What do
you remember about your college days? Many recall the groups or events
that brought people together and created interaction: athletics, an
exceptional or challenging course, Greek life, theatre, or student
organizations. For Austin College students or alumni, that question is
easy to answer. Most would include Communication/Inquiry (C/I) and
January Term as some of the most memorable moments of their college
years. So, what makes these two programs so important to an Austin
College education?
During fall 2007, the Austin College
equivalent of a freshman seminar course, Communication/Inquiry, more
commonly called C/I, celebrated its 35th anniversary.
Freshman seminar courses have gained
popularity at higher education institutions as a more comprehensive
form of student orientation. These courses often emphasize developing
studying, writing, and other types of skills necessary for college
success.
Austin College’s version of the freshman
seminar, implemented in 1972, came long before the idea became
popular, and stands out from the crowd because of its unique approach.
C/I was born out of the ’60s and ’70s when higher education was moving
into a less rigid, “free flowing” vision of education, under the
guidance of Austin College leaders like President John D. Moseley
and Jerry Lincecum of the English faculty, said Mike
Imhoff, vice president for Academic Affairs. C/I focused on
critical inquiry or thinking, communication development, other
academic skills to ensure students’ success, and the individual
development of students, Imhoff said. “Students had this introduction
to college through C/I,” he said. “Hopefully, by the end of the course
they had good orientation, knew how to get things done at the school,
knew what was expected in terms of writing, and were prepared to be
successful in college.”
At the time, Austin College’s academic
calendar was different than the current 14-week fall and spring terms
with a four-week January Term in between. While the spring term
remained a traditional 14-week period, the fall term was broken up
into two, seven-week terms with the idea students would be “focused
intensely in two subjects” each seven weeks, Imhoff said. C/I occupied
one of the two courses in the first seven weeks. That new academic
calendar structure didn’t last long (reverting in the mid to late ’70s
to the traditional calendar the College has today), but C/I remained.
Not Your Average Freshman Seminar
Besides the calendar structure and more
flexibility in the courses faculty can offer during C/I, very little
has changed in 35 years. “This is a big part of Austin College, this
freshman seminar,” said Bart Dredge, associate professor of
sociology and director of C/I. “A lot of schools, if not most schools,
have some version of freshman seminar, but we do it in a way that is
genuinely unique and valuable.” Instead of the freshman seminar having
specific courses on writing college papers or note-taking, Austin
College freshmen choose from a list of in-depth courses in various
academic fields and based on the interests or specialization of each
instructor. “The subject matter becomes a kind of vehicle for finding
out how well students do this kind of writing, how well they take
essay tests, how well they take notes, or how well they synthesize
material,” said Carol Daeley, an English professor who has been
at Austin College for 32 years, mentoring hundreds of students she
taught in C/I courses.
C/I also aims to familiarize students with
important resources on the campus, such as the library, Career
Services, computer technology, and academic services. Each C/I course
has a faculty instructor and three to four Austin College student C/I
leaders. “I think one of the strongest parts of the C/I program is in
the first few weeks, when many new students are away from home for the
first time, they have these sophomores, juniors, and seniors work with
them right off the bat,” Dredge said. The student leaders may provide
input as first-time students decide between courses, help acquaint the
freshmen with the campus or town, and assist in C/I group discussion
and other activities to welcome the freshmen and make their first
impression of Austin College a good one, Dredge said.
Education is what
survives when what has been learned has been forgotten. —
B.F. Skinner, U.S. psychologist, 1964
More Than an Academic Adviser
Austin College’s C/I course also is set
apart from other freshman seminars in that the faculty member teaching
the C/I course also serves as mentor and academic adviser to the 20 or
so freshmen in the class for their entire four years at the College.
Instead of having an academic adviser that students see once each
semester to get a perfunctory signature for course registration,
Austin College stresses a student-mentor relationship that offers
“guidance on the kind of academic, intellectual maturation process”
students may undergo at college, Imhoff said.
“I wouldn’t want to ever pretend that
Austin College has some secret recipe for making a faculty member into
a mentor as opposed to an academic adviser, but it is encouraged here
strongly,” Daeley said. “I don’t suppose there’s an academic
institution in the entire United States that doesn’t claim to give
students personal attention and that teaching is more important than
research, but mostly, it’s not true. We at Austin College do try very,
very hard to be more true to that claim.”
Without forcing the issue, faculty members
try to develop relationships with their C/I students simply by being
accessible to them. Whether students discuss course selection, career
ambitions, academic struggles, personal problems, philosophical
thoughts on life, or simply “vent about people in a department who
drive you crazy,” the key is that students know someone is available
to them, Imhoff said.
With an enrollment of approximately 1,350
and C/I classes of about 20 students, Austin College’s small size
becomes an advantage for mentoring opportunities not feasible at
larger institutions. “I figured out in a hurry that I never wanted to
teach anywhere that students could come through my class, and I not
know what became of them,” Daeley said. “Most faculty here deeply,
genuinely want to keep our students from just falling through cracks.”
Sometimes closer relationships with professors pay off in simple
things like more powerful letters of recommendation for students
applying to graduate schools or jobs, Dredge said.
