Report recommends
credit hour ceiling
The Centennial Education Program will continue in its present
format if the College of Arts and Sciences (CAS) faculty adopts a
subcommittee report, Joan Waslow, Associate Dean, said.
She said she did not expect the recommendations to be rejected.
Two recommendations were listed in the report by a seven-member
subcommittee.
The first recommendation called for continuance of the present
maximum of 48 credit hours that Centennial students may use to
satisfy CAS requirements.
A second recommendation was that further studies of student
use of Centennial credit hours are not necessary.
A 1970 CAS faculty resolution specified that an evaluation of
the Centennial Program, to be made this year, would detail student
use of Centennial courses.
A subcommittee of six faculty members and one student was
formed to determine how students used the program in fulfilling
CAS requirements.
The six faculty members were chairman Leslie Duly, Wendell
Gauger, Nelson Potter, Susan Welch, Tom Bestul and Joan Wadlow.
The student memb:: was Amy Struthers.
The subcommittee opted to continue allowing Centennial credit
hours to be used to fulfill graduation requirements.
The report stated that the subcommittee members were
"satisfied that the present provision (allowing academic credit for
the CEP) has not been misused and is unlikely to be misused in the
future."
The report also stated that no student in the class of 1974
applied more than 42 Centennial credit hours toward graduation
requirements. Also indicated in the report was that a majority of
the 1974 Centennial graduates, 82 per cent, applied 12 Centennial
credit hours to meet graduation requirements.
Few students apply many Centennial credit hours toward
graduation requirements because certain Centennial projects do not
satisfy CAS group requirements, Nelson Potter, senior fellow of the
program, said.
Potter cited Centennial language courses as one example of how
Centennial courses will not meet CAS requirements. He explained
that no Centennial language courses may apply toward CAS
standards.
Another problem the Centennial Program faced until this year
was that it did not have any math or philosophy instructors who
could teach courses required by the CAS. Potter, formerly of the
department of philosophy, said he is now teaching a logic course
that will fulfill CAS requirements.
. . . Fellow (Continued from p. 7)
skills to evaluate ideas that are offered to them,"
he added.
This year, Houser said he works individually
with 60 per cent of his students, and the rest in
small groups.
He also said he thinks his work in Centennial
is more time consuming than it was in the history
department, but he likes CEP better because he
can "modify his style of teaching" depending on
the situation.
Houser said he especially likes the CEP
living-learning environment.
But, he said, Centennial does have some
problems.
Grades are hard to determine because "It is
impossible to guarantee absolute certainty when
assigning an objective grade," he said.
For that reason, he said, he asks a student
what he is interested in learning, and his grade
will be determined with his objective in mind.
Non-grades favored
Houser also said he favors the CEP pass-fail
rule requiring the first 12 hours in the program
to be taken pass-fail.
He added that he would like to see the whole
program pass-fail, but most of his students don't
agree, he said.
If they do exceptional work, they want to
receive more than a pass, he said.
In addition, Houser said most CEP students
keep up with their work, although there is a
tendency to set it aside.
When a student takes eight to 12 hours
outside of Centennial, where grading pressures
are much greater, they tend to save CEP work for
last, he noted.
James Cole, psychology professor and CEP
fellow, agreed that pressures from other
University courses may make a student put CEP
work second.
"More experimental"
Cole is not a full-time fellow. He devoted
one-third of his time to CEP and the rest to the
clinical psychology training program, which he
directs.
He has been a fellow for one year, but said he
doesn't plan on continuing his work with CEP
next year. His jpb in the psychology department
requires so much time, he said, he can't give
Centennial his full attention.
At Centennial, Cole worked with students on
research into attitudes of knowledge, and
conducted workshops on human sexuality and
civil liberties in the U.S., focusing on Indian
rights.
Cole noted that in the psychology
department, the programs were well defined and
extensive. But, he said, Centennial is more
experimental and undefined.
He also said he spends about 10 hours a week
in direct contact with his 20 to 25 students.
Reviewed frequently
Working in small groups "demonstrates a real
comprehensive learning experience, but I have no
knowledge of anyone benefiting from it," Cole
said.
Cole also said he thinks the grading system is
"frustrating." Like Hauset, he said it is difficult
to evaluate students in CEP.
He also said it was "difficult to relate
effectively to many students" in CEP. "The
program requires that students be motivated and
function independently, which many students
don't," he added.
Cole said he thought the program should be
continued, and that it should be reviewed
frequently. "There are some students over there
who are doing an excellent job and are benefiting
by complimenting ther University experience,"
he said.
In addition, he said he would have been less
frustrated with CEP if he had been a full-time
fellow.
George Wolf, first-year Centennial fellow and
associate professor of English, said he enjoys
being involved in CEP because his teaching was
getting dull and he was ready for a change.
Grades a limitation
Centennial is the kind of change he needed,
Wolf said. He favors the individualism and
wide-range of educational experiences in CEP, he
said.
In addition to grades, Wolf writes evaluations
about his students, and puts them in student CEP
files, he said.
But Wolf said he thinks most students are
more interested in learning than in grades. "I'm
not going to see many of them who aren't
interested in learning," he said.
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page 9