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Expectations & Evaluations

Students and faculty in Evergreen programs need to be especially thoughtful about their social relationships. Coordinated studies and the seminar are uniquely social modes of learning, with potential for either reinforcing social inequalities or transforming them, for enabling people to feel confident and assertive, or making them feel inhibited and fearful. Collaborative relationships are shaped in seminar, and they can also be broken. The ideal would be that all of us feel surrounded by enough good collaborators to support us and challenge us in thinking, reading, writing and performing–indeed in all aspects of our academic experience.

Evergreen’s Social Contract is a set of rules designed to ensure positive social relations that make learning possible. For example, the Social Contract states: “An essential condition for learning is the freedom and right on the part of an individual or group to express minority, unpopular, or controversial points of view. Only if minority and unpopular points of view are listened to and are given opportunity for expression will Evergreen provide bona fide opportunities for significant learning. Honesty is an essential condition of learning, teaching, or working. It includes the presentation of one’s own work in one’s own name, the necessity to claim only those honors earned, and the recognition of one’s own biases and prejudices. The Evergreen community will support the right of its members, individually or in groups, to express ideas, judgments and opinions in speech or in writing.”

The Social Contract also states: “Civility is not just a word; it must be present in all our interactions.”

Expectations of Both Students and Faculty
• attend all scheduled classes regularly and on time;
• maintain an open, inquiring attitude toward the material;
• be willing to admit ignorance, since that is the beginning of learning;
• help each other take risks by offering encouragement and withholding judgment;
• cultivate sensitivity to and respect for all differences among us, including gender, ethnic/cultural background, age, sexual orientation, disability, and religion;
• treat all individuals with kindness and respect, especially when disagreeing;
• encourage all participants in the program to speak, but avoid singling out individuals as spokespersons for particular groups;
• maintain an email account and respond to messages;
• allow each other space for humor and relaxation;
• come to all program functions sober;
• prepare delicious food for program potlucks;
• address any grievance directly to the person involved, and if it is still unresolved, bring it to a meeting first with seminar faculty, then the faculty team, and finally, if necessary, with Dean Eddy Brown or a mediator agreed upon by both parties.

Additional Expectations of Students
Students understand that this is a full-time integrated program and that they will receive full academic credit if they attend, participate fully in class activities, and complete all the assigned work; if attendance is irregular and/or assignments are not completed, faculty will decide as a team whether to reduce credit, grant an incomplete, or award no credit. They further agree to:
• attend class regularly, but if an emergency comes up, email faculty to inform her of the problem;
• be well-prepared to begin the work of the class, having done the reading at least once, having thought and written about it, and having prepared to talk about it in a fully engaged manner;
• use high academic standards in preparing all papers, projects, and classroom presentations;
• submit a double-spaced hard copy of assigned papers on time;
• document fully any ideas or material directly used from research conducted, and be fully aware that presentation of the work of others as one’s own is plagiarism, a serious offense which will be treated in accordance with provisions of the Social Contract;
• keep the faculty apprised of any academic problems or difficulties;
• submit a typed “in-house” self-evaluation at the end of fall quarter and a complete, typed self-evaluationat the end of the program to be included in transcript;
• submit a typed evaluation of both faculty at the end of each quarter;
• attend a scheduled evaluation conference with your seminar faculty at the end of each quarter.

Additional Expectations of Faculty
Faculty further agree to:
• participate fully in the planning of the program;
• adhere to the syllabus or make adjustments in collaboration with other faculty;
• be fully prepared for seminars, lectures and workshops;
• comment on students’ papers and return them in a timely manner;
• warn students in writing during the fifth week of the quarter if they are in danger of losing credit;
• be available to students for help, advice, and encouragement;
• write evaluations of students at the end of each quarter;
• write evaluations of each other at a time agreed upon by all faculty;
• hold evaluation conferences at the end of each quarter.

Evaluation Criteria

At the end of fall quarter, all students continuing with the program will do in-house evaluations. This means that you will write a self-evaluation and your faculty will write an evaluation of your achievements, but these documents will eventually be replaced by final evaluations (at the end of winter quarter). The expectations for in-house evaluations are roughly the same as for the final, though these documents will not go into your transcript.

Final Evaluations will be written at the end of winter quarter and will serve as reflection upon the entire 2 quarters of the program. Your final self-evaluation should be written for inclusion in your official transcript.

