Faculty Frequently Asked Questions

CAMDEN COLLEGE OF ARTS OF SCIENCES

FRESHMAN SEMINAR
PILOT PROGRAM PROPOSAL
{approved by CCAS Faculty Senate, November 2000}

1. Intellectual Heritage / Science, Technology, & Society
2. The Freshman Class

III. THE FRESHMAN SEMINAR PILOT PROGRAM

A. Student Eligibility and Credit within the Core Curriculum
B. Departmental resources and Administrative support
C. Implementation schedule and targets
D. Course Eligibility
E. Voluntary Participation
F. Review and Final Approval

IV. SUMMARY

FAQ (Frequently asked questions) on the proposal

I. BACKGROUND

Although there are conceptual issues about the justifications and rationales for our core curriculum as a whole which have been discussed by the Academic Policy Committee and many faculty members during the last year, there are also specific needs in our general curricular requirements that can be addressed without immediately resolving these larger issues. This year the Academic Policy Committee will continue--in consultation with the faculty senate--its review of the entire core curriculum and the formulation of possible recommendations for systemic change. In the meantime, we believe there is an opportunity to make an immediate substantial improvement to the core curriculum by implementing the proposal for a new Freshman Seminar Pilot Program as outlined below. The program can comfortably co-exist with whatever other decisions the faculty eventually makes with regard to the overall Core Curriculum.

II. EXISTING NEEDS AND PROBLEMS

This proposal is intended to address two urgent problems in the current core curriculum.

1. Intellectual Heritage / Science, Technology, & Society

There is a widespread agreement among most of the faculty that the IH/STS requirement has not been as successful as it might have been. Of course, one easy solution would be to simply eliminate this requirement. It is worth remembering, however, that the intellectual justification for these courses has never really been questioned or challenged. Indeed, these courses are consistent with similar course requirements at a wide variety of first-rate universities. The notion of some shared academic experience for all entering students is also a feature of many successful core curricula. The problems about IH/STS have been of a more structural or logistical nature.

a. insufficent faculty participation-- Almost from the outset, the Academic Policy Committee has had to scramble to recruit faculty members to teach IH/STS. The requirement has been progressively pared back from both courses to a choice of one, from team-taught inter-disciplinary courses to courses taught by a single faculty member. These changes were not made in response to changes in the intellectual purpose of these course. Rather they were due exclusively to the shortage of faculty willing to teach these courses. For evening students, the staffing difficulties for IH/STS have forced the Academic Policy Committee to devise special ad hoc solutions. Since IH/STS is now rarely if ever offered in the evening, the APC has no other choice but to accept other evening courses as IH/STS substitutes for evening students.

b. alienating mega-class environment- As the number of sections of IH/STS has declined, the number of students in each section offered has risen accordingly. Although some faculty members have had success in teaching these courses over the years, there are few people who would defend large sections of 200+ students as an educationally attractive environment for either students or professors. Indeed, many faculty indicate that the size of the class is one of the biggest disincentives to teaching it. Similarly, many students have complained about the impersonality of these large classes. Despite the high-quality teaching and content that is often present in these classes, IH/STS certainly do not constitute an particularly attractive advertisement for liberal arts education at CCAS.

2. The Freshman Class

One of the biggest factors to be considered in future curricular changes is the changing composition of our undergraduate student body . Recent admissions and registration data have indicated a surge in the size of the freshman class at CCAS. Retention of these freshmen and future recruitment of high-quality freshmen in a competitive educational market-place require serious attention to the first educational experiences a student will have at CCAS. Currently, there is no common freshman experience to ease new students' transition to college in a more intimate classroom setting. As the college's growth in enrollment increases the size of all of our classes, the possibility of new students feeling lost and overwhelmed in large classes also increases.

An article in the latest issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education proposes small seminars for beginning students as one of the most promising educational opportunities that public universities can offer. These seminars are one of the hallmarks of many universities' honors programs, including our own, and the APC would like to expand their availability to all students. CCAS has always prided itself on the degree of close student-faculty contact we can provide. A freshman seminar program would greatly enhance that part of our educational identity. We believe that this curriculum innovation that would have an immediate and tangible affect on students' experience at Rutgers-Camden.

Experience at many schools has shown that small seminar classes, taught by full-time faculty, are one of the most important elements in bonding new students with their college and establishing the educational reputation of the school among students. A freshman seminar provides a small learning community in which new college students become acquainted with basic principles of intellectual analysis and interpretation. A full-time faculty member guides them in reading and reflecting on texts in an interactive setting that exposes them to multiple points of view. They gain their first experiences in college-level academic writing and develop confidence in presenting their own ideas to a group. Theseseminars give students an opportunity to get to know personally a small group of fellow students and to develop a personal relationship with a full-time faculty member. It has been found at other universities that close personal interaction with full-time faculty in a new student's first year of enrollment is very important. Students can more easily receive the attention necessary to acclimate them to the demands and expectations of college. This experience also provides students with a known point of contact for academic advice during the first years of college.

