What does it mean to be a Transylvania Pioneer? This is a question that The Rambler is going to explore and attempt to answer through looking at specific and unique aspects of Transylvania life and explain what they are and what they mean to the campus. This will not only explain the campus culture for audiences outside of Transy, but also capture campus life in this specific moment in Transy history.
As the semester winds down and first-year students are wrapping up their third writing assignments for FYS and FYSE, many may be wondering why they have to do so in the first place.
Currently, every Transylvania student goes through a first year experience of First Engagements in August Term, First-Year Seminar (FYS), and First-Year Research Seminar (FYRS). Some students also take part in Expository Writing (FYSE).
These courses are all part of the first year experience and are meant to prepare students for their future career at Transy and what will be expected of them.
First-year Christine Lee explains FYS specifically as “like an introductory course to college” that helps students “transition into college.”
First-Year Seminar, or FYS, is approaching an end for many students as they work to complete their third formal writing assignment.
Writing, Rhetoric, and Communication professor Scott Whiddon describes FYS as “an introduction to the types of rhetorical moves that college writers make.”
The goal of FYS is “honing the kind of liberal education approach to knowledge,” said English professor and FYS coordinator Martha Billips.
“Not just memorizing information and repeating it, but really synthesizing it and entering the conversation with other thinkers,” she said.
The core [of FYS], the values—close reading, argument building, understanding other people’s arguments—it’s the foundation of democracy.
Although many other colleges have similar first year experiences, and specifically an FYS-like course, Transylvania’s stands apart as unique for many reasons.
One of the most prominent reasons is, as Billips describes, the balance of “an individual and a common experience.”
FYS, however, provides a lot of choice for the students. Although each section of FYS has the same assignments, the sections vary in the readings (both long and short) and the overall theme of the course. Students are given descriptions of the long texts from each course prior to registration so they can make their choice based on interest.
As Lee points out, this is an important aspect of FYS because it allows students to have a say in what they are taught.
“You get to pick what book you want to read so you have somewhat of a choice in what you get to learn,” said Lee.
The level of individual choice is not only present for students, but for faculty as well. Although the faculty have to accomplish certain goals and assign certain types of writing assignments, each faculty member has a lot of autonomy in regards to their specific section. Each faculty member chooses their own long text and short texts that will be discussed within the class as well as the theme that discussion and student writings will focus on.
Billips enjoys this aspect of FYS because it means faculty are “not bound to teach or learn a body of information.” She explains that when she teaches her course on nineteenth-century American literature, she has to teach about Hawthorne and to not would be a disservice, but when teaching FYS there is not a specific author or literary work that she must cover.
Another unique benefit of Transy’s FYS, in terms of faculty, is the camaraderie it builds between faculty members of different divisions. The professors that teach FYS have an initial meeting together during August Term and meet every two weeks throughout the semester.
“It’s one of the best sites on campus of bringing varied faculty together to talk about teaching, and pretty much solely about teaching,” said Billips.
Billips continued on to credit FYS with giving opportunities for faculty to interact with other members they may not see on a daily basis.
“It helps us come together to learn from each other,” said Billips. “We get to share disciplinary knowledge. So if I’m going to teach the Allegory of the Cave and feel way out of my field, I can talk to a philosopher.”
Similarly, Whiddon believes the program to be particularly beneficial for first-time professors who are adjusting to Transy.
“You want a snapshot of what students are like. You want a snapshot of what students are interested in, of how students value literacy and literacies,” said Whiddon.
Although the program has its benefits, it is at time met with great criticism, especially from students. FYS can at times be seen as unnecessary and unimportant. Some students may even see FYS as nothing new.
Whiddon says that’s a problem.
“Now, a student may come in and think that they have a really good background in argumentative writing, and that may be true,” said Whiddon. “But they haven’t had to sit around a room and talk about a text at the level of engagement that we’re asking for. They haven’t had to speak everyday about a series of arguments, they haven’t had to listen to someone else who’s radically different from them in terms of their religion or in terms of their ethnicity or their background or their economic class. FYS does that incredibly well.”
The benefits it gives students in relation to their career at Transylvania is apparent in the correlation between FYS success and retention. Rhyan Conyers, Director of Strategic Planning and Institutional Effectiveness summarized the data in an email:
“For students who earn an A (that is, A+, A, or A-) in FYS, 94.2% of them return for the sophomore year. 87.5% of students who earn Bs return for the sophomore year. 83.1% of students who earn Cs, 66.7% of students who earn Ds, and 27.3% of students who earn Fs return as sophomores.”
“It’s one of the best sites on campus of bringing varied faculty together to talk about teaching, and pretty much solely about teaching,” said Billips.
Although FYS provides students and faculty with numerous advantages, it can and hopefully will continue to change in the future.
Billips believes that “we should always be thinking about change” and would like to see more varied faculty from more divisions in future years since there usually tends to be a higher concentration of English and WRC professors than any other division.
