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Phase III: Initial Curricular Proposals from the CEP
PROPOSAL: WILLIAMS SIGNATURE TUTORIAL PROGRAM
The CEP proposes a major expansion of the tutorial program, with particular emphasis on the sophomore year. The resulting signature program would build from our current system to create a distinctive educational experience affecting the majority of Williams students.
- OUR PRESENT TUTORIAL PROGRAM
Tutorials are currently described in the catalog as follows: [Williams College Bulletin 2000-2001, 45.]"Tutorials place a much greater weight on student participation than do regular courses or even small seminars. In general, each tutorial will consist of two students meeting with the tutor for one hour or 75 minutes each week. At each meeting one student will make a prepared presentation -- read a prepared essay, work a set of problems, report on laboratory exercises, examine a work of art, etc. -- and the other student and the tutor will question, probe, push the student who is presenting her work about various aspects of the presentation. The student then must respond on the spot to these probings and questions. A tutorial is directly concerned with teaching students about arguments, about arriving at and defending a position, and about responding on the spot to suggestions and questions."
The CEP has worked to articulate the strengths and weaknesses in Williams' curriculum, and to ascertain both what makes Williams unique now and what might define the "profile" of a Williams education in the future. In discussions with students, faculty, alumni, and trustees, tutorials have consistently arisen as an educational experience that sets Williams apart. Indeed, students often report that the tutorial was the cornerstone of their Williams career. [Report of the Ad Hoc Committee to Evaluate Tutorials, 1997, 3.] The value of tutorials to the students who take them is evident in a number of measures. The results of the standard SCS forms show tutorials outranking all other 300- and 400- level courses in terms of their "educational value." A 1997 survey of 1,100 alumni (365 respondents) who had taken tutorials reported that some 80% regard the tutorial as "the most valuable" of the courses they took at Williams. [Report of the Ad Hoc Committee to Evaluate Tutorials, 1997, 4.] Faculty teaching tutorials are equally enthusiastic.
There are a number of reasons why students and faculty value tutorials so highly. The tutorial format provides a highly individualized educational experience that presupposes close personal attention on the part of the faculty to the intellectual needs of each student. (Such personal intellectual attention is a major reason students choose to attend Williams. [Summary of Data Presented at Board Retreat, January 2001, 5.] In return, the tutorial demands intense and independent work by each student. In surveys, students report that they work very hard in tutorials, and that their work is richly rewarded. Furthermore, the tutorial format nurtures many of the intellectual skills most important for students -- writing, critical and independent reasoning, and oral presentation.
Despite the strengths of the present tutorial program, relatively few Williams students benefit from it. Fewer than 35% of our students now take a tutorial before graduation, and the total number of tutorial enrollments has dwindled somewhat from an average of 249 per year in '91-'94 to an average of 206 per year in '95-'01. [Tutorials data reported by the registrar, 1990-2001. Note that although the total number of tutorial enrollments has decreased, the number of students per tutorial is at an all-time high -- averaging 8.6 students/tutorial in '00 and '01. More and more tutorials are filled to or beyond the capacity of 10 students.] There are many reasons why this may be so. Currently, most departments offer tutorials only in 400 level courses, and these are in specialized subjects such that the tutorial may not fill to its capacity of 10 students. Some students are intimidated by the perceived intensity, exposure, and specialization of the tutorial. As a result, those students who do take tutorials typically take them at the very end of their Williams careers.
- PROPOSAL
We propose a significant expansion of the tutorial program, an expansion which would both increase the number of tutorials and spread the benefits of tutorials into earlier parts of our students' careers. In particular, we propose 1) the creation of a significant number of tutorials which would be accessible to students in the sophomore year, 2) an increase in the number of upper level tutorials (typically taken by junior and senior majors) and 3) an increase in the profile and visibility of the tutorial program at Williams. Such an expansion would address the curricular needs of Williams students in a number of ways.
- Tutorials designed to include sophomores (either in the form of "sophomore
tutorials," or in the form of tutorials which would engage students at a variety of
different levels) give students the opportunity to build critical intellectual skills early
in their time at Williams, so that they can then use and build on these skills in the
junior and senior years. Tutorials for sophomores also give students the experience
of having significant responsibility for their own learning early in their careers, thus
shifting their sense of themselves as learners from passive to active in ways which
will enrich later coursework. The sophomore year is an ideal place for a first tutorial,
as students typically have a few courses in a discipline behind them and are beginning
to form intellectual affiliations with particular fields. The close intellectual bond formed
between faculty and students in the tutorial will serve to provide guidance and advising
in the sophomore year. Indeed, the most effective advising occurs when a faculty
member learns how a student's mind works and gets to know him or her in a
profound way. Although we are equally concerned with the experience of students in
the first year, we find tutorials to be better suited to sophomores. Students in the first
year are typically not yet ready for the intensity and independence demanded by
tutorials, while sophomores are preparing to step into the upper level courses in their
disciplines.