The Honors College has been quite successful in offering such classes to entering Honors students. The size and structure of these classes has been attractive enough to encourage faculty participation in a way that IH/STS have not. The following proposal is intended to expand the success of the Honors College into a program available to regularly admitted freshman.

III. THE FRESHMAN SEMINAR PILOT PROGRAM

The Academic Policy Committee proposes the establishment of a new Freshman Seminar Program that can provide an attractive solution to some of the known problems and needs described above.

A. Student Eligibility and Credit within the Core Curriculum

The Freshman Seminar is not proposed as a new, additional general curricular requirement. During the pilot period, some students will be offered an opportunity to enroll in Freshman Seminars. Only freshmen will be eligible to participate in the program. Since freshman honors students already have their own seminar program, they will not be included in the program. Transfer students will not be included in the program at this time.

For students participating in the Freshman Seminar Pilot Program, these seminars will count toward either the college's general distribution requirement or as an alternative to the standard IH/STS requirement, but not both. Honors College seminars will also be accepted as an equivalent to IH/STS. (Current honors students may designate one of their honors seminars as an IH/STS replacement.) Departments will determine for themselves what credit, in any, will be given toward the major for specific freshman seminars.

Like IH/STS, courses offered as Freshman Seminars will study "some of the great ideas that have helped to shape the development of our civilization" by means of "classic texts of literature, philosophy, history, natural science, and social science" (IH) or "some of the great issues that face the world, examined from the differing perspectives of the natural sciences, the social sciences, and the humanities." (STS) [descriptions quoted from Rutgers-Camden Undergraduate Catalog, 1998-2000, p. 24]

For those who choose not to take a Freshman (or Honors) seminar or for whom there is no space, the existing IH/STS requirement will remain in effect. Likewise, the IH/STS requirement will remain unchanged for transfer students. Depending upon the number of Freshman Seminars being offered, however, demand for IH/STS will decrease, resulting in lower demand and smaller class sizes for those courses.

B. Departmental resources and Administrative support

Unlike IH/STS, which are non-departmental courses, Freshman Seminars will be primarily departmentally based. They will represent part of a department's traditional offerings. The impact of participating in the program will vary from department to department. Departments with very high enrollment in their introductory classes may find it more costly to designate one class as a freshman seminar than departments with more modest enrollment in its lower level classes. In either case, all departments are understandably concerned about the amount of resources that will be available to support a freshman seminar initiative.

If the faculty recommends the implementation of this program, the Dean's Office is committed to ensuring that departments have the resources necessary to participate: funding PTLs in participating departments will become a high priority, support for outside speakers relevant for freshman seminars will be made available, and other possibilities can be explored.

The Freshman Seminar Program can be the kind of initiative that is featured in the forthcoming capital campaign. This is because many alumni might be inclined to contribute to a specific educational initiative that makes it possible for all students to have the direct contact with faculty members that is particularly distinctive of an education at Rutgers-Camden. Dean Marsh has indicated that if the faculty introduces a freshman seminar program into the colleges, she will do her best to solicit gifts and endowments for it. In the long run, then, the introduction of a freshman seminar program can lead to more resources for the College.

In the short run, funding for PTLs and speakers would be made available by reallocating some money in the PTL budget (for example, less money will have to be spent for TA's for the IH and STS courses, because the size of these courses will be much smaller as a consequence of the Freshman Seminar Program) and by using new funds brought in by the expanded summer school budget. Until faculty interest in the Freshman Seminar Program is clear--revealing how many faculty members are interested in participating and how many sections will be offered--the costs of the program cannot be accurately estimated. However, Associate Dean Dan Hart is willing to discuss--with the APC, department chairs, and the faculty senate--how the costs of implementation can be covered at various levels of participation.

C. Implementation schedule and targets

Starting in Fall 2001, all departments will be eligible to designate (with APC approval) a limited number of courses as "Freshmen Seminars." With timely approval of the Freshman Seminar Program by the faculty senate, participating departments and faculty can begin scheduling classes in time for the registrar's construction sheet deadlines for the Fall 2001 semester.

