As a current member of the Experimental College board and an Explorations Leader this past fall, I cannot stress enough what participating in these programs has meant to my undergraduate experience at Tufts. Very rarely will you find so many opportunities for student leadership and meaningful involvement, and I am grateful for the chance to have been a part of it.
On the ExCollege board, I am one of five student members on the 15-person board charged with making crucial decisions regarding the week-to-week proceedings and overall direction of the ExCollege. Tasks have included choosing classes from a pool of applicants, organizing the ExCollege's various programs, and marketing.
As an Explorations leader, my co-teacher and I were responsible for leading a weekly class of 14 incoming freshmen on our topic of choice. We designed a seminar on "The Wide World of Sports Finance" in which we learned about the nuances of sports economics, including salary caps, expansion, stadiums, and collective bargaining agreements. More importantly, however, we were responsible for ensuring that our 14 freshmen were successfully integrated into the Tufts community.
Tufts students know the Experimental College. A vital cog in the university's undergraduate experience for over 40 years, the ExCollege has distinguished itself by providing students with opportunities to take classes deviating from the norm, a compelling complement to our Liberal Arts education. Revered for their innovative methods, subjects, and worldly relevance, ExCollege course offerings quickly fill up and generally garner rave reviews from a broad cross-section of Tufts undergraduates.
Those that have taken advantage of the ExCollege's courses and programs have been exposed to the Tufts community's most unique resource: an entire institution devoted to an innovative, student-centered approach for education.
When you're considering ways to become engaged on campus, I urge everyone to go to the Experimental College website (excollege.tufts.edu) and browse the range of opportunities for involvement. There is something for everyone. Apply to be a student member on the board. Co-teach an Explorations or Perspectives class. Sign up to be on a subcommittee. Do so, and become an integral element of the most actively student-centered academic program on campus.
No doubt some of you were lucky enough to get into an Explorations or Perspectives class as an incoming freshman, two programs sponsored and operated by the ExCollege as a means of easing the freshmen transition to college. Explorations and Perspectives leaders are undergraduate students, generally seniors, who design a class and teach it to a group of 14 incoming freshmen. Perspectives classes focus on movie topics, which this fall included subjects such as "Food in Film" and "Academy Award-Winning Films." Explorations, on the other hand, allows student leaders to pick their own topic. Subjects this fall included "Gambling and the American Dream" and "Sports Finance."
Perhaps some of you have sat on ExCollege subcommittees, which play a leading role in determining which classes the ExCollege will offer. Subcommittees of two students and a faculty member interview instructor candidates and report back to the ExCollege on their impressions of the teacher's potential to be successful in the classroom. Such reports are the ExCollege's most highly valued resource in choosing its classes because they indicate the way students will react to the teacher.
Others of you may have attended the ExCollege's "Opening up the Classroom" this past November, an annual gathering of students, faculty, and administration at which a specific campus issue is discussed over a three course dinner. The event provides students with the rare opportunity to interact with faculty and administration members in a meaningful and candid way. Each year, the dinner has been a forum for engaging debate, and exchanging ideas and broadening everyone's perspective on relevant topics that affect the entire Tufts community.
Maybe you were among the crowd at the ExCollege's Election Night Extravaganza in November 2004, where hundreds of students were met with food, drink and a projection screen television in Cabot Auditorium to watch the night's proceedings. If you did attend, you will remember the entertaining and knowledgeable panel of political experts analyzing the night's events as they transpired on the screen.
Possibly you have taken advantage of the ExCollege's "Quidnunc" program that affords groups of students the ability to design a class and teach one another. For example, this semester a group of students that traveled to Nicaragua over winter break is conducting a weekly class called "Community Based Approaches to Health and Sustainable Development." The students of the class have completely designed and are entirely responsible for operating the weekly class sessions. Each will receive a credit for his or her work.
Student involvement was central to these programs and events. With student run programs, student run classes, student membership on its board, and student participation in vitally important departmental decisions, the ExCollege is blatantly, wonderfully and unabashedly all about its students. If you have taken part in any of these programs or activities, you know how rewarding an experience it was. If you have not, do not let the opportunities pass you by any longer.
As the University moves towards an increasing emphasis on research, potentially undermining the experience in the classroom, the ExCollege remains a beacon of stability for the Tufts undergraduate experience. The only way that the ExCollege can maintain its role on campus, however, is through the continued engaged participation by students like you. Take advantage of these possibilities the ExCollege presents and help perpetuate the future growth and success of the most unique and redeeming institution at Tufts.
Erik Johanson is a senior majoring in Political Science.
