open space

'The Scarlet s Black, Novl 24. tins—page 3

EPC guidelines must ensure essential student participation

by Greg Youtz
Last spring the faculty voted to
adopt a new method of evaluating

ystem, which is based upon
tandardized end-of—course
evaluation forms, is being eased
. nto use over a period of several
years. The important question that

form and substance of student
participation will be.

The current system involves the

l election of students to an EPC
lStudent Educational Policy
Committee) in each department
which then in some manner, dif-
ferent in each department, par-
ticipates in the iaculty evaluation
process.

THE PROBLEM is that there
are only the administration’s
vague guidelines to deiine the role
of the .EPC’S. At one extreme are

, departments that invite students to
participate in the initial screening
of applicants for a position. At the
other are departments that tell the

, EPC that their primary
responsibility is to ”take care of

’the Science Building courtyard."
Some faculty members have

an suggested that the student role in

the old evaluation process was
ineffectual and, in fact, did nothing
more than provide a tree source of
labor to the department faculty to
gather and collate information,
UNDER THE OLD system
student EPC’S were told to take a
random sample or people who had
taken courses from the professor
Unfortun tel

such samples include students who
had not taken a course from the
professor for several years. How
much do you remember about a
course that you took iive and one
half semesters ago? The obvious
response is that you remember
very little, and yet it is these
responses which constitute
“meaningful student input.”

Why should the student EPC be
doing this paperwork, especially
since they, presumably the most
concerned and most know-
ledgeable students in the depart-
ment have almost no substantive
inﬂuence? They only collect and
summarize data. So, what do we do
about it?

First, the Curriculum Council
should take the initiative to for-
mulate guidelines and minimum
standards for the involvement of
all student EPC’s. The great
disparity in the departmental
conception of the TEPC'S renders
use inconsistent and ineffectual.

SECONDt WE MUST increase
tremendously the communication
among the EPC'S and Within the
departments, between the EPC’s
and the majo The members of
the EPC's should be ex

Letters to the editOr

Questions-goals of proposed curriculum revision

To the editor: I have come to ac
cept ”crisis politics" as an
inescapable fact of life, yet I still
harbor the insane hope that “band-
wagon education" can be avoided.
it is presumptuous of me, l know,
to doubt the Wisdom of following in
Harvard's footsteps, but there are
some questions for which! have
yet to iind satisfactory answers.

(1) Whence this sudden anxiety
over the flatness of Grinnell
students? Until just recently i was
blissfully unaware that many of
my fellow students and possibly
evenl myself were poorly rounded.
What has happened to reveal so
suddenly and in~such dramatic
relief the ridges. corners and in-
tellectual protrusions of the
“typical” Grinnell student?

(2) WHY JUMP on the band-
wagon? As the competition for
students becomes increasingly
keen it seems somehow self-
deieating to work hard to model
ourselves after the schools we are

competing against. Are we not
more likely to attract students by
offering them an alternative’.'
Should we not dare to be dif-
ferent?

(3) Why base requirements on
divisions? The structure of
educational divisions at Grinnell is
more a political expedient than a
reﬂection of the similarities which
actually exist among the various
departments. The boundaries oi
our divisions have obviously been
designed to put approximately
equal numbers of faculty members
into each division; why else would
one call mathematics a natural
science, or religious studies a
social science?

IT SEEMS Inconsistent that
people who claim their only con-
cern is for the high ideals of the
“Liberal Arts Education” want to
make a political structure the basis
of the new order. Furthermore,
how less political would any new
delineation of divisions be once

smce 1848

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faculty members realize that the
more hours required in, their
departmentor division the easier it
will be to ensure their own job
security?

(4) Humanities 101'? Surely you
jest. According to the pretty
computer analysis results on page
twoof last week's 8&3, the best
way to alleviate the poor rounding
of Grinnell students would be to
require calculus - or organic
chemistry. The problem, if there
truly is one, ls that humanities and
social science majors do not take
enough science classes, Why does
everyone appear to assume that a
better rounded education requires
more humanities?

(57 CAN WE trust altruism?
Assuming for the moment that
Grinnell students are woefully
lacking in roundness, and that a
tabulation of credits per division
by major can reveal this
deficiency, one is presented with
the question of why humanities
and social science division
professors would want to move
towards requirements. If more
students take more science
classes, then faculty will even
tually be cut from the humanities
and social sciences and added to
the sciences.

It is very noble for the junior
faculty members in the
humanities and social sciences to
be so ready to give up their jobs.
How wonderful it is that these
professors have the students'
educational interests at heart, and
do not want to use requirements as
a means of simply preserving the
status quo (and their jobs).

