Shared Academic Experiences

Introduction

Dear President Gutman and Provost Pritchett,

Penn students come from a diverse set of backgrounds and study a wide range of disciplines. Each specific school has its own requirements that its students must satisfy in order to graduate. In many cases, these requirements differ greatly between schools. This often leads to very few in-class interactions between students studying different disciplines. However, there are aspects of the undergraduate experience that every student, regardless of major or school, encounters. SCUE hopes to focus on and improve experiences like these. By focusing on these topics, SCUE believes it can maximize its impact on the greatest number of students. 

This section will address 3 topics: Shared Courses and Requirements, Academic Communities, and Service-Based Learning. The Shared Courses and Requirements section addresses improvements to the writing seminar in addition to suggesting an overhauled sector system for students in the college. Academic Communities focuses on transforming college houses into continuous communities rather than isolated experiences. Service-Based Learning concentrates on improving ABCS courses and expanding the current course offerings. The Body’s hope is that these recommendations serve to enhance the undergraduate experience and to bring the Penn community together.

Sincerely,
Aidan Young, Shared Academic Experiences Chair
Class of 2022

Writing Seminar

Status Quo

The Critical Writing Seminar is a required course across all schools that is intended to help students “improve their writing skills.” The current courses are structured around teaching the skills of outlining a text and reading and writing a literature review. A variety of courses fulfill the Critical Writing Seminar requirement, all of which accomplish the common end through slightly different lenses.

Problems

According to a schoolwide survey, when asked to rank possible changes to the Writing Seminar, 43 percent of students ranked “cover more types of writing beyond the literature review and op-ed” as the most crucial change to the curriculum. 

Additionally, in focus groups, students relayed that there is not enough emphasis on mathematical writing and that the curriculum is generally humanities-focused and not geared toward teaching practical writing skills. The following recommendations aim to address some of the issues students found with the Writing Seminar curriculum.

Solutions

1. As every Penn student is required to take a Writing Seminar, SCUE recognizes that the curriculum across the offered sections must be somewhat uniform. However, framing the courses to appeal to a more diverse array of disciplines would benefit students who find the curriculum to be “generally humanities-focused,” and those who request more emphasis on writing for a career in mathematics. 

2. Currently, a few  STEM departments are represented. In a writing seminar focused on these disciplines,  students in the class might read and analyze both layman-oriented and doctoral dissertations. For example, a mathematics-related writing seminar might look at a combination of layman-oriented (e.g. A History of π, Prelude to Mathematics, or Things to Make and DO in the Fourth Dimension) and more field-specific texts that the professor deems suitable for first-year students. Rather than writing a literature review, students in STEM-focused writing seminars might write research papers, developing their skills to address a scientific audience. To this end, these classes that tackle more quantitative and complex topics may only be offered to students who have taken prerequisites in the relevant field.

3. Likewise, in keeping with the results of SCUE’s survey data, we agree that incorporating at least one research assignment into the critical writing program will best prepare students for the academic writing and arguments that students will frequently engage in throughout their time at Penn. At many of Penn’s peer institutions, academic research and argument writing form the basis of the critical writing seminar; SCUE believes that shifting towards a model that is more in line with the types of writing that will underscore students’ academic careers at Penn (e.g. including a research paper assignment and placing less emphasis on the literature review), would allow Penn students to develop their critical writing skills in the most pertinent way possible. For example, Princeton’s curriculum is predominantly argument-based; assignments include: “a short critical argument engaging 2-3 primary and theoretical texts (5-6 pp.), (ii) a more complex argument engaging diverse kinds of evidence and methodologies as the student organizes and intervenes in a scholarly conversation, and (iii) an innovative researched argument on a topic of the student’s choosing (10-12 pp.).”

4. SCUE recommends that Penn adopt a more flexible and research-based curriculum that prioritizes academic argument-based writing over the literature review and op-ed assignments.  

Looking Forward to 2025

In the future, the Body hopes that the implementation of these solutions would both broaden the range of subjects represented in the writing seminar classes while following a curriculum that would be relevant for more students. 

Sector Requirements

Introduction

There are seven individual sector requirements for students in the College: Society, History and Tradition, Arts and Letters, Humanities and Social Sciences, the Living World, the Physical World, and Natural Sciences and Mathematics. Courses fulfilling each sector revolve around a common theme. For example, the Society sector focuses on the “structure and norms of contemporary human society” while the Living World sector deals with “the evolution, development, structure, and/or function of living systems.”

Problems

The sector system does not have an equal division of courses across sectors. The four humanities-related sectors have significantly more options for courses than the three STEM-related sectors. In addition, since a course must be specifically listed as such to count toward a sector requirement, there is limited flexibility for students who wish to explore the full array of options available at Penn.

