Senior Survey—Spring 2002—Summary

 

During the spring of 2002, we added a number of questions to the survey sent to all seniors, requesting their views concerning the Area One classes that they had taken four years previously. Most of these students who had taken IHUM had taken it in the second year of the program, though a couple mentioned explicitly having taken IHUM the first year it was offered.

 

Not all of the seniors to whom the survey was sent had taken IHUM courses to satisfy Area One. 1998-99, the freshman year for the surveyed seniors, was the second transitional year from CIV to IHUM; approximately two-thirds of non-SLE freshmen were assigned to IHUM classes, the other one-third going into the last year of two CIV sequences, taught by the History and Anthropology departments.

 

The survey had two parts: a set of questions with quantitative responses, and a smaller set of questions with open-ended responses. Upon receiving the results of the survey we were disappointed to learn that the questions we had designed (which would have distinguished both sets of responses as to whether the respondent had taken IHUM, CIV, or SLE) were revised in a way that omitted the IHUM/CIV/SLE identifiers from the numerical responses. As a result, these numerical data are basically useless for our purposes, since of the 317 respondents only approximately two-thirds took IHUM. Many of the questions on our survey inquired about the success of courses in achieving IHUM-specific goals (e.g., acquainting students with disciplinary differences in the humanities); the impossibility of distinguishing between respondents who took IHUM courses to satisfy Area One and those who did not becomes critical in interpreting these data. We therefore refrain from comment on these results and concentrate on the open-ended responses, which can be sorted into IHUM, CIV, and SLE respondents. The remainder of this summary focuses on the open-ended responses from those students who self-identified as having taken IHUM.

 

We would like to stress that, of the 1000 (+/-) students who took IHUM their freshman year, only 198 returned the survey. Clearly these survey results do not represent a random sample, though what biases may have crept in as a result are not clear.

 

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The two questions calling for open-ended responses were:

1)     In retrospect and with the wisdom of hindsight, has your evaluation of your Area One experience changed since your first year? If so, in what ways?

2)     How do you think Area One courses could be made better?

 

Based on the answers to the two questions together, each narrative survey form was assigned a number from 1 to 5, with approximately the following values for each number.

 

1 = IHUM was extremely valuable and interesting

2 = IHUM was moderately valuable and interesting

3 = IHUM was mixed, no response, or unclear response (see below)

4 = IHUM was inadequately valuable and interesting

5 = IHUM was of no value

 

Assessment of Responses:

 

3 = IHUM was mixed, no response, or unclear response

(66 responses = 33%)

 

We begin with category 3, since it contains 1/3 of all responses, and since those responses are there for different reasons. In a number of cases, the questions were simply not answered. In a (somewhat larger) number of cases, question #1 was answered “no”, with no elaboration, and not enough information in question #2 to decide which way to go. Two examples of such question #2 answers:

 

“Making it more dynamic. Not as long sections.”

 

“More rigorous, and less making students see grade improvement. If a student deserves an “A”, give them an “A”, not a B+, A-, A just to “show” improvements.”

 

In a number of cases assigned to 3, parts of IHUM were seen positively, and parts negatively. The two most common splits were between the fall and the winter/spring classes, and between lectures and sections. Three examples:

 

“I liked (Class X) – Great prof. Bottom line I didn’t like (Class Y)

 

“Fall quarter IHUM was useful in helping me get acquainted to Stanford. Winter quarter classes were useful in challenging me and exposing me to classic texts. However, by Spring Quarter I was offended by IHUM and felt it was a waste of my time.”

 

“I think that, while the texts chosen for my IHUM classes were great & my discussion leader was excellent, I was very disappointed in the quality of lectures. I wish that the lecturers had been more clear, concise and dynamic.”

 

More commonly in such splits, the winter/spring class was preferred to the fall class, and sections to lectures. There are counterexamples, however.

 

In some cases, we assigned a 3 to responses which were truly so-so:

 

“I never really saw what the overarching purpose of the IHUM program was … so my evaluation has always been that the classes were interesting and valuable, but not cohesive or essential.”