Following approval of the program, the Academic Policy Committee will create a Freshman Seminar Program Committee. The purpose of the committee will be to recruit and provide training for faculty participants in the program, to coordinate the scheduling of seminars, to monitor and resolve any problems that arise for students or faculty who participate in the program, to develop common supplementary events for the freshman seminar program, to undertake regular evaluation of the program, and to report the program's progress to the faculty senate.

Freshman admissions letters sent out next spring might include a list of seminars and a form for prospective students to indicate preferences. The freshman seminar committee would try to match students to seminars as best it could.

During the pilot period, following target figures will be used:

Academic year 2001-2002: 9 Freshman Seminars

Academic year 2002-2003: 12 Freshman Seminars

Academic year 2003-2004: 15 Freshman Seminars

In the 2000-2001 academic year, there were approximately 440 registered freshmen, of whom 100 are honors students already enrolled in honors seminars. If 9 seminars are offered in the 2001-2002 academic year, there will be room for over 50% of all (non-Honors) freshmen in seminars.

D. Course Eligibility

Freshman Seminars will follow these guidelines:

a. The course will be taught by a full-time faculty member.

b. The enrollment will be capped at 20 students per seminar.

c. Any section of an existing introductory level course may be proposed as a "freshman seminar," new departmental courses may be designed for this purpose, or sections of IH/STS may be offered as "freshman seminars."

d. To the extent that is possible, the Freshman Seminars should introduce interdisciplinary material and broad exposure to issues related to the course topic.

e. Some reading and interpreting of primary texts should be included. There should also be a significant component of writing exercises and possibly oral presentations.

f. The classes will be taught as seminars and will emphasize faculty-student interaction.

g. It is anticipated that several common events during the semester will be planned by faculty participants in the program. These may include prominent speakers or important films that can then be discussed in the seminars. The Associate Dean has agreed to provide resources for this purpose.

E. Voluntary Participation

The Freshman Seminar Program will be a three-year Pilot Program. During that period participation in it will be entirely voluntary for both faculty and students. No department or faculty member is required to participate. We believe that many faculty members will find the option of teaching a small freshman seminar attractive. It provides a perfect way for departments to introduce new students to their disciplines. However, departments that find other priorities for their full-time faculty more pressing may choose not to participate.

During the pilot period, students' participation in the Freshman Seminars will also be voluntary. Since the number of seminars will initially be limited and difficult to predict, not all freshmen could be accommodated in any case. Although the goal of the freshman seminar program is to provide the seminar experience in a student's first year at Rutgers, the freshman seminar committee will need to evaluate how freshman seminars fit in with other required courses students in different departments may need to take. Some students, particularly in the sciences, may have difficulty scheduling a freshman seminar during their first year because of other required courses. In such cases, students may petition the freshman seminar committee for permission to enroll in a freshman seminar in the first semester of their sophomore year.

F. Review and Final Approval

A Freshman Seminar Faculty Committee will be created as a sub-committee of the APC to administer the program and evaluate its success during the pilot period.

The Freshman Seminar initiative will be a 3-year pilot program. During the third year of the program, the Freshmen Seminar Committee will make an evaluation of the program and make recommendations to the Senate whether to continue, revise, or discontinue the program. If the program has not succeeded in generating sufficient faculty support and participation, the faculty may decide not to re-authorize the program. In that case, it will expire at the end of the third year.

IV. SUMMARY

A Freshman Seminar program offers the opportunity for the CCAS faculty to make a dramatic innovation in the core curriculum that will have obvious appeal to new students. It will potentially offer a valuable positive academic experience for freshmen in their first year at CCAS. Eventually, all freshmen will be able to share a common seminar experience that may help create more of an academic identity for the college.

The proposal also offers some remedy to the chronic IH/STS staffing problem by essentially de-centralizing IH/STS. In this way it may preserve some of the original intention of IH/STS in a sustainable form.

Finally, the program is proposed as a voluntary pilot program. One of the major lessons the Academic Policy Committee learned in reviewing the history of IH/STS is that mandating a core curriculum course for all students without a faculty commitment to offer such a course is an unworkable strategy. New requirements must be introduced in conjunction with faculty support and commitment. Faculty are understandably concerned about impact of introducing Freshman Seminars on their departmental teaching needs and resources.

For these reasons, the Freshman Seminar Program will be phased in in such a way as to determine its long-term feasibility. It will not be mandated for students until it is clear that sufficient faculty will be available to staff it on an on-going basis and that concerns about its impact on departmental resources have been addressed. During the three-year pilot period we will be able to gauge faculty and student enthusiasm as well as administrative support for the program before granting it permanent approval. We remain hopeful that this program will generate such support from faculty, administration, and students.

                                        Submitted by Stuart Charmé
                                        Chair, Academic Policy Committee
                                        November 20, 2000