Freshman Seminars Making Their Mark

LAST year a freshman wrote a portion of a historical novel in History 7, a seminar on The Norman Conquest ofEngland.

Another freshman produced a paper on the discovery of the Pythagorean Theorem for Greek Mathematical Sciences that was good enough to present to the Classics Club and may be published in the Dartmouth Classical Journal.

Still others did original research in Comparative Literature and in Religion.

All were fulfilling the requirement previously met only by taking English 2, a freshman seminar which demands independent study and a series of papers, and which has served as a model for similar term courses now being offered in all three divisions of the curriculum.

The Freshman Seminar Program which began in the fall of 1965 allows students to select either a section in English 2 or a seminar course from any of nine other departments. All involve independent research and small group discussions and emphasize the importance of developing the student's competence in written expression. Grading is done "with a due regard for the rules of grammar, spelling, and punctuation."

Program Chairman Henry L. Terrie, Professor of English, said his seminar committee is complying with the aims of the Committee on Educational Policy which is attempting to give students both "breadth" of choice and "depth" in specialized areas.

"Freshmen are generally bored with introductory courses," Professor Terrie says. "We wanted to provide a little excitement in their curriculum."

He claims that any student ready for Dartmouth is ready for a Freshman Seminar. "Students today are better prepared and ready to move ahead faster. We couldn't have done this ten years ago."

Other colleges offer freshman seminars, but Dartmouth's program is unique because it is open to, in fact required of, all and is an extension of the traditional Freshman English requirement.

This year's freshman class can choose from 62 seminar courses, usually limited to sixteen students each. Among the new courses this year are Animal Communication offered by Biological Sciences and one in Engineering Sciences called GreatTechnological Achievements of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. Next year a dozen more course may be added.

More than half the seminars are still given by the English Department, but they are specialized. The English 2 seminars take up such topics as The UlyssesTheme, Some Elizabethan Villains, Warand the Novel, The Young Man in American Literature, Voyages: Fact into Fiction, and Images of the Rebel. Professor John W. Finch's spring seminar on Ham-let studies text, sources, stage history, and criticism. The students will form an acting company to produce part of the play in the Hopkins Studio Theater.

Every seminar involves considerable reading, but the committee requires that readings be selected for their manner as well as their matter. Students in Biology 7, Man's Effect on His Environment, read Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath.

Other departments offering Freshman Seminars include Philosophy, German, and Romance Languages. The committee is considering establishing a prize for the best seminar paper.

According to Professor Terrie the seminars benefit faculty who want to specialize as much as they benefit freshmen who are anxious to begin independent study. The young instructor may get the opportunity sooner than he normally would to pursue a specialty in the classroom and follow up a particular interest.

The degree of student interest last year was generally evidenced by a better quality of writing and, almost universally, by higher grades. One English professor admits to giving the highest grades in his teaching career - eight A's in one section.

A history professor says, "I had more fun teaching this than anything I've taught here. If the enthusiasm of instructors and students and the improvement of student writing are criteria, I think the seminars are a great success."

Prof. Henry Terrie, program chairman,with students in Sanborn English House.