This document discusses your responsibilities as a student in this program. Our goal is to provide an optimum learning environment and to be clear about the expectations in this program. You can also find a Word document of this covenant under Moodle/Announcements/ Week 1

There will be a closed-book quiz on this covenant.

Expectations of Students

The learning community can expect students to:

1. Be mindful and aware of others in the program, respecting diversity in gender, race, age, ethnicity, class, religious and political affiliation, sexual orientation, learning styles, and emotional, mental, and physical abilities.

2. Take responsibility for contacting Access Services regarding any health condition or disability that may require accommodations to participate effectively in this program. For faculty to consider your condition (in giving extra time on quizzes for example), it must be documented by the Access Services director who will send the written notice to your seminar faculty.

3. Help create an optimum learning environment for our class community. Show respect when a faculty member, guest speaker, or another student is talking to the class or listening to the speaker. This respect includes being seated with your notebook and books out when class starts. Talking, whispering, eating, text messaging, cell phone ringing, or using laptops is disruptive to the presenter and to those listening. One whisper or cell phone ring affects everyone in the room. If you have questions, ask the speaker and not someone else. If you are late for a class, please have your books out and coat off when you enter the classroom. Do not enter the room during a centering exercise at the beginning of class. Turn off your cell phone before entering lectures and seminars. If your cell phone rings more than once during the quarter, faculty will note this in your evaluation. It is acceptable to use laptops for note-taking in lectures, but not for e-mail, web surfing or other non-program activities during class. Laptops should not be used during seminars. Instead, you should take notes in your notebook for later review. If you use a laptop for note-taking, you will need to print out your notes for the portfolio (see below).

4. Go to the Students Rights & Responsibilities page: www.evergreen.edu/studentaffairs/rightsandresponsibilities.htm
Be sure to click and read the sections on The Social Contract and the Student Conduct Code (including the section on examples of conduct code violations). It is easier reading than it first appears. It was written by Evergreen faculty, staff, and students. The quiz will include one or two questions about what you learned from these sections.

5. Participate fully and faithfully in program activities. Arrive on time for ALL scheduled program activities. Students agree to notify faculty in advance by e-mail about expected absences of more than one day, but students must recognize that there are no “excused absences.” There are times when one might not be able to attend program activities, but the faculty do not want to be forced to judge the adequacy or legitimacy of your reasons. We know that “things will come up”, and this is why you can miss 4 class meetings without any penalty (see attendance policy, below). Attendance is especially important for exams because there are no make-up exams or quizzes for any reason. (It takes many hours to create an exam and there isn’t enough free time in our schedule for make-up exams).

Role is taken at the start of each class session. If you arrive AFTER role has been taken, you MUST contact your seminar leader to let them know you are present. Otherwise, you are still considered absent.

All students (and faculty) are expected to participate fully in all program activities. However, if you think that you are sick and contagious, please stay home or take measures to be sure that you don’t spread it to others. Please do what you can to become healthy and strengthen your immune system – including additional sleep, not smoking, etc. If you are very ill, it is best to stay home and recover quickly rather than extend your illness by over-exertion.

Each student will be part of a peer group by the end of the first week of the quarter. If you are ill or must miss a class for any reason, contact your peer group for handouts, notes, and especially for announcements. There is no need to contact faculty for one single missed day. If you miss two days in a row, e-mail the faculty or leave a brief message on their voice mail. If we do not hear from you, we will alert your peer group to contact you. If they can’t contact you and you have missed three days in a row, the faculty are required to notify the deans who will call your parents or the police to begin a search (if you marked “confidential” on your enrollment, federal regulations prevent us from telling anyone except law enforcement that you are a student here, so the deans may need to contact the police).

Attendance will be taken at the start of all class meetings. Tuesdays and Thursdays have two class meetings each. Starting with the fifth absence (for any reason), you will begin to lose credit. The rate of loss is one lost credit for each additional 2 classes missed. (5 absences = minus one credit, 7 = minus two, 9 = minus three, etc.). Note that we cover about 1.6 credits of new material each week. If you accumulate ten or more missed classes, it is likely that you will lose most or all credit in the program. Attendance alone is not sufficient to justify credit. This loss of credit for attendance is in addition to loss of credit for not completing work. That is, good attendance is a necessary, but not sufficient condition for credit.