 

 

5 = IHUM was of no value (38 responses = 19%) and

4 = IHUM was inadequately valuable and interesting (32 responses = 16%)

 

On the negative side, many students really disliked their IHUMs, normally saying so with brevity:

“I thought it was useless, and I still do.”

 

Sometimes at some length:

“I didn’t like it then and I still don’t like it now. I had a horrible professor Winter/Spring. The books we read were useless; they weren’t classical or interesting texts.”

 

And a few at even greater length:

“Area 1 (IHUM) sucked, especially fall quarter. I had a horrible TF. Winter + Spring the teacher was better, but really it was the same type of books + themes we have studied throughout high school. How much Western Civilization/literature can you have shoved down your throat?! I want to read other writers from different backgrounds.”

 

Responses assigned a 4 would appear to grant some redeeming value to the program:

 

“Honestly, it didn’t leave a big impact”

 

“I still feel that it was quite dull and unpopular among students. It’s a good idea, but I didn’t enjoy it and remember very little from it.”

 

“There should either be some significant connection between fall courses and the winter/spring series, or all three should be independent. The combination as is doesn’t make sense to me. Also, faculty should not teach IHUM courses unless they are truly interested in engaging with freshmen, not just giving another weekly lecture.”

 

It is heartening to note that a number of students who were negative about their own IHUM classes perceived a change over the last several years:

 

“They should be a little more interesting! I heard things have changed from younger students, but when I was a freshman no one was interested in IHUM.”

 

“I was not impressed by the selected texts, which is probably why my IHUM was cancelled. I think other IHUMs were more valuable and interesting … Most of the frosh I know are pretty satisfied.”

 

“I’m sure Area One has undergone many changes since I was a freshman. I remember feeling limited by the IHUM course topics – I didn’t like any of them. I would make sure to offer a lot of variety.”

 

 

1 = IHUM was extremely valuable and interesting (17 responses = 9%)

2 = IHUM was moderately valuable and interesting (45 responses = 23%)

 

On the extremely positive side, again some students were more laconic:

 

“I always knew it was important and continue to believe so”

 

Some were moderately expansive:

 

“[my opinion] hasn’t changed. I always thought I got a lot out of IHUM. I even took it again junior year for fun.”

 

“I liked the IHUM sequence that I took and knew that otherwise, without this course sequence I wouldn’t have been able to read Plato and other great works. It was intense & useful in learning to write critically.”

 

Some were quite lengthy:

 

“*good intro to learning environ. at university.

*good way to meet faculty immediately – especially because they are talking about things they spend their careers researching.

*good to allow students to choose winter/spring in fall quarter instead of before arriving on campus.

*overall positive memories of courses – did a lot of new reading and learning about literature and ideas I hadn’t been exposed to before.”

 

Responses assigned a 2 were certainly positive, but had some downsides:

 

“It was such a big deal freshman year. I thought it was so much work in terms of reading and papers. But now, I realize compared to my other classes, it wasn’t that bad.”

 

“I am a biology major and therefore did not have time after freshman year to take writing or literature classes. Over the years I have developed a greater esteem for my IHUM courses and opportunities to read non-scientific literature.” [later complains about lecturing style of some professors, hence a 2]

 

“I do think IHUM is important, especially for students who are unlikely to pursue courses in the Humanities. Criticisms leveled against IHUM, I imagine, are a function of their being not just requirements (since people are not so vocal about their dislike of GERs) but because they must be taken freshman year. So by removing one’s “liberty” to choose when to fulfill IHUM, students feel more burdened by the requirement.”

 

 

 

Assessment of Specific Responses to Question #2:

 

Except for some responses in categories 1 and 5 which maintained that no improvement was possible (for different reasons), almost everybody had suggestions. Beyond the obvious suggestions of getting the most competent, caring and interesting faculty and teaching fellows, a fair number of people asked for more diversity in the reading lists, for more core readings, more “classics,” fewer texts with more in-depth study, shorter sections or breaks, and more flexibility in terms of student choice (ability to switch between winter and spring, ability to take IHUM sophomore year, etc.)