(6) Who is kidding whom?
Newton B. White, .Ir., senior.
double major in philosophy and
mathematics

open invitation to the department
staff mcetings and should be
allowed not only to speak for or
against proposals under
discussion, but also to make
proposals themselves,

Further. it should be the
responsibility of the EPC to make
majors aware of the issues being
discussed. This increase in in-
formation flow could alleviate
many of the problems that come
up. For example, if there had been
more information available to
students interested in Russian
literature courses concerning
faculty leaves, and if ad
ministration policies were clear
and distributed to EPC’S, it would
have been possible for students to
plan around temporary gaps in the
department offerings.

ANOTHER CHANGE that needs
to be made is Within the Student
evaluation process. The depart-
ments now solicit the evaluation of
professors and courses with the
end-oracourse evaluation form,
This can be a great advanmge to
the EPC which will no longer
have to interview random samples
oi studenB; the need ior that has

Instead the EPC can do much
more meaningful work by
soliciting information from maJors
and concerned studenB Those
comments and the evaluations
made by members of the EPC
could be combined to form a fair
and useful recommendation. That
recommendation, in turn, should
not be given to the department but
should be submitted separately to
the Executive Council,

IN GENERAL. THE «EPC'S
need to coordinate their efforts.
Last year SGA attempted to
initiate this process by appointing
an Academic Affairs Coordinator.
If this job is done well, the concept
oi selfrgovernance will expand
beyond social and economic areas
to include academics, but it is only
if students work together that we
can make the role of students
meaningful in guiding academic
decisions.

Students must speak out now and
insist that their views be taken into
account: creation of a structure to
guarantee meaningful student
influence can be implemented.

Curriculum Council. the next
move is yours

Let ROTC build strong minds, morals

To the editor: There has been a
great deal of discussion on campus
lately about a “liberal arts
education." Two of the major
issues connected with this topic are
the need for a core curriculum to
give Grinnellians a shared ex—
perience and the problem oi what
to do with a Grinnell degree in the
real world, i.e. the job market,
It seems to me that the obvious
solution to these problems, as well
as to the one of the lack of morals
on campus, is to invite the army
back to Grinnell and make ROTC a
required program for all students.

This would give us all a common
background on which to build in
tellectual discourse, eliminate
insecurity about life after Grinnell
and restore respect ior authority.

I hope that this idea will not be
dismissed as turning back the
clock of progress, at Grinnell, ior
this accusation also applies to core
curriculum in general, which is
currently the subject of so much
discussion

Besides, what could make the
campus more attractive than well-
groomed hair and uniforms? John
Conyers.

Laments lack of consideration

To the editor: Consideration,
Perhaps it is a dull, wornrout
subject to you, buti never cease to
be amazed at the lack of it shown
by some Grinnell College students.
1 live oii campus, which should be
a special treat, and yet my living
situation leaves much to be desired
(yes, consideration).

I generally don’t even attempt to
study at homtkl need quiet. But
sometimes I feel as though I'd like
to read in a comfortable chair, or
have all the books I need which are
sitting on my shelves; my neigh-
bors like music. . . loud music, and
there lies the incompatability oi
our sharing the house in which we
live,

I truly do not understand how a
person can be so unieeling about

 

hissher neighbors It takes about 15
minutes (sometimes I may even
get a whole halfan hour) before the
volume of the stereo is back to the
level it was before I asked them to
turn it down.

And what can I do about it? Call
the landlord? The police? Neither
seems reasonable. and yet it also
does not seem reasonable that I
cannot study at home even the one
time every two weeks that i may
want to.

l have no answers, only
bewilderment that a person can
knowingly continue to consistently
annoy his-her neighbors for that
extra increment of volume which
degenerates the situation from
tolerable to unbearable. Name
withheld by request.

Entertain trustees in gracious Norris

To the editor: I seem to recall that
the last time the trustees were on
campus, they had a cocktail party
of sorts in Main lounge, Since the
renovations would render a
repetition of this impossible should
they visit the campus this winter, l
have been concerned as to how this
void should be filled, .

i now propose that during their
next visit, the trustees should be
appropriately wined and dined in
the historic elegance of the Norris

MAKE CHRISTMAS
RESERVATIONS

W

h

GRINNELI. TRAVEL

lounge. This prizerwinning
structure. created by a well-known
architect, represents a part of
Grinnell's herimgya fact which
as been recognized by the
rustees.
‘ lam sure that they will find the
Norris Hall lounge a more than
adequate substitute for Main
.loungc, which they Visited 'ust
before its desperately nee ed
renovation was undertaken. Susan
El Farrierr

VIII Do Typing
15‘ Per Page

Will Take On
Shari Nom-
Experienced.
Cull Sherry,

‘ 6—883]

 