6. Come to class on time. Entering late disrupts your peers, so 4 times late is the maximum before credit loss. Starting with the tardy (for any reason), you will begin to lose credit. The rate of loss is one lost credit for each additional 2 tardies. (5 times late for any reason results in 1 credit lost. 7 lates is 2 credits lost, etc.) We will take very brief bathroom breaks. Returning from this break late is also disruptive and will be counted the same as being late for the start of lecture or seminar. Again, role is taken at the beginning of class. If you are late, be sure to notify your seminar leader that you are present at the first break.

7. Bring all appropriate books, handouts, and materials to class each day. Good seminar discussions depend on frequent citations of specific page numbers in the book. For credit in the program, you must use books with the same ISBN as those available in the bookstore and listed at our website so that everyone has the same page numbers. Electronic books are not acceptable unless the page formatting is identical to the text everyone uses. The faculty will not have extra paper copies of any handouts, so your peer group should pick one up for you if you are absent. Many of the handouts will also be available on the program website.

8. Keep a daily log of your out-of-class work hours and turn it in every week (forms will be provided). Failure to keep a log or turn it in will result in loss of up to 2 credits.

9. Seminar papers are for the benefit of the seminar discussions. Therefore, no late papers will be accepted for any reason. Do not e-mail papers to faculty. They will be collected when you come to class on Tuesday and Thursday mornings. Papers will not be accepted after the start of the morning class. Include your name, the date, and the title; it should include a minimum of one page reference (by number). Preparation for a few of the seminars will include both reading from texts and listening to MP3 files. For those seminars, choose one or the other to write about.

Faculty will not give feedback on the papers, but we will check papers each week for college-level writing. College-level writing requires more than a single draft! Do not turn in a paper that is not your best possible writing. The papers should be typed (like all college work unless otherwise instructed.) Half sheets of paper will be not be accepted. It needs to be written on a full sheet.

Keep all returned seminar papers (and all other material from the quarter). You can miss up to 2 seminar papers during the quarter and your evaluation will still state that you completed “all of the assigned” papers. Credit loss starts at 3 missed seminar papers. Note that if you do not attend the seminar, you automatically miss the seminar paper because the seminar papers are for the benefit of the seminar discussions. Seminar papers will not be accepted late for any reason, or in lieu of attendance. If you have not read the seminar materials for that day, please be mature and do not participate in the seminar discussion.

10. Good note-taking skills are a learned art. They are useful in many other endeavors besides college. Keep separate, well-labeled sections of a notebook for notes from lecture (including the Wednesday films or other media), seminar, and reading notes. They will be reviewed several times each quarter and part of your evaluation will be based on your notes. Do NOT mix reading notes with lecture notes or seminar notes. Keep your notes in a 3-ring binder. Be sure to put the date at the start of each set of notes. We will ask you to complete a portfolio checklist at the end of the quarter which includes your self-reported attendance. The first four sections of your portfolio should be 1) lecture notes, 2) seminar notes, 3) reading notes, and 4) activities and practice journal – in that order.

11. Stay informed about the program and its schedule. Check the program website and your email daily during the week.

12. Be fully present and work safely. This means, in part, that no one should come to class impaired by the use of drugs or alcohol.

13. Maintain clean individual and collective workspaces. This includes your body. If you like to go barefoot rather than wearing shoes, please bring a towel with you on Thursday mornings and wash your feet off in the CRC bathroom BEFORE stepping on the dance floor.

14. Be willing to learn by being open to new ideas, suggestions, points of view, and methods of instruction.

15. Resolve disputes directly and without rancor. Disagreements and differences of opinion happen in all groups. All members of the program should abide by the principle of honest and face-to-face resolution of conflicts. First, talk with the person involved directly (either a student or a specific faculty member.) A heartfelt apology offered in a timely manner can work wonders in conflict resolution. In the event you do not feel successful in resolving a conflict yourself, first bring your concerns to the attention of your seminar leader. If the individual faculty member cannot help you resolve the problem, he or she will bring it to the attention of the faculty team and they will take steps to help you resolve the problem. Any conflicts that cannot be resolved by your own efforts or the efforts of your faculty will be referred to the campus grievance process. See the “Conflict Resolution Process Matrix” found in the “Students Rights and Responsibilites” document (see above). You may not skip steps in this process.

