DISTRIBUTED SEPTEMBER 29, 2004

On Friday Sept. 17th CEPP hosted an open forum at which many of you shared concerns about and support for the CEPP proposal for the first-year seminars and first-year experience. Since that forum the committee has convened to discuss the issues raised, and offers here some clarification on key points. The motion brought to the floor of the faculty on September 10th is available on-line).

1. CEPP has decided that the seminars will serve as an introduction for new Skidmore students to the liberal arts. Students will not be able to count the seminars towards any requirements - all-College or in the major. CEPP does not envision these seminars should serve as gateways to programs, or shortcuts to requirements, but as the first steps our students take in their college education. The committee recognizes that the implementation of the FYSs, and the larger First-Year Experience, will require some time, and that neither it nor the faculty can resolve everything overnight. CEPP therefore will recommend on Friday, Oct. 1st, that the committee revisit this cross-counting of seminars in two years, after full implementation of the first-year seminars, at which time CEPP may choose to recommend to the faculty a revised policy about cross-counting the seminars.

2. CEPP wishes to reemphasize the importance of interdisciplinarity in the seminars. The committee is not proposing that these courses meet a particular "formula" of interdisciplinary teaching and learning, but CEPP continues to see the value in foregrounding interdisciplinarity in our core curriculum. It remains one of the finest legacies of the Liberal Studies program, and informs the curricula of virtually every academic program and department. A first-year seminar need not draw upon the humanities, and the sciences, and the arts, and the social sciences, to satisfy CEPP's vision of interdisciplinarity. For example, an interdisciplinary course can utilize chemistry in combination with biology, mathematics in combination with economics, literature in combination with history, and so on. We seek to expose our students to multiple avenues of inquiry, but not all at once.

3. CEPP thinks that the proposal encourages students to develop relationships not only with their instructor-mentors, but with other faculty as well. At the same time, the committee recognizes that some students require specific and focused assistance as they develop into successful college students. HEOP students, in particular, are at risk and inadmissible if not for the enormously successful advising support from the HEOP staff. CEPP wishes to recommend that the powerful relationships between HEOP advisors and students continue. Accordingly, the FYS proposal intends for HEOP students to take seminars in which their faculty instructors are their mentors, but also intends for each HEOP student to have a HEOP staff member as advisor.

4. Faculty instructors serving as mentors is a centerpiece of the FYS proposal, and CEPP continues to endorse its primacy. CEPP proposes that, as with cross-counting of the seminars, the committee will revisit this issue, after full consultation with the Seminar Director, the Dean of Studies and other appropriate individuals, after full implementation in 2006/7.

5. Since the terms "mentor" and "advisor" are often used interchangeably, resulting in confusion, CEPP seeks to distinguish them clearly. In the most rudimentary model of advising, faculty and students are paired without a common course experience or shared academic interest; in this instance, advising functions at a perfunctory level, focusing on constructing course schedules and meeting requirements. Mentoring consists of faculty serving as a trusted, influential resource and guide to help students identify interests, chart courses of study, and navigate the Skidmore experience in a transformative way. The relationship between faculty mentor and student develops organically when they have frequent contact in courses and know each other as teachers, learners and community members. This kind of relationship between faculty and student already exists in many places at the college, particularly after students declare the major; the CEPP proposal seeks to embed it fully in the First-Year Seminar and have it serve as the foundation for our students' four years at the College.

6. The 4th credit hour for the seminars, which students will earn and faculty will deliver, is a flexible credit hour (made common by reconfiguration) that provides the faculty and students the time to develop a mentoring relationship, which is fundamental to Skidmore's educational identity. Faculty can use the 4th hour for individual or group work with students, exploring the relationship among the seminar, the students' other academic interests, and their personal visions and choices, or how co-curricular activities help inform students' lives in- and outside of the classroom. The 4th hour may also be used for participating in, or discussing, co-curricular activities.

7. The implementation of the first-year seminars, and the residential and co-curricular programming of the first-year experience, will not happen overnight. CEPP has recommended that the Dean of the Faculty appoint a director of this program with faculty credentials, and that the director will work closely both with the DOF, and chairs and directors, and as well with a variety of offices that will provide support for the program. These include the Registrar, Residential Life, the Dean of Studies, the Dean of Student Affairs, the Curriculum Committee, and CEPP itself. Workshops will begin as early as January 2005 as we take the first steps towards seminar and program development. CEPP imagines that some of the first seminars we offer in fall 2005 will come out of the Liberal Studies program - both LS1 sections and LS2 courses that can meet the goals of the First-Year Seminars. In order to streamline that process, CEPP and the Curriculum Committee have agreed to a joint subcommittee, which will include the FYE director and the chairs of the two committees. This subcommittee of three will fashion guidelines for the First-Year Seminars and will seek to expedite pre-approval of the seminars before they go to the Curriculum Committee.

CEPP remains committed to the First-Year Seminars, and the larger First-Year Experience, beyond the faculty’s deliberation of and vote on this proposal. The committee also seeks to facilitate the transition the community will undergo from the Liberal Studies program to the Seminars and the FYE, and so it will work with the Curriculum Committee, the Director of the Seminars, and all appropriate offices and indivduals during the next two years. In Spring 2007, at the end of the second year of the program, CEPP will conduct an assessment of the FYSs and FYE and report back to the faculty by the fall of 2007 with any recommendations to alter the program in any substantive way.

The members of CEPP hope that we have addressed the concerns and questions you have raised during the evolution of this proposal. CEPP looks forward to discussing the proposal at the Oct. 1st faculty meeting, and hopes that you will support it enthusiastically.

Thank you.
Michael Arnush and the members of CEPP