Whiddon would also like to eventually see some changes implemented such as incorporating more digital media and perhaps even showcasing student work and using it as a recruiting tool. However, he also hopes that no matter the changes, that FYS sustains its core values and goals.
“The program has to continue, and it can change, it should change overtime. I don’t like static things,” said Whiddon. “But the core, the values—close reading, argument building, understanding other people’s arguments—it’s the foundation of democracy.”
Transy isn’t using its biggest educational resource: students. Here’s how it can.
Transy likes to brag that its students are educated in the liberal arts tradition. Realistically, this means that Transy students receive an extraordinarily broad education in a wide number of subject areas. As a result, Transy students very often develop particular expertise in somewhat idiosyncratic fields (ask my friend the expert on Roman rural religious history, or my friend the expert on Byzantine philosophy). This eclectic arrangement of expertise contributes to an intellectually diverse campus. The atmosphere of Transy is one that prizes a student body of varied interests.
This collection of knowledge is, essentially, a resource, and it is a resource Transy has not fully utilized. Transy has been content to allow students to amass their own education, and their own knowledge base, through a broad-based curricula. However, Transy has no mechanism by which students can then ‘give back’ to the campus: once a student learns something, there is very little formal, structured opportunity to further spread that knowledge, beyond their classmates who learned that same something in that same class. In other words, Transy has no formal mechanism for students to learn from each other in any structured, rigorous way.
To be sure, Transy fosters a sense of community that allows students to learn from each other informally—whether in extra-curricular organizations (like The Rambler, or your preferred Greek organization) or merely by creating a space where friendships and relationships form. There are many benefits to this system—students gain valuable experiences and relationships along the way, if nothing else—but it is hardly the most effective way to spread knowledge and learning from student to student.
There is a better way. The University of California, Berkeley has, for the past forty-odd years, developed and implemented a program called DeCal. In essence, DeCal is a program which allows students to teach students. The basic concept is thus: an upperclassman, with assistance from a faculty member, prepares a syllabus for a semester-long class on a particular topic—say, the history of Irish folk music. The University department of academic affairs will review, and then approve or decline, the syllabus. If the course is approved, the course is offered as a credit or no-credit elective (in other words, it is entirely optional for all involved) which other students can sign up to take. The course is taught by the upperclassman, with assistance from the professor. It is, in effect, a student-led class which allows students to directly and rigorously share their knowledge and expertise with one another.
The program is not popular outside of Berkeley; it has a long history of being part-and-parcel of the school’s long history of leftist activism. But there is no reason to believe that the viability of the model is limited to Berkeley alone. In fact, there is a strong argument that Transy is uniquely well-suited to adopt this student-led model. Transy has, over the past five years, developed an institutional memory and formal program for training August Term Scholars. This program could very easily be adapted to ensure that student-led classes are, in fact, led by students with the ability to lead discussions and effectively convey information. The August Term program has also fostered a tradition of professors collaborating with students to create course materials and plans for how to conduct classes. In short, Transy has developed all the institutional tools it needs to quickly and effectively implement a student-led class program.
The benefits to both university and student would be immense. For students, it would be an invaluable opportunity to both learn about eccentric, interesting, or just plain odd topics they may have an interest in—or may discover an interest in. It would also serve as a chance for many students to get their first real experience teaching—something that may propel students into teaching or academic careers they may not have otherwise considered. In addition, the faculty assisting may themselves gain new perspectives on both the classroom and the material, as they work through it with a partner. Again, Transy faculty are in a particularly good position to take advantage of this opportunity—Transy faculty often team-each, and so are used to working with someone else in the classroom.
The benefits to the university itself would also be considerable. Because DeCal is not a widely-adopted program, the novelty of the program itself would serve as an attractive selling-point to prospective students—as well as to possible grant-writers, journalists, and public officials all hunting for ‘the next big thing’ in education. Additionally, the university would be able to offer several more class options a term, significantly expanding its catalog. Such an expansion would add some variety to the semester, if nothing else.
Undoubtedly, such a program would require extensive workings-out and retoolings as it is implemented. But the technical difficulties and uncertainties should not put the university off. Through yet another fortunate happenstance, Transy has a built-in laboratory in which to retool and improve the program as it goes along: May Term. The period of time (one month) is short enough that problems within the program can be quickly identified and remedied, without the myriad distractions and complications of a full semester. Allowing a pilot program in May Term would, if nothing else, limit the damage if it all goes horribly wrong. (But the concept is sound, and so such a disaster is unlikely in the extreme).
Transy is, through serendipitous coincidence, in a unique position to develop their programs designed to foster student leadership—the August Term Scholars program. This development would allow them to empower students to take advantage of the promise of a liberal arts education: to share knowledge, and to grow as learners in all aspects of life. The benefits and opportunities are clear. Transy should develop a program to allow student-led, professor-assisted classes. This program can be piloted in the May Term, using adapted August Term procedures. The benefits will be many, the costs few, and Transylvania will be better able to fulfill its mission as a bastion of the liberal arts.