- Several of the critical skills emphasized by tutorials are of current concern based
on both senior survey data and longstanding observations of faculty. For example,
only 40% of our graduating seniors report having improved "quite a bit" or
"very much" in speaking effectively while at Williams. [Senior
survey data, Spring 1999, 5-5.] The skills of oral argumentation and critical
analysis are addressed by all tutorials, and writing is addressed by most. Expanding
the number of tutorials would bring their benefits to a much larger fraction of our
students, simultaneously addressing the community's concerns about intellectual
skills, intellectual independence, and connections between students and faculty.
- The expansion of the visibility of the tutorial program (through separate and prominent listings in our catalogs, web information, and admissions materials) will serve to alert the community to the importance of the tutorial mode of instruction. It will allow students looking for tutorials to find them easily, even before they have declared a major or found a departmental home. It will put a distinctive program behind the perennial claim that Williams values individual interaction between students and faculty, and fosters intensive and independent student learning.
- Tutorials designed to include sophomores (either in the form of "sophomore
tutorials," or in the form of tutorials which would engage students at a variety of
different levels) give students the opportunity to build critical intellectual skills early
in their time at Williams, so that they can then use and build on these skills in the
junior and senior years. Tutorials for sophomores also give students the experience
of having significant responsibility for their own learning early in their careers, thus
shifting their sense of themselves as learners from passive to active in ways which
will enrich later coursework. The sophomore year is an ideal place for a first tutorial,
as students typically have a few courses in a discipline behind them and are beginning
to form intellectual affiliations with particular fields. The close intellectual bond formed
between faculty and students in the tutorial will serve to provide guidance and advising
in the sophomore year. Indeed, the most effective advising occurs when a faculty
member learns how a student's mind works and gets to know him or her in a
profound way. Although we are equally concerned with the experience of students in
the first year, we find tutorials to be better suited to sophomores. Students in the first
year are typically not yet ready for the intensity and independence demanded by
tutorials, while sophomores are preparing to step into the upper level courses in their
disciplines.
- IMPLEMENTING THIS INITIATIVE: OPTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
There remain several options for implementation of this initiative, which seeks to expand the impact of tutorials on the Williams educational experience. We look forward to discussion of the relative merits of these alternatives.
Possible mechanisms for expanding the number of tutorials across the curriculum: Alternatives
- Require that each department teach a certain number of tutorials, including
some at the sophomore level.
Advantages: This requirement would ensure that a significant number of new tutorials at the sophomore level become available to students.
Disadvantages: This requirement could be burdensome to some small departments, as well as to departments that do not find tutorials to be the most effective form of teaching. [A similar system was in place from 1991-1997. However, we expect that with increased FTE resources some of the disadvantages of this plan could be ameliorated.]
- Give increased teaching credit for teaching tutorials.
Advantages: This plan would give those faculty interested in offering tutorials the time to develop them, without forcing any department to offer new tutorials.
Disadvantages: This incentive would be more accessible to some faculty than to others, resulting in a potentially inequitable teaching load reduction.
- Provide significant new targeted FTE for tutorials, and require that departments
accepting this FTE offer a number of tutorials concomitant with the number of new
FTE.
Advantages: This mechanism provides the potential for a significant increase in the number of tutorials without any significant loss in the other courses currently offered by departments.
Disadvantages: The bureaucracy involved in managing the tutorial-specific FTE could become burdensome or muddy over the years. [The three "tutorial FTE" designated at the outset of our current tutorial program have gradually merged into the general faculty pool. In order to perserve the impact of the proposed program it would be important that the number of tutorials not dwindle over the years.] What happens to a department that accepts the FTE initially, and then later wishes to make changes in their major forms of pedagogy?
Incentives for students to take tutorials: Alternatives
The goal of this proposal is not simply an expansion of the number of tutorials given, but rather a major increase in the fraction of our students taking tutorial courses. We expect that a dramatically expanded set of tutorial offerings, with a significant number of courses at the 200 level, would by itself attract many more students. As the number of tutorials grows, the tutorial experience would become less exceptional, and student sentiment that tutorials are "extra hard" or only for an elite group would likely subside. In addition to the natural growth in tutorial enrollments that would come from an expansion of the program, there are several alternatives to encourage students to take at least one tutorial during their time at Williams.
- Require that every student take a tutorial before graduation.
Advantages: Every student would be assured of the focused attention of the tutorial.
Disadvantages: Some students would take a required tutorial only reluctantly. Particularly in the intimate atmosphere of the tutorial, this reluctance could very adversely affect the experience of the other student. The dissatisfaction might be even greater if students had to choose from a set of tutorials, and many did not receive their first choice (in the manner of current winter study enrollments).
- Give increased credit toward graduation for tutorial courses compared to other
courses.
Advantages: Students would have more time to focus on their tutorial work. Students would be more likely to include a tutorial among their course choices, but no member of the tutorial would have been forced to take the course.
Disadvantages: Increased credit for one course will typically mean that students take fewer total courses while at Williams.
- In a related proposal, "Skills and Contents Requirements," the CEP
describes a set of critical intellectual skills for graduating Williams students. We have
proposed that these skills will now be required and that tutorials be prominent among
the ways to fulfill the requirements.
Advantages: Students will be made aware of the value of tutorials without being forced to take them.
Disadvantages: This incentive may not be strong enough to encourage many more students into the tutorial program.
- Require that each department teach a certain number of tutorials, including
some at the sophomore level.