September Institute Translates into Curricular Success

The September Institute sponsored by the Center for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning boasted a fourth year of success with two learning communities from McMicken participating.

The English composition program in the college has had teams in three of the four institutes thus far, and Wayne Hall, vice provost for faculty development, contends that “their work has translated into significant curricular developments within the basic English composition sequence and so has had influence on thousands of UC students.” This year’s team was directed by William Zipfel and included Lisa Beckelhimer, Gwyn Casey, Ron Hundemer, Linda Mercer, and Judy Sharp.

Sigrun Haude led the European studies team composed of faculty from history, sociology, romance languages and literatures, German studies, and political science. The group is developing an interdisciplinary program on the study of Europe. In addition to working on exciting curricular developments, they brought what Hall describes as “a different tone than in past versions of the institute because they operate out of a tough- minded liberal arts view of education and so raised challenging questions during the week, questions that directed the conversation into much more interesting and fruitful directions than would otherwise have been possible.” The team consisted of Elizabeth Frierson, Todd Herzog, Anna Linders, Hilda Smith, Willard Sunderland, Michele Vialet, and Joel Wolfe.