When the term “freshman course” is listed in the course bulletin, students may not think of intensive discussions about current world events, but Ohio State leaders are working to change that.
Undergraduate Student Government President Eddie Pauline hopes to start a program of freshman seminars modeled after those at other Big Ten schools.
“It would be topics that are more current issues, just so students realize that what they’re talking about is relative to their daily lives,” Pauline said.
Pauline said the classes are meant to mold college freshmen into more mature thinkers.
“I think you come to Ohio State in a very naïve way,” he said. “Mainly, students are taking these 100-level GEC courses for their first three quarters.
“But if one of those quarters you took one of these (discussion) classes and really found out about other students’ views, you could have a real attitude adjustment,” he said. “You could be more excited about academics.”
In a press conference held earlier in the quarter, OSU President Karen A. Holbrook said she thought Pauline had picked up on what he saw as important during his term as USG president.
“Different venues for faculty and students to connect in a more direct manner is certainly the piece that came out of the freshman seminars (proposal),” she said.
Holbrook said that should the seminars come to fruition, she would be interested to teach one using her experience in teaching similar courses at the University of Georgia.
OSU offers small freshman research seminars, but they are available only to honors students and are optional. They are funded out of the University Honors and Scholars Program, said Linda Harlow, interim associate provost and director of University Honors and Scholars.
“Many, including USG, Martha Garland (dean of undergraduate students) and myself feel that it would be great to offer these opportunities to all students,” she said. “But it’s a question of resources, because they are generally limited to 25 students and are taught by a faculty member.”
The seminars are still in the proposal stage, but they would be built around the concept of small groups of students discussing current events.
“Right now we’re trying to convince (the administration) why it should be a priority and why it’s beneficial to the school,” Pauline said. “We don’t know yet exactly how it would work.
“Part of the difficulty of making these a reality are faculty resources and giving departments an incentive to offer these types of courses,” he said.
Nicole Kidston, a USG policy co-director, has been researching other schools, including the University of California-Los Angeles, Indiana University and the University of Michigan, which hold similar seminars for beginning students.
“Sometimes you don’t feel like you’re part of the system because your classes are so big,” she said. “In a class with 20 students, freshman can feel like they’re part of the university, and they’re having that interaction with faculty members.”
Kidston said rather than having summer programs — like UCLA does — USG’s proposed seminars would be held during the academic year and may be major-specific. She said USG leaders would like the seminars to carry actual credits.
“There’ll be a writing component and a discussion component, so you’re really getting something out of it,” she said, referring to the lack of motivation students may feel about pass/fail classes.
However, the interaction between students and faculty may be stunted by limited resources — mainly, lack of funds for a new university program.
“We have a lot of good ideas, but there’s really no way of paying for them right now,” Kidston said.
Kidston said there is usually a start-up fund to get a program off the ground, but the fund would only last for the first year or so. The seminars, she said, were designed for the long term.
“We’re trying to think of more ways that we could have them funded over time,” she said.
The question is not only of money but also of faculty, she said.
“If you do the math, you can make it happen because there are enough faculty,” Pauline said. “But it gets expensive, and faculty already have a teaching load.”
Kidston added the other schools offer their faculty incentives to take on the extra load and not shrug it off to assistants, whether in terms of a bonus or a lightened class schedule.
Liz Dewey, a senior in business administration, said the idea is good but possibly far-fetched.
“If it’s not a class you’ll be tested on or taken attendance for, most freshmen aren’t going to want to go to a class if they’re not bound to it in some way,” she said.
Melissa Ebbers, a senior in philosophy, said the critical-thinking aspect of the seminars appealed to her.
“It gets you away from structured classes, so you’re not just reading a book and being tested on it,” she said. “You have to work a little harder.”
But funding the seminars is the main problem.
“Within the next week we’re going to explore ways of how we can pay for this and really make it feasible. We don’t want to have a proposal that it would be too complicated to find money for it,” Kidston said. “We want to really nail down how we’d pay for it, and who would be teaching them, and how to ensure that this would really go through.”
