|
Building
on the work of the Engagement Project as
well as the first round of grants,
the Project has provided grants to ACM member colleges interested
in looking at how they engage students in their liberal arts education.
Applicants responded to a request for proposals, and were selected
by a subcommittee of academic deans. Supported projects were:
CMS for
First Year Courses
Carleton College
Carleton faculty and administrators are currently considering adoption
of a course management system, testing two such systems--Moodle
and Sakai--this spring. At the same time faculty are developing
a number of non-traditional formats for first-year courses, including
collaborative authoring and production of a publication by students
in a course; web research projects with a wiki platform; linked
courses with historic re-enactment, posters, independent research,
and multimedia presentations; and direct data-gathering on campus
and in the community resulting in reports to appropriate campus
or civic audiences. In this project, faculty will develop models
for using the tested CMS programs for non-traditional first-year
courses. It will both focus attention on the choice of CMS and stimulate
new ideas for first-year courses. The results of these initiatives
will be shared with other colleges. For more information contact
Carol Rutz, Director of the Writing Program, at crutz@carleton.edu.
Connecting
Constituents Over 150 Years
Lake Forest College
In 2007 Lake Forest will mark its sesquicentennial. As part of the
observations, the college will offer a special section of its course,
"History 348: Public History: Museums and Exhibitions." In the course
students will produce permanent and semi-permanent exhibits of college
and regional history. The grant from the Engagement Project will
support faculty preparing to teach the course as well as fund student
work, work which would engage students with the college in a concrete,
lasting, and meaningful way. For more information contact Janet
McCracken, Provost, at mccracken@lakeforest.edu.
Expanding
Undergraduate Research
St. Olaf College
St. Olaf will develop a replicable model to expand its nationally
recognized natural sciences and mathematics undergraduate research
program into the humanities, social sciences and interdisciplinary
studies. They plan to initiate opportunities for students to conduct
research collaboratively with faculty members in these disciplines
so that summer research will eventually become an integral part
of a liberal education across all of its disciplines. The grant
will support a faculty working group that will research the challenge
and develop models. For more information, contact Todd Nichol, Professor
of History, at nichol@stolaf.edu.
First-Year
Course Planning Retreat
Coe College
Over the past three years Coe has developed a new general education
curriculum--in part with the support of a
previous ACM Engagement grant. As a result of this curricular
change, effective fall 2006, all of the First Year seminar sections
will be topical courses. Although the may be rooted primarily in
one discipline, they will not be the first course in the major or
count towards a major. More importantly, the courses will require
students to explore ideas, issues and problems from multiple perspectives.
Faculty development will be critical in the transition to the new
FYS course and for the success of the program. This grant will support
a two-day retreat for faculty teaching the new FYS courses, including
developing course assignments and advising techniques. For more
information contact Marc Roy, Dean of the Faculty, at mroy@coe.edu.
Liberal
Arts Learning Project
Macalester College
The college will develop pilot programming, framed by pre- and post-programming
survey instruments, designed to deepen and broaden the understanding
of first year students of the purposes, values, and questions integral
to a liberal arts education. This initiative builds on changes in
Macalester's first year course requirements and a student assessment
plan. During the fall semester a selected group of students will
come together for a series of program activities: to discuss some
reading with two faculty members who instruct FYC courses, to participate
in a conversation about the purposes, values and questions central
to a liberal arts education, and for a group reflection on Macalester's
Statement of Purpose and Belief and how it pertains to their own
educational choices. The project will assess these students' views
of the liberal arts at the beginning and end of the semester. For
more information contact Ellen Guyer, Dean of Academic Programs,
at guyer@macalester.edu.
Second-Year
Intensive Writers' Workshop
Cornell College
Cornell received a first-round
Engagement grant for a project that focused on second-year writers,
involving pilot testing a portfolio program for evaluating student
writing in the middle of the second year. They discovered that there
is a minority of students for whom additional experience in writing
would be of value. While these students pass the required writing
course, they often have not developed strong skills or confidence
as academic writers. With this grant Cornell will test one-week
pre-school intensive writers' workshop for second year students
who perform below par in the introductory writing course or who
self-identify as needing further development in their academic writing
skills. For more information contact Jill Heinrich, Chair of the
Writing Program Committee, at jheinrich@cornellcollege.edu.
Second Year
Retreat
Grinnell College
Building the college's Expanding Knowledge Initiative, Grinnell
will develop a second-year retreat, which will complement its long-established
first-year tutorial in encouraging students to reflect on the nature
and goals of a liberal arts education and their personal values
and aims as they proceed through our individually advised curriculum.
The retreat will give particular attention to issues facing students
in their second year, such as declaring a major and planning ahead
for off-campus study, mentored research, internships, and service
learning opportunities. The college will research and report on
issues facing second-year students and consult with Monmouth, Knox,
Beloit, and Ripon Colleges regarding their second-year student initiatives.
For more information contact Marci Sortor, Director of the Office
of Interdisciplinary Studies, at sortor@grinnell.edu.
|
