Perspectives on the Individual
M-W, 11:00-11:50
Fall 2005, FW 237
Dr.
Chad Berry
Anderson Hall 205C
981-8265
chad.berry@maryvillecollege.edu
|
First-Year
Seminar 120-01: Perspectives on the Individual M-W, 11:00-11:50 Fall 2005, FW 237 Dr.
Chad Berry |
| Office hours: Monday, 2:00-2:50, Thursday, 9-10 and other times by appointment. Feel free to stop by anytime. | |
| Connect to Blackboard |
| Purpose | Goals | Expectations | Journals | Threads | Arrangement | Schedule |
Purpose
The
unreflective life is not worth living.
Socratic imperative
The
unlived life is not worth reflecting upon.
Buddhist
apothegm
The
Fall First-Year Seminar, the first in a series of three thematically linked
courses, introduces you to the liberal arts and provides a strong foundation for
continued learning in specific disciplines.
This first course focuses on the individual: developing a sense of
identity, developing a sense of vocation, developing an attitude of wellness,
and exploring questions of belief. These
topics encourage the introspection and self-understanding fundamental to
personal growth and scholarly achievement.
The course is based on the belief expressed by Plato centuries ago that
“the unexamined life is not worth living.”
You are encouraged to examine your life thus far and to ask such
questions as Why am I here? What do
I do? Where do I go from here?
The thinking you do about these questions will help you connect your
beliefs with who you are.
There
are two ways to slide through life:
to believe everything or to doubt everything;
both
ways save us from thinking.
Alfred Korzybski
Goals
Enhanced communication skills
Enhanced
personal development
Expanded critical thinking
skills
Increased familiarity with a variety
of modes of inquiry
Enhanced academic skills
Greater enthusiasm for learning
When
I discover who I am, I'll be free.
Ralph
Ellison
Expectations
All the sections of this course use similar assignments and strategies to
support your learning. The common
readings are drawn from a variety of sources and reflect the breadth of the
liberal arts. A series of seminar
events related to the course concepts supports the reading materials and
provides additional viewpoints and issues for class discussion.
You must read and reflect upon
these readings in order to succeed in and get the most out of this course.
I expect the following from you:
Perfect attendance and active participation in all class activities. If you must be absent, you must inform me before the class meets. Make-up assignments are given only in the most dire (and rare) circumstances (i.e., flood, tornado, death of parent, etc.). Missing this class is not like missing other classes. If I don’t see you, you can bet that I’ll be calling you. Four absences will lower your final grade one letter; five absences another letter; and six will result in an F for the course.
Timeliness. Don’t be late to class, and if an assignment is due in class, you must turn it in at the beginning of class. Late assignments will be penalized with a 10 percent reduction. You must also complete all assignments.
Maturity. Respect for others and their opinions is absolutely crucial. I’m sure you’ve seen the bumper sticker: A mind is like a parachute. They both function only when open.
Have fun, learn new things about
yourself and others, meet and respect fellow humans, do good work, challenge
your preconceptions, and we’ll be just fine.
You may expect that I will be
available to you when you need me, that in addition to being something like your
boot camp sergeant, I’ll also be your advocate.
Keep the communication with me open and stop by my office often.
As for grading, the course is divided into four units, each of which is
worth 20 percent of the final grade. The
journal and the paper will receive the remaining 20 percent (1/4 journal, 3/4
paper). For each unit, the points
earned will be divided by the number of points possible, yielding a percentage
score. Homework assignments,
in-class exercises, other projects, etc., count for one-half of the unit grade;
the culminating project counts for the other half.
Confused? I’ll explain in
class. Grading will be 90-100
percent=A, 80-89=B, etc.
Make
the most of every molecule you’ve got, as long as you’ve got a second to go.
That is your assignment.
That is your charge.
