Collo book club?

I hate myself for even making that the title of a post. This is approaching Oprah territory and, well...yeah. Anyway, this seems like a possible way to make Collo more Colloquial. Obviously not everyone needs to participate, but if we have a handful of people all reading the same thing, it might make for good, focused discussions both online and off. If that sounds at all appealing, you should indicate that to me in some way, and consider this an invitation to nominate a book.

Collo for freshmen

I like the idea floated a while ago of essentially dividing Collo into "Collo for freshmen" and "Collo for everyone else." If we go that route, what are some things that freshmen should be required to do? What are the things (if any) that you've done in the past in Collo that you think are useful? We'll still do the program of study, hopefully with some older people helping out the freshmen. What about the Basler challenge course? Good, bad, indifferent? Study abroad info? That seems like a good thing to hear, especially if coupled with some students who have actually studied abroad. Alcohol education? What else? The beauty here is that you're not subjecting yourselves to any of this, just the incoming class. If you were designing classes they had to attend, what would those be?

You lead the class

In a twitter discussion a while ago, someone suggested adding to Collo some classes that are taught by students. I am 100% on board with that idea. But we need to fill in the details to take it from idea to actuality. So here are some thoughts:

1. I envision this working a lot like GRGs, especially the ones that are more substantive (not that there's anything wrong with ones that are entertaining, but that's a different animal.) You would need to propose a class/session/etc. and schedule it. It could be during regular Collo hours or at some other time. Unlike GRGs of the past, this would count as class, not something over and above the normal class hours.

2. I worry that we won't have many of you volunteer to do this, so we need some incentive. What would actually get you to put in the time and effort it will take to organize and lead a class? It's a valuable experience on its own, but I wouldn't count on such intrinsic motivation. Part of this will depend on how grades end up being calculated. If they do end up being based on hours, then the hours you put into preparing for the class would all count and would lessen the hours you needed to spend doing other Collo related tasks.

3. What would the substance of these classes or GRGs be? I think they could cover a lot of territory. It might be a way for older folks to give valuable information to younger folks. It could be helpful for the program of study. It might be a way to talk about your study abroad experiences, or service projects, or getting into a particular program, or your internship, etc. You might discuss the thesis process or discuss current events. This could also be a way to teach other useful skills--changing a tire, baking a cake, making an origami rose.

4. There's really no cost to making this an option and putting it on the table, but it would be great if you actually took advantage of it. If we had a enough of these, it would be a way to offer more classes, increase options and flexibility, and get class size down. All good things. So think about it.

HC social media and newsletter

The Honors College needs more of a social media presence. In addition to any benefits it might have for current students, it is also (maybe more so) important for connecting with prospective students and alumni. This is probably something that should be spearheaded by the council, but if anyone out there has an interest in helping manage social media for us, or at least advising us old people on what we should do, let me know. Doing so would certainly get you some Collo credit.

We would also like to get the Honors College newsletter up and running again. It used to be published once a semester and then it just kind of died out. We would like to publish a smaller newsletter more frequently, perhaps monthly. Again, this will probably run through the council, but they will need help. If you are interested in and have the skills to help with the newsletter, let me know. Obviously this would count for Collo credit as well.

Grading by the hour...

So here is an early, quick draft of what grading based on hours might look like in Collo. I welcome and encourage comments and suggestions. None of it is set in stone and it might ultimately end up on my scrap heap of bad ideas.

The benefits I see of something like this are that
(1) it provides an easy way to encourage you to do Collo related things throughout the semester
(2) it allows for a lot of flexibility
(3) it rewards doing something instead of just some finished product
(4) it allows for the same activity to be weighted differently for different individuals based on how much time and effort went into it (e.g., a program of study for someone who just changed majors and picked up a new minor vs. a program of study for someone who hasn't changed anything since the last program of study.)
(5) it makes grading as transparent as it can be and almost entirely up to you.

One concern some have had is that filling this out would itself become tedious, especially if we try to make it as hard as possible to BS your way through it. I think that's a real worry. I'm inclined to err on the side of making it easy and pain-free and just take my chances with folks trying to cheat the system. Perhaps frequent, gentle reminders that filling these out falsely is cheating would help, along with some random audits of the reports. I'm open to other ideas.

Collo grading for non-freshmen (draft)

Total hours:

A: 30 hours

A-: 27 hours

B+: 24 hours

B: 21 hours

B-: 18 hours

C: 15 hours

F: < 15 hours

 Distribution of hours:

Time: You will record your time spent on Collo related activities (what exactly these are still needs to be spelled out in some detail) and submit them every three weeks. You must have a minimum of three hours on each submission.  Any three week period in which you have fewer than three hours will result in a reduction in your final grade by 1/3 (from A to A-, A- to B+, etc.). You can have a maximum of ten hours per three week period. No hours over ten will count towards the total. 

Activity: In total, you need at least five hours in class, five hours on personal/professional/academic development and/or enrichment (some of this can be double counted with class time), three hours of service and two hours of being collegial. Failure to meet the minimum hours in any category will result in a reduction in your final grade by 1/3 for each category that is short of the minimum.

Keeping track of hours:

You’ll keep track of what you’re doing for Collo on a simple spreadsheet with columns for activity, date and hours. For activities in which there is something that can be handed in, that will be required in order to count the hours. For things that don’t have something that can be handed in, you are on your honor to report honestly. Also, I will audit some number of these each time they are due. For those audited, we will set up a meeting and briefly discuss what you’re doing for Collo.