October 2008 EPC Progress Report on Revising Division I

The EPC Progress Report on Revising Division I was written on October 7, 2008 and distributed to the entire Faculty. You can also download it in PDF format: [[Media:EPC_report_to_faculty_08_10_6.pdf|EPC Progress Report on Revising Division I]]

As we said in our report last May "If we are to revise Division I in a way that will have real faculty support and enthusiasm behind it, this has to be in the context of hearing, and accepting, the very real differences in time demands and teaching needs across the faculty. Clearly, faculty meetings are too large to provide a setting for sustained, focused conversations. … While School discussions are an important part of the process, though, they do not provide a way for us to hear the full range of concerns present among us."

We organized a set of small group discussions among faculty last April that seems to have been effective in beginning these conversations. We therefore propose having two additional sets of these small group meetings this fall to explore more specific sets of issues around revising Division I.

It is our sense that, rather than attempting a whole-sale restructuring of Division I in one omnibus package, the nature of the issues is such that we can proceed most effectively by focusing on particular aspects of Division I. As we said in the report on the small group discussions "[I]t seems that EPC should recommend a two-pronged approach: one that looks for those structural changes that might help streamline, simplify, clarify Div I in ways that help it better serve the goals above, and that also identifies and puts in place systems for discussing and improving teaching and advising."

We are therefore proposing that this fall the faculty discuss two areas of structural change that appear to have the most faculty support, and that we move to discussions of ways for improving teaching and advising in the spring.

Design Concerns
Some of the general concerns raised in the April discussions were:


 * Our resources are limited. The current Division I model places severe strains on the time of individual faculty and, in some cases, is distorting the curricular balances of an entire School. Workload issues have to be considered in making any changes.
 * The present system is overly rigid. Students get little practice in the kind of self-determination and shaping of their curriculum that will be essential later on. Advisors have little role other than checking off boxes. Schools have to focus so much attention on Division I students that Division II and III students sometimes run the risk of being neglected.
 * Transition questions. How do we structure the Division I experience so that it better prepares students for the skills and attitudes that will be expected of them in Division II and III
 * Excitement. Division I needs to be engaging and exciting in ways that mark for the students a change from the traditional high school experiences many of them come here to escape. It should have an identifiable character of its own, but one that also makes it as much a part of a Hampshire education as Div II and Div III.

Proposed small-group discussion topics for this fall
We have identified two structural areas where the faculty seems most ready to take action: Implementing a distribution requirement and implementing the learning goals. To focus each discussion we suggest looking at the corresponding motions in our March 4 report. Groups will be asked to comment on the different sections of each motion. Where there is objection to a given section, the group will be asked to suggest alternative solutions.

First Small Group Discussion Topic
Tuesday, October 21, from 3:30 – 5 Motion 3. All students must satisfactorily complete a course in each of the following areas: i. The Arts, including creative writing ii. Social Sciences iii. Sciences – Natural and Cognitive iv. Humanities and Cultural Studies In general these courses will be at the 100-level. Instructors will designate which area(s) their 100-level courses fit into. The advisor may approve an upper-level course as meeting the requirement where it seems appropriate, with the concurrence of the teacher of that course.

Discussion: Making these changes should help alleviate the pressures to offer more 100 level courses than we can reasonably accommodate. These changes should also provide students with a greater degree of flexibility in shaping their courses of study.

Second Small Group Discussion Topic
Tuesday, November 18, from 3:30 – 5

Motion 2. We reaffirm the current seven Learning Goals as an expression of the range of skills we want all our students to cultivate to an appropriate level during their years at Hampshire. i. These goals should be explicitly addressed when the student and advisor develop the Division I proposal, setting forth the way the student will continue to cultivate these skills, taking into account the student’s current level of proficiency and anticipated needs. ii. The Division I evaluation shall speak to the student’s development in each of these areas, laying out goals for further work development as appropriate. iii. The learning goals remain important in designing courses. Faculty will continue to list the goals addressed in each course as an aid to the student and advisor in developing the division I proposal and selecting classes. iv. In their course evaluations faculty will speak to each of the learning goals they’ve included in their course, assessing the student’s current level in each. Faculty will be asked to determine a) whether and to what extent the student has made progress on a goal, and b) whether the faculty member believes that the student has met the standard the faculty sets for Div I level work in that area, or whether stronger skills in that area will be needed to proceed to Div II. v. The Learning Goals will not appear as a checklist on TheHub.

Discussion: There seems to be a general sense that the learning goals, as currently embodied in the Division I structure, fall far short of the role they should be playing in assisting students to assess their strengths and weaknesses and to design a program of study that ensures they acquire the kinds of skills and understandings they will need in their later studies. Reducing the learning goals to a check off status seems to have been particularly unfortunate in how they are perceived by both students and teachers.

Topics to be carried over to the spring
There were a number of areas of concern raised in last spring’s small group discussions that we will need to look at in the coming spring. Here are some of the principle ones:


 * The role of the advisor/advisee relationship. Possible topics here include asking for Division I contracts; the question of portfolio assessment; giving the advisor and advisee greater control in deciding on the program of study most appropriate for the student. Some of the proposals raise concerns of possible increases in workload without offsetting decreases elsewhere.
 * Fostering independence and ownership. The previous examples are part of the larger goal of providing a framework feel a greater sense of authorship of their academic program, something essential to Divisions II and III.
 * Number of courses for Div. I. Some have proposed that only 7 formal courses be required for Division I with the student and advisor given much more leeway in selecting other kinds of activities to round out Division I.
 * The role of the third semester. This is part of a larger discussion of making a productive transition from Division I to Division II.
 * Project work. There seems to be broad agreement that one or more substantial projects should be an integral part of Division I. What do we mean by this, and how can we ensure that it takes place?