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The aim of the First-Year Seminar (FYS) Program is, as stated
in the Lafayette College Catalog, "to introduce students to intellectual inquiry
through engaging them as thinkers, speakers, and writers." Each professor
teaching an FYS attempts to address this aim, through meeting the following
guidelines.
1. Providing students with strategies for
interpretation and evaluation.
This may involve such skills as:
-the ability to select, arrange, and marshal evidence,
-an understanding of the importance of point of view,
-the ability to recognize contradictions, subtext, omissions,
and assumptions,
-the ability to make meaningful comparisons, and
-an understanding of the importance of context -- social,
scientific, historical, etc. -- in shaping ideas: for example, familiarizing
students with ways in which diverse groups of people develop and express particular
views.
2. Challenging students' assumptions and
biases.
For this, students learn to:
-distinguish between facts and values,
-distinguish between opinions that are grounded in evidence
and those that are not,
-question ideas viewed as commonplace and natural,
-examine the nature of knowledge as a socially produced activity
that may reflect diverse assumptions and points of view.
3. Encouraging the building of informed personal
perspectives.
The First-Year Seminar Program promotes critical thinking
and consideration of what the student holds as important for him or herself
and others, i.e., his or her values.
The course should not focus on only one political perspective
or ideological point of view. It is assumed that each course will provide
students with readings and opportunities to discuss various views on course
topics. It is recognized that the manner of accomplishing this can differ
according to discipline and subject matter.
4. Introducing students to the conventions
of academic writing.
To this end, each course must be affiliated with the College Writing Program
(CWP). (See CWP materials for more information about how this is done. Assistance
in the form of lunch discussions, workshops and individual meetings with CWP
administrators is available. Facutly members also receive a copy of the CWP
Faculty Handbook and a writing resource book entitled Teaching with Writing.)
Students will write frequently throughout the semester, demonstrating that
they can:
a) generate ideas (prewriting tasks);
b) organize ideas (understand the rhetorical effect of different
textual arrangements);
c) revise ideas in response to peer and/or faculty assessment;
d) manipulate the mechanics of the editing process to produce
a coherent, effective, and interesting text; and
e) engage in writing as an act of intellectual and critical
inquiry.
5. Developing research-oriented skills.
To fulfill this objective, students must be introduced to
library research.
At least one class session should be designed with the assistance of a library
liaison who is assigned to each course as it is being developed. The library
liaison will help as well with any other efforts the instructor might choose
to address this objective.
6. Encouraging intellectual communities among
students and faculty.
The FYS Program should encourage students to engage ideas
beyond the classroom, with those from their FYS and with others, including
faculty. To this end, FYS instructors are encouraged to collaborate with each
other in various ways on both curricular and co-curricular activities: the
selection of course materials, attendance at lectures and Williams Center
for the Performing Arts events, trips to New York City, and so forth.
FYS faculty can also help foster intellectual community beyond the classroom
by participating in the First-Year Orientation book discussion.
7. In addition, the following points apply.
a) Each seminar should focus intensively on a special topic.
Thus, an FYS should be topical, rather than centering, for instance, on the
life or work of one individual.
b) The topic should be integrated with co-curricular activities:
trips to sites in New York City, films, shared meals, participation in Williams
Center events, local tours, and so forth.
c) The approach should emphasize discussion and/or problem-solving,
rather than lecture, and place what the student does, and not what the teacher
does, at the center of the enterprise.
d) The course should require significant reading. While no
specific number of pages, articles, or books is required, it is assumed that
each instructor will take seriously the intent that students engage in depth
with scholarly and other types of written materials of substance, as appropriate
to the discipline or disciplines involved in the course.
e) Each course should involve students in oral presentations.
f) While there is no requirement that an FYS incorporate
thought or materials from more than one discipline, many instructors do so.
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