Studs Terkel
Personal
reflection is an important aspect of your learning. For that reason each of you will keep a journal for the
duration of the course. The journal
is a way for you to clarify your thoughts and concerns in private dialogue with me. You will learn to
use this tool effectively to augment your learning and to enhance your
self-knowledge.
Keeping
a journal creates benefits for the writer.
Here are some from Dr. Robert Bonham, and undoubtedly you may think of
others during the semester:
A way of personal searching
An intellectual diary of ideas,
thoughts, and reflections
An opportunity to focus
Context of continuity
Private conversation between writer
(student) and reader (faculty)
A tool for creating your future
You
are to keep a journal with a minimum of
one (and I encourage more) significant entries (more than one page each,
single spaced) per
week to be shared with me each Wednesday.
You'll submit this to me electronically as a Microsoft Word attachment. I’ll read them by
Monday. The journal will function
as a written conversation between the two of us, recording thoughts, feelings,
impressions, ideas, and questions. Your
entries should entail much more thought and depth than “This morning I got up
late, ate stale cereal, and tripped on the sidewalk as I ran to class.” Sometimes, you will be
given specific topic about which to write, other times you are free to explore
whatever you wish. The final
assignment of the class will be a major paper based on your ideas as developed
in this course, so make sure you take the time to prepare carefully your
journal. Do not make this
assignment a burden; rather, it should be something you enjoy.
Set aside regular times to write. If
the journal is kept as described above, it will earn an automatic 5 percent of
the final grade. The final paper
can earn a possible 15 percent (I’ll discuss more about the assignment later).
Each of the three units (see below) will count 20 percent (5 percent for
participation, 15 percent for assignments).
Think
about the kind of world you want to live in.
What do you need to build that world?
Demand that your teachers teach you
that.
Prince Peter Alekseevich Kropotkin
Blackboard
Threads
I also will bridge the gap between many Wednesdays and Mondays with threaded
discussions in Blackboard. On
Wednesdays,
a question that I pose will be placed in our Blackboard class site.
You will then be required to do, at minimum, two things.
First, you will have to write an original response to my question by
midnight on Friday. Second, by midnight on Sunday, you will be required to
respond to someone’s post. Often,
we’ll be able to continue these discussions in the class on Monday. I’ll explain how all this is done early in the semester.
Arrangement
The
course is arranged in four sections. First
you will address the question of identity.
Naturally, each of you already has a sense of identity, but you are asked
to reflect on it and make it more self-evident; furthermore, you are asked to
contemplate your life experiences and come to understand their impact on your
view of yourself and the world.
The
second session focuses on developing a sense of vocation.
Once you have established who you are, it’s time to decide who you want
to be. This section proposes that
you choose to invest your life in something that makes a difference.
You are asked to identify some of your own goals for the future and to
incorporate them into a personally meaningful philosophy of work.
The
third section integrates the concepts of self and wholeness and asks you to
clarify your philosophy of health. Understanding
that a change in habits yields a change in attitude, you are asked to correlate
lifestyle choices with health and to recognize the nature of individual choice.
The course content in this section helps you to understand more clearly
the connectedness between who you are, your lifestyle choices, and your personal
values.
The
final section is a culmination of the preceding sections and challenges you to
explore issues of belief and to work toward achieving mindfulness.
You are not asked to follow a
specific dogma or doctrine. Instead,
the course encourages you to explore the universality of human existence and to
try to identify those things that are really important to you and to other
people. There are readings from and
about several religious traditions as well as those stressing the importance of
solitude and personal reflection. We’ll end with an example of one person who person her
beliefs into action.
As the
course unfolds, you will begin to see connections among the sections.
I hope you leave the course with a better understanding of yourself and
your goals, a greater appreciation and understanding of people, and a renewed
curiosity and wonder about your world. In
January, you’ll tackle a course titled “Perspectives on the Environment,”
and in the Spring, “Perspectives on the American Community.”
| Purpose | Goals | Expectations | Journals | Threads | Arrangement | Schedule |