Evaluations should reveal your growth in the program both in general as a student and learner, and in particular areas of disciplinary learning and inquiry. We will be thinking of your progress in the fall and over the course of the entire program in terms of the ideas outlined below:

Quality and Growth in Engagement
Here, our interest is in your growth as a learner, without much direct concern for the specific content of your learning.We will (and you should also) assess how you approached the material. While your relationship with the material under study is often private, we will have a variety of windows into your process. We’ll consider how you deal with difficult challenges, how you respond to different types of assignments, what sort of effort you seem to put into the work, and whether you seem motivated internally or merely, as they say, “melt in the pan.”

One of the great opportunities and challenges at Evergreen is the collaborative learning that happens in seminar. We will attempt to assess not only the learning that occurs in seminar but your performance as a member of the seminar. We’ll comment on your role or style in seminar and your development over the quarter as a participant. Also, in seminar, you will reveal something about yourself in relation to others. You are not alone in seminar; you are developing relationships that we hope will be intellectually and creatively stimulating—these connections are the basis of a learning community.

Finally, it is unavoidable that you should develop some kind of connection with your faculty. As you do with your peers, you will relate to your faculty in a variety of ways, and we will consider how your learning is advanced through your ability to connect appropriately, maturely, and productively with your faculty.

Quality and Growth in Engagement in Academic Work Produced

Writing. Developing your ability to write formal, analytic essays with a clear focus and organized arguments is one of our foci. A series of short essays (drafted & revised) will be the primary means of assessing your growth as a writer.

Creative Writing. A short series of creative writing workshops, weekly activities, and a small independent project will allow us to get a glimpse at your development as a creative writer. Our concern here is that your writing reflects facility with the conventions and experiments available to the fiction writer, and that your writing reflects productive and imaginative engagement with language, narrative, and program concepts.

Critical Thinking. We’ll attempt to assess your strategies and habits as a thinker through your essays, your notes, and your participation in seminar. Program materials and themes will offer numerous opportunities for you to stretch your mind in new directions and to develop the skills, vocabulary, and techniques of a rigorous and complex thinker.

Ability to employ disciplinary and interdisciplinary concepts. We’ll be looking for mounting evidence in your essays and seminar participation that you are synthesizing various aspects of the program: that you can relate the histories of literary thinking and the skills of literary analysis to the novels we read; that you can write clearly and confidently using the terms and strategies of the discipline of literature; that you can make connections between literary ideas and the ideas that come from other disciplines that make up the context and the content of literary works.