16. Refrain from offensive behavior or language. Remember that you may feel comfortable with certain words that others find offensive – and such words are thus “offensive” – such as swear words.

17. Follow through on obligations to your group in teamwork situations such as your Expressive Response group. This is of paramount importance, and is a place where credits can be lost.

18. Call 866-6000 to check on campus closure if there is snow or inclement weather. If the campus is closed, class will not meet and we will try to post something on the website by 9 am.

19. Inform faculty if you wish to bring a relative or friend to class; please inform your visitor of items 1 through 4 above. The visitor should not ask questions during the lecture or seminar. You are encouraged to invite visitors to your Expressive Responses (but not animal visitors – see the Pet Policy at the Student Rights and Responsibilities website above).

20. Avoid posting pictures or videos of official class activities on Facebook or other websites.

21. Avoid all forms of academic dishonesty, including cheating, fabricating, and plagiarizing are reasons for dismissal from the program with zero credit (and possibly dismissal from the college). Know the difference between plagiarizing (literary theft) and appropriate referencing. See the pages on plagiarism at the Purdue on-line writing lab (OWL). Start at http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/589/01/
Also see the following websites on how to avoid “cut and paste” plagiarism:
http://tlt.its.psu.edu/plagiarism/tutorial/cutpaste/ http://www.northwestern.edu/provost/students/integrity/plagiarism.html

While visiting the Purdue OWL, notice some of their other excellent web pages on writing such as the grammar page at http://owl.english.purdue.edu/ha ndouts/grammar/. For example, see “Using Commas” and “The Apostrophe”.

22. Ask for “incompletes” only under extreme circumstances that are beyond the student’s control. The college has very strict guidelines for granting “incompletes”.

23. Request letters of recommendation in the future only if your attendance is greater than 90% and your work is of consistently high quality in all portions of the program.

24. Write a self-evaluation at the end of each quarter. A loss of one credit will occur if your self-evaluation is not submitted on the due date (to be announced later). Also, we have told the registrar to not release your transcript until you have completed a self-evaluation that you submit to the registrar in the spring (or earlier if you do not complete the year).

25. Enroll for the full year. If you know that you can’t meet this expectations, we strongly urge you to consider enrolling in a different program.

26. Obtain full credit in order to participate in the spring quarter project (a 4- to 8-credit, advanced, independent component of spring’s curriculum). Students who obtain 12 or fewer credits during fall or winter quarter will not be eligible to do the independent project in spring and so will be able to obtain (and enroll for) only 12 credits in the program during spring quarter.

27. Receive full credit by submitting all assignments on the due date, paying all fees assessed, participating fully in program activities, completing a self-evaluation by the assigned date, taking the quizzes, completing the seminar papers, completing the expressive response projects, meeting the attendance policy, and writing Self and Faculty Evaluations. The faculty will award full credit to every student who satisfactorily completes the assigned program work. Final decisions about credit and evaluations will be made by the program faculty team at the end of the quarter. Credit is not the same thing as high quality work. The evaluation is used to describe the quality of the student’s work. Thus, a student could actually receive credit, but also receive evaluations that reflect poor quality work. On the flip side, a student could attend regularly but receive partial or no credit because of poor quality or missing work. While effort and time invested in studies are important, credit is awarded based on the quality of the final product, not the time and effort that went into producing that product.

28. Eat or drink quietly during lectures, videos, or seminar; clean up before you leave. (However, if the college bans eating in a particular room, we must honor that requirement.) If you don’t clean up, our wonderful custodians get stuck with your mess.

