who had no music background, and introduces them to Bolivian music, instruments and culture. The course culminates in a concert, and the students work over January Term to prepare for that event. Several of the instruments that the students use and practice require two people to complete a scale. The students quickly come to understand that if they miss class they deprive their comrades of the ability to practice; they learn that the success of one is dependent upon the success of all. Michelle reports that last semester every student in the class completed all the work and assignments on time and on schedule and that attendance at class and practice sessions was always excellent.

We have this academic year two new structures that I believe will make Michelle’s experience less of an exception. Our new Center for Teaching and Learning will conduct programs for new and veteran faculty to hone the special skills needed for successful teaching at Hampshire. The Network for Community Engaged Learning will increase the opportunity for our students to take their education outside of the classroom in a context that requires them to work collectively. If our efforts here are met with programs in Student Services that build real community among students, Hampshire will have taken a huge step forward. Most of ours students are wonderful; they are iconoclasts with the courage to ask difficult questions and support unpopular positions. We also know that many of them come from high schools that don’t value this critical thrust. Many of our students have spent much of their lives as “outsiders” in their communities: “the artist,” or “the radical.” They are alienated. They want to live in a community but often don’t have the skills to create community. They have great ambitions intellectually and artistically, but doubt their ability to complete what they start. It’s our responsibility to inspire them and to create the practices and structures that nurture and support.