	Expectations & Evaluations Students and faculty in Evergreen programs need to be especially thoughtful about their social relationships. Coordinated studies and the seminar are uniquely social modes of learning, with potential for either reinforcing social inequalities or transforming them, for enabling people to feel confident and assertive, or making them feel inhibited and fearful. Collaborative relationships are shaped in seminar, and they can also be broken. The ideal would be that all of us feel surrounded by enough good collaborators to support us and challenge us in thinking, reading, writing and performing–indeed in all aspects of our academic experience. Evergreen’s Social Contract is a set of rules designed to ensure positive social relations that make learning possible. For example, the Social Contract states: “An essential condition for learning is the freedom and right on the part of an individual or group to express minority, unpopular, or controversial points of view. Only if minority and unpopular points of view are listened to and are given opportunity for expression will Evergreen provide bona fide opportunities for significant learning. Honesty is an essential condition of learning, teaching, or working. It includes the presentation of one’s own work in one’s own name, the necessity to claim only those honors earned, and the recognition of one’s own biases and prejudices. The Evergreen community will support the right of its members, individually or in groups, to express ideas, judgments and opinions in speech or in writing.” The Social Contract also states: “Civility is not just a word; it must be present in all our interactions.” Expectations of Both Students and Faculty • attend all scheduled classes regularly and on time; • maintain an open, inquiring attitude toward the material; • be willing to admit ignorance, since that is the beginning of learning; • help each other take risks by offering encouragement and withholding judgment; • cultivate sensitivity to and respect for all differences among us, including gender, ethnic/cultural background, age, sexual orientation, disability, and religion; • treat all individuals with kindness and respect, especially when disagreeing; • encourage all participants in the program to speak, but avoid singling out individuals as spokespersons for particular groups; • maintain an email account and respond to messages; • allow each other space for humor and relaxation; • come to all program functions sober; • prepare delicious food for program potlucks; • address any grievance directly to the person involved, and if it is still unresolved, bring it to a meeting first with seminar faculty, then the faculty team, and finally, if necessary, with Dean Eddy Brown or a mediator agreed upon by both parties. Additional Expectations of Students Students understand that this is a full-time integrated program and that they will receive full academic credit if they attend, participate fully in class activities, and complete all the assigned work; if attendance is irregular and/or assignments are not completed, faculty will decide as a team whether to reduce credit, grant an incomplete, or award no credit. They further agree to: • attend class regularly, but if an emergency comes up, email faculty to inform her of the problem; • be well-prepared to begin the work of the class, having done the reading at least once, having thought and written about it, and having prepared to talk about it in a fully engaged manner; • use high academic standards in preparing all papers, projects, and classroom presentations; • submit a double-spaced hard copy of assigned papers on time; • document fully any ideas or material directly used from research conducted, and be fully aware that presentation of the work of others as one’s own is plagiarism, a serious offense which will be treated in accordance with provisions of the Social Contract; • keep the faculty apprised of any academic problems or difficulties; • submit a typed “in-house” self-evaluation at the end of fall quarter and a complete, typed self-evaluationat the end of the program to be included in transcript; • submit a typed evaluation of both faculty at the end of each quarter; • attend a scheduled evaluation conference with your seminar faculty at the end of each quarter. Additional Expectations of Faculty Faculty further agree to: • participate fully in the planning of the program; • adhere to the syllabus or make adjustments in collaboration with other faculty; • be fully prepared for seminars, lectures and workshops; • comment on students’ papers and return them in a timely manner; • warn students in writing during the fifth week of the quarter if they are in danger of losing credit; • be available to students for help, advice, and encouragement; • write evaluations of students at the end of each quarter; • write evaluations of each other at a time agreed upon by all faculty; • hold evaluation conferences at the end of each quarter. Evaluation Criteria At the end of fall quarter, all students continuing with the program will do in-house evaluations. This means that you will write a self-evaluation and your faculty will write an evaluation of your achievements, but these documents will eventually be replaced by final evaluations (at the end of winter quarter). The expectations for in-house evaluations are roughly the same as for the final, though these documents will not go into your transcript. Final Evaluations will be written at the end of winter quarter and will serve as reflection upon the entire 2 quarters of the program. Your final self-evaluation should be written for inclusion in your official transcript. Evaluations should reveal your growth in the program both in general as a student and learner, and in particular areas of disciplinary learning and inquiry. We will be thinking of your progress in the fall and over the course of the entire program in terms of the ideas outlined below: Quality and Growth in Engagement Here, our interest is in your growth as a learner, without much direct concern for the specific content of your learning.We will (and you should also) assess how you approached the material. While your relationship with the material under study is often private, we will have a variety of windows into your process. We’ll consider how you deal with difficult challenges, how you respond to different types of assignments, what sort of effort you seem to put into the work, and whether you seem motivated internally or merely, as they say, “melt in the pan.” One of the great opportunities and challenges at Evergreen is the collaborative learning that happens in seminar. We will attempt to assess not only the learning that occurs in seminar but your performance as a member of the seminar. We’ll comment on your role or style in seminar and your development over the quarter as a participant. Also, in seminar, you will reveal something about yourself in relation to others. You are not alone in seminar; you are developing relationships that we hope will be intellectually and creatively stimulating—these connections are the basis of a learning community. Finally, it is unavoidable that you should develop some kind of connection with your faculty. As you do with your peers, you will relate to your faculty in a variety of ways, and we will consider how your learning is advanced through your ability to connect appropriately, maturely, and productively with your faculty. Quality and Growth in Engagement in Academic Work Produced Writing. Developing your ability to write formal, analytic essays with a clear focus and organized arguments is one of our foci. A series of short essays (drafted & revised) will be the primary means of assessing your growth as a writer. Creative Writing. A short series of creative writing workshops, weekly activities, and a small independent project will allow us to get a glimpse at your development as a creative writer. Our concern here is that your writing reflects facility with the conventions and experiments available to the fiction writer, and that your writing reflects productive and imaginative engagement with language, narrative, and program concepts. Critical Thinking. We’ll attempt to assess your strategies and habits as a thinker through your essays, your notes, and your participation in seminar. Program materials and themes will offer numerous opportunities for you to stretch your mind in new directions and to develop the skills, vocabulary, and techniques of a rigorous and complex thinker. Ability to employ disciplinary and interdisciplinary concepts. We’ll be looking for mounting evidence in your essays and seminar participation that you are synthesizing various aspects of the program: that you can relate the histories of literary thinking and the skills of literary analysis to the novels we read; that you can write clearly and confidently using the terms and strategies of the discipline of literature; that you can make connections between literary ideas and the ideas that come from other disciplines that make up the context and the content of literary works.