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Students Learning from Faculty - Course Development
| Tutorials: |  |
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Media Highlights |
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More about Tutorials from
The Williams Campaign video.
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Since 1988 Williams has offered tutorials inspired by the Oxford University model. These courses bring together a professor and two students for intensive discussions throughout the semester. Each week, the students are expected to master an extensive reading list. In most cases, one student prepares a five- to seven-page paper based on the readings; the other reviews the paper and responds with critique. The next week, the students switch roles. At each meeting, the students read their papers aloud and debate them with their professor's guidance. By the end of the semester, they've written more than 60 pages on the subject. For more on Williams tutorials see this Chroncicle of Higher Education article.
| Tutorials by the Numbers: |
| 80% | | of alumni who took tutorials as students cite them as the courses they valued most at Williams |
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| 30% | | of current students take at least one tutorial before they graduate |
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| 32 | | tutorials were offered in 2002-03 |
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| 46 | | tutorials are expected to be offered in 2003-04, with plans to expand to as many as 60 in the future |
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| Writing and Reasoning: | |
In a world where effective writing and analytical thinking are increasingly vital, recent Williams alumni tell us the College would serve its students well with an aggressive new effort to hone their ability to write and reason. Beginning with the Class of 2006, Williams now requires every student to take two courses that focus on intensive writing. We also require students to take one course in quantitative or formal reasoning to sharpen their ability to analyze and draw conclusions from numerical data.
| Experiential Learning: | |
Though the classroom experience remains the foundation of the Williams curriculum, for some lessons the real world is an excellent teacher. In our science labs, students work alongside their professors conducting real research. Art courses bring students and community members together to create beauty in public spaces. And a seminar in clinical and community psychology requires students carrying a full course load to spend six hours per week interning with social-service agencies around the region. These courses are so popular that not all students who want to take them can. A new coordinator of experiential education will help faculty expand these types of learning opportunities and may eventually oversee a "Williams in New York" program that will take advantage of the city as an incubator for cultural, artistic and intellectual exploration.
| Interdisciplinary Programs: | |
To equip our students to lead in our multifaceted, multidisciplinary world, we are strengthening and expanding our solid program of team-taught and interdisciplinary courses. Through courses developed and taught by professors from different departments, students examine the world through a variety of conceptual lenses, learn multiple ways of solving problems and come to understand that the most interesting developments of their generation are springing up at the intersections between traditional departments and disciplines.
| Gifts to the Alumni Fund and Parents Fund support all projects of the Campaign for Williams. Or, if you'd like to make a capital or endowed gift to help sponsor this particular initiative, please contact Megan Morey, director of major gifts, at 413.597.4248. |
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