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Engaging Today's Students with the Liberal Arts |
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Grinnell College |
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BEST PRACTICE Supporting
an Open Curriculum through Intensive Advising in the First Year
Tutorial Student self-governance, both in academic decisions and in campus life, is central to liberal education at Grinnell College. It is at the core of the student experience and is a source of pride for them. Campus life is based on the exercise of free choice through which students learn to become responsible members of their community. For example, students in each residence hall determine most of the policies that will govern their living environment, and students sit on many College committees. In academic matters, the concept of self-governance defines how students make their curricular choices. Grinnell's "open curriculum" imposes only three requirements for graduation: completion of a First Year Tutorial, satisfaction of the requirements for an academic major, and 124 credits. Lacking the structure of required core courses or distribution requirements, Grinnell students take full responsibility for their educational choices. They are expected to make wise decisions. From the moment they arrive on campus as new students, they begin discussing with each other and with their professors how to choose courses providing both breadth and depth in the liberal arts. These discussions begin with their advisors who are also their professors in the First Year Tutorial.The Tutorial professor continues as the student's adviser until he or she declares a major. Thus, students receive guidance from an instructor with personal knowledge of their performance in class. Strong academic support (professional learning labs, free tutoring, and a comprehensive system to track and assist students in academic difficulty) offers a safety net for practicing academic independence. The Tutorial, required of all first year students since 1970, is one of the nation's oldest first year seminars. Faculty members in all departments regularly teach in this program on a wide range of topics. All sections focus on the practices of critical thinking and reading, discussion skills, writing, and information literacy that help prepare students for the intellectual challenge they will face in their Grinnell College classes. And all tutors provide guidance to students as they begin to construct their four-year plans for balanced liberal arts courses of study. Faculty members attend orientation sessions in the spring and summer on teaching and advising in the Tutorial program. The effectiveness of the Tutorial was most recently evaluated by the faculty four years ago, culminating in a poll that strongly reaffirmed commitment to this program. Complete sets of student end-of-Tutorial evaluations go into the dossier for faculty reviews. Thus, the decision to renew a faculty contract or to promote a faculty member is based in part on analyzing student assessment of the faculty member's effectiveness in the Tutorial. Moreover, the Tutorial Committee is currently re-drafting the student evaluation form, to gain better information about the effectiveness of this program and its instructors. Grinnell College students thrive in a setting that challenges them academically, offers independence in both academic choices and residential life, and provides the support they need, both as students and as young adults. Despite an environment that strenuously challenges students to grow both intellectually and emotionally, first year to sophomore retention at Grinnell College is over 90%. We hope to make this number even higher by continuing to assess and improve student services, financial aid policies, facilities, advising, and other practices that shape the first year experience. For information provided faculty on planning Tutorials see: http://www.grinnell.edu/offices/dean/tutorial GREATEST CHALLENGE Articulating
the Meanings of a Liberal Arts Education in the Twenty-First Century
Grinnell College's open curriculum rests on a single course outside of requirements for the major-the First Year Tutorial-and intensive advising by faculty to help students devise an individualized and well-balanced course of studies. At the heart of the advising process (and thus of the educational process) is a tension between students' desires and faculty members' understanding of what a liberal arts education entails. Grinnell College's students and their parents are increasingly focused on college education as preparation for their future careers. This is particularly true of our domestic first-generation and international students. National economic trends, however, force all of us-educators, students, and parents-to appreciate the fact that a bachelor's degree has become necessary for most professional careers. In their role as academic advisers, faculty members must negotiate between what they understand to be a liberal arts education and students' career-oriented plans. Negotiations between faculty advisers and their students are further complicated by the fact that there is no single vision at Grinnell College of what a liberal arts education and its purpose should be. The very nature of the College's open curriculum suggests that there are multiple meanings. It also calls for a constant and lively discussion, among faculty members as a group and among students and their advisers, of what a liberal arts education means to them and how their understanding will inform the courses that the College offers as well as the courses that students choose. Our challenge is to articulate the meanings of a liberal arts education in a compelling way through campus debate and reflection. A POSSIBLE RESPONSE TO THE CHALLENGE Grinnell College's best first year practice-the Tutorial and intensive advising-may be the springboard for our initial response to this challenge. The Tutorial, bound up as it is with both learning and advising, provides an excellent forum for students to reflect on what a liberal arts education means to them and to work with their advisers to design courses of study that will help them realize that education. While the Tutorial provides the framework for initiating the discussion amongst faculty members and students, our goal is to expand it to include advising throughout the curriculum. The College could support this discussion in the Tutorial and open it up to the entire campus community by taking several measures: 1) Initiate the discussion in the literature we send to incoming students; 2) Prior to the announcement of new Tutorials, initiate discussions with tutors about the liberal arts-emphasizing their contested meanings-and how the goals of liberal arts education may affect both the topics of Tutorials and the methods of teaching them; 3) Continue the discussion with students during New Student Orientation; and 4) Follow up with a series of events throughout each academic year. We would not expect our discussions to result in one-size-fits-all, either for our students or for our faculty. What we would expect, however, would be a deeper understanding of our own commitment to the liberal arts and to providing the best educational opportunities for each of our students. We look forward to learning more about how other colleges encourage debate about the aims of liberal education and how they articulate those aims on their campuses. Team Members
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