LA&S Offers New Freshman Preceptorial

As students begin their freshman year, they often wonder about the purpose behind NIU's general education requirements. Why do I need to take "gen ed" classes? What's the point of taking classes not clearly related to my major? Why do I have to choose courses from areas I'm not interested in?

During the fall 1999 semester, the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences offered for the first time a new course designed to help answer questions like these. Modeled on courses often taught at small liberal arts colleges and variously called freshman seminars, pro-seminars, or preceptorials, the new course--ILAS 101--helps establish a framework for students' academic experience by introducing them to the ways of approaching questions that have traditionally characterized liberal education.

"The course is designed to help students make connections between ideas, disciplines, and seemingly disparate concepts and provide them with an understanding of the ways in which the three divisions of our college (humanities, social sciences, and sciences) address questions of personal identity and the value of an education in the liberal arts and sciences," says Sue Doederlein, associate dean of the college and professor of English who conceived and helped develop the course.

Doederlein and Robin Moremen, director of undergraduate studies and a professor in sociology, taught the course. Robert Wheeler, associate dean of LA&S and a professor of mathematical sciences, and Amy Levin, director of NIU's Center for Women's Studies and an English professor, provided guest lectures. Together, the four faculty members represent the three divisions of the college's curriculum.

The fall class was limited to twenty-five students who read primary texts, attended lectures by the four senior faculty members, and wrote reaction papers in response to the readings and lectures. To increase the desired effect of introducing new students early to the liberal arts and sciences, the class met twice a week for the first half of the semester, notes Doederlein.

"Such a scheduling plan allowed the student to have extra exposure to faculty and to the course content before midterm," she says, "thus freeing the student's schedule at a particularly hectic time in the first semester, when other course work normally becomes more demanding."

Because ILAS 101 will be offered to incoming freshmen and carries one hour of academic credit, it may appear no different than the UNIV 101: University Experience course already offered at NIU. But there are significant differences between the two courses, says Doederlein.

"UNIV 101 is designed to help students make the transition from high school to college life," she observes. "It introduces them to university resources and helps them manage their time, develop their study skills, and adjust to the academic, personal and social changes of college life. In contrast, ILAS 101 introduces students to the structure of the academic material that shapes their current and future studies. The course explores the nature of the academic disciplines that form the liberal arts and sciences."

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