Daeley said she believes students learn
better and have lasting impressions of their academic work when they
feel their instructor is “personally invested in them and what they’re
learning.” Yet, the fact that many Austin College faculty members care
about students both personally and academically doesn’t mean they’re
coddling students, said Dredge. A high academic standard is required
at the College. “We don’t want people to regard us as a sort of
custodial institution,” Daeley said. “It’s a tricky line to draw.”
January Term: Lasting Impressions in Only Four Weeks
An
education isn’t how much you have committed to memory, or even how
much you know.
It’s being able to differentiate between what you do
know and what you don’t. —
William Feather, U.S. author, 1968
Can four weeks change your life? When
talking about Austin College’s January Term opportunities, they might.
“Probably Jan Term is the single course that the most students talk
about being a life-changing experience,” Daeley said. Students are
required to take January Term courses in three of their four years at
Austin College. Students choose from a wide selection of on-campus and
off-campus (often international) courses, individualized study, and
internships for the term.
Each January, about 300 Austin College
students take international study courses; 100 complete internships;
and 700 study on campus. “The Jan Term is intensive, experimental, and
experiential,” said Truett Cates, German professor and January
Term director. “Those three words summarize the College’s philosophy.
We hope to show that the regular academic term is just one way of
learning and that other modes of learning can provide fresh insight.”
Jan Term was implemented at Austin College
in the mid-1970s as part of the institutional project that changed the
academic calendar. Like C/I, Jan Term survived though the calendar
returned to a traditional format. The term is designed to provide
immersion or very intensive educational experiences possible in a
focused four-week time frame. “The student who is happiest here is the
student who can take the opportunities we offer for really in-depth
and personalized study,” Daeley said.
Examples of Jan Term study can range from
working on an experiment in a lab for several consecutive hours a day,
not possible in the few hours available in a fall or spring course, to
studying theatre by attending 15 plays in London and writing essays on
each. “The trip provided a tremendous, really robust education,” said
Imhoff, who tagged along on the London theatre Jan Term in 2006. “I
would stack it up against any other course.”
Students are encouraged to take Jan Term
courses outside their major to broaden their horizons. Daeley said she
remembered leading a Jan Term course to China withJackie Moore,
professor of history, where one student admitted to being scared of
the trip. “The young man had never been out of the United States; in
fact, I don’t think he’d been much out of Texas,” Daeley said. “But he
went, and he had a wonderful time and hasn’t stopped traveling since.”
An Undergraduate Education’s
Staying Power
C/I and Jan Term are invaluable components
of the education and experience a student receives at Austin College.
Knowing professors as mentors and individuals rather than simply as
course instructors, and experiencing a subject rather than just
reading about it, make these programs personal and memorable.
Relationships that endure for decades often are born out of these
programs.
“There’s not a week that goes by that I
don’t hear from alumni,” Daeley said. “Sometimes, it is somebody who
graduated last year, and sometimes it is somebody who graduated in
1978.”
These programs have lasting impacts on
students that go well beyond their collegiate careers. It’s the
difference between memorizing names, dates, and battles of World War I
and actually walking the battlefields. “Students who come to a college
like
Austin College have a better chance of
remembering years later what they actually did when they were in
college,” Daeley said.
C/I COURSES FRESHMEN ARE TAKING
TODAY
“Road to the White House 2008” — With the presidential campaigns already in full swing and the
first primaries fast approaching, this class focuses on the
candidates, their campaigns, and the strategies they employ as they
seek the nomination of their parties. The goal of this class is to
provide students with a hands-on understanding of campaign management
and a detailed understanding of what is happening on the road to the
White House in 2008.
“Greek Drama and Society” — Exploration of themes and related issues
as they are presented in a selection of Greek tragedies by Aeschylus,
Sophocles, and Euripides, and comedies by Aristophanes from the
classical period of the fifth century B.C.E. The course emphasizes how
Greek drama reflects the culture and society in which it was produced
and how it still conveys power and meaning to us today.
“People, Plagues, and Public Health” — In this course, students examine
the biology and cultural impacts of some of the major infectious
diseases that have plagued humans throughout history. Along the way,
students will learn some of the basics of microbiology, immunology,
and epidemiology. The class also investigates some of the current
global public health challenges and strategies being undertaken to
address those challenges.
A LOOK INTO JAN TERM 2008
Sample On-Campus Courses:
“Mythbusting: You Can Do It Too”—
Throughout this course students will conduct and design specific
experiments to (dis)prove a notion, a myth, an observation, or an
hypothesis. We will analyze the MythBuster series and look at other
commonly held societal perceptions. Laboratory work will be a major
component of the course.
“What Kind of Career Shape Are You In?”—
This course is designed to help students devise a personalized career
fitness plan. Incorporating up-to-date information on the world of
work, we will give attention to how the student’s sense of purpose,
vision, values, interests, personality, and skills are compatible with
different career fields.
Sample Travel Courses:
“Pharaohs, Pyramids, and Mosques:
Exploring Ancient and Modern Egypt”
“Katrina Re-Build” (Gulf Coast)
“Learning Spanish in Guatemala”
“Australia: Scientific and Cultural
Perspectives of Nature”