SELF-EVALUATION and EVALUATIONS of FACULTY

Your student self-evaluation and your seminar faculty evaluation are your entry tickets to your evaluation conference. If you prefer to give the faculty evaluation to the program secretary, do so before your conference. The secretary will give us your evaluation at a later date. The program secretary is Susan DeRosa whose office is in Seminar I 3163.

The self-evaluation is one of the most important aspects of an Evergreen education. However, an evaluation conference with your faculty is a privilege, not a right. If you miss your appointment, or arrive without a typed self-evaluation and faculty evaluation, you forfeit that privilege and agree to accept your “Faculty Evaluation of Student” as written by your faculty.

Be sure that your self-evaluation reflects your best writing! We will offer a self-evaluation workshop in class.

Evaluation week is an official week of classes, so please do not plan (or let someone else plan for you) to leave town before Friday, December 14th.

Students who receive full credit for fall quarter, and are members of the program during winter quarter, and who plan to continue into spring, will get a two-week spring break. Faculty will give you your evaluation for winter quarter on the first day of class during the spring quarter.

SEMINAR EXPECTATIONS

1. On Tuesday and Thursday, put your seminar paper on the table as you enter the morning class. Start early so you aren’t late to class due to printing problems. Put your name, date, title, and seminar faculty’s first name at the upper right-hand corner.

2. Be Kind:
Re-read points 1, 2, 3, and 4 on the first page of the covenant. Treat others with respect.
It is fine to question someone’s statements or reasoning … but do so in a kind, mature, and professional manner.

3. Be Mature:
Read the complete assignment prior to class. Be aware of your behavior. Listen actively.
If you talk frequently, choose silence sometimes. If you talk infrequently, choose to participate more sometimes. It is your responsibility to participate in the discussion at least once per class. You can even read from your seminar notebook or seminar paper. Silence during seminar is OK. It gives us all time to think and it gives time for those who are less outspoken to speak.

4. Be Professional:
Refer to the text frequently during the discussions! (The covenant quiz will ask, “What can you do to ‘be professional’ in seminar?”) Hone your critical thinking skills by reading actively and striving to grasp the author’s main point and evidence for it. Take notes on the discussion. Link your comments to those that went before (when possible). Learn and use the names of those in your seminar group. Learn to express your views clearly, concisely, accurately, and with elegance by observing yourself and your peers.

HOMEWORK EXPECTATIONS

A significant portion of your credit and evaluations will be based on your homework. All homework should be completed with the utmost professionalism. All homework must be submitted when it is due. Late homework will not be accepted. Unless the faculty state otherwise, only typed, smooth-edged papers will be evaluated.

WORKLOAD

Students will be expected to “document 40 hours of work per week that invested in program-related activities.” You’ll be given logs for this documentation (see #8).

Expect about 14 hours of in-class time (including peer group meetings) and about 26 hours of out-of-class time per week. (This is typical for 16 credits.) Your hours log should document roughly 26 hours per week of out-of-class work directly related to the program.

Our estimate for the time required for your out-of-class activities:

Active reading and note taking prior to Tuesday class 9 hours
Seminar paper writing for Tuesday (two or more drafts) 1.5 hours
Review your Tuesday lecture notes & seminar notes (Active! Use a pen, highlighter, etc.) 1 hour
Active reading & note taking prior to Thursday class 9 hours
Seminar paper writing for Thursday (two or more drafts) 1.5 hours
Review your Thursday lecture notes & seminar notes (Active! Use a pen, etc.) .5 hour
Structured journal on activities and practices 1 hour
Portfolio Organization, Hours Logs, & Filing including checking program website .5 hour
Group work (in addition to peer group meeting) 1 hour
Quiz Preparation per week (not including review of lecture notes) 1 hour

TOTAL 26 hours/wk

Studies show that students who work at a job for less than 10 hours per week do as well in their classes as those without a job. However, there is a sharp drop in grade point average when students work more than about 12 hours per week at a job. The main reason students fail or do poorly in college is not due to the difficulty of the material (although it is challenging), but due to a lack of sufficient hours of out-of-class work.

The key to your success in college is your effort.

A student’s continued attendance in this course indicates his or her acceptance of these covenant agreements and willingness to abide by these duties and responsibilities.