Solutions

SCUE recommends a “cluster system,” please see Appendix 1, which is more flexible and individualized with respect to student interests. As of now, many students take courses to primarily fulfill requirements. However, SCUE envisions a course requirement system that ultimately links the various courses that students take in a cohesive capstone course. A tentative solution would be to revise student course load to include the following requirements:

• 0.5 CU Introduction to the College

• 3 CU Humanities course cluster

• 3 CU STEM course cluster

• 0.5 CU Capstone Course

With such a cluster system, students attain the same breadth of knowledge that the current sectors offer but creates a meaningful and practical end goal. The increased flexibility allows students to take more courses in subjects of genuine interest and inspires students to chart out their own academic path. Significantly, the capstone course permits students to reflect on their liberal arts education and consider its value.

Looking Forward to White Paper 2025

The Body hopes that revising the current system for sector requirements will allow students to explore a wide breadth of classes while still fulfilling their general requirements.

Pass/Fail Policy

Status Quo

The Pass/Fail (P/F) policy is intended to encourage academic exploration. The P/F deadline usually coincides with the end of the ninth week of the semester or the beginning of advance registration for the following semester. P/F rules vary by schools. Engineers may take four courses P/F, but only for the Social Science and Humanities or free elective requirements. Wharton students can only take three courses P/F, and these courses may only count towards the General Education Distribution, Non-Business Electives, or Unrestricted Electives. Students in the College can take eight courses P/F, but none can count for sector requirements.

Problems

Students are often apprehensive about taking a course P/F, fearing that the deadline will arrive before they have a clear idea of their ability to perform well in the class. The grade a student receives in the class can change drastically over the course of the semester and, in cases in which the class is curved, is affected by relative performance.

Solutions

SCUE recommends that courses provide at least one assessment grade as well as a general idea of the grade distribution in previous semesters before the P/F deadline so that students can make informed decisions about changing the grade type for a course. Students should be able to know generally where they stand in a class before having to render a decision on a grade type change.

COVID-19 Developments 

Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, Penn pushed the opt-in P/F deadline to the last day of instruction, April 29, and allowed all classes taken P/F to “satisfy major, concentration, minor, and general education requirements.” 

SCUE believes that these major changes will provide valuable information to be studied in the future. Thus, SCUE recommends that Penn study the effects of moving this P/F deadline and allowing these classes to carry the same weight as those graded, specifically studying the number of students opting in to P/F grading and when students opted in. Additionally, Penn should compare the effects of its policies during this pandemic with peer institutions that implemented other types of grading. 

Looking Forward to White Paper 2025

Moving forward, SCUE believes that giving students an idea of the grade distribution before the P/F deadline and/or moving the P/F deadline will help alleviate some of the stress put on college students.

Reading Days

Status Quo

Reading days consist of the period before final examinations during which students have an opportunity to study without classes. While the current policy ostensibly offers a four-day reading period, two of the four fall over the weekend.

Problems

Students have expressed that one of the most pressing problems with their academic experience at Penn is the low number of reading days Penn students are afforded. 69 percent of respondents say that three to five days would be preferable to the current two days and 20 percent favor a week. Peer institutions often allow for longer pre-examination reading periods. Princeton University offers students a “10-day reading period for preparation of final course work,” and Harvard University offers “a period of six or seven days prior to the start of final examinations.”

Solutions

Students would benefit from an increase in the number of reading days from two to four days. The change in policy would necessitate that two more “school days” be mandated as reading days.

Looking Forward to White Paper 2025

SCUE envisions that these changes will help students feel and perform better going into their midterm/final exams.

Academic Communities

Status Quo

Serving nearly 6,000 students, College Housing and Academic Services provides houses to the majority of undergraduates—a number that is expected to rise in coming years, as all sophomores in the Class of 2024 or later will be required to live on campus. Modern undergraduate dormitories, styled “College Houses,” are a relatively new innovation to the Penn residential ecosystem, pioneered by former University president Judith Rodin and sharing elements of the residential systems of Harvard and Yale.

This system comprises 12 College Houses, divided into three types: First-Year, Upperclass, and Four-Year Communities. Each of these types provides different services tailored to the communities they serve. For example, First-Year houses aim to help students adjust to an undergraduate-level workload and college lifestyle, while an Upperclass house provides networking opportunities for older students seeking a future in a particular field.

Within the houses also exist “Program Communities,” or select and often small groups of students who live together and enjoy additional programming based on a hall-specific theme. Some program communities have a required class and community service component, such as the Music and Social Change program community, while others are tailored to specific demographics, such as the Second-Year Experience or First-Generation, First-Step communities.

Smaller still, some programs within Penn have a living component, such as the Huntsman Program and Benjamin Franklin Scholars, which require all first-year members to live in the same hall or floor in a particular College House.

Problems

Within the student housing ecosystem, there exists a chasm between different housing options and within and outside of the College House system.

SCUE has heard from members of the undergraduate community that desire and ability to build communities varies among First-Year, Upperclass, and Four-Year houses, as the latter two often lack the programming or member enthusiasm to build relationships with people outside of a suite or floor.

The cost of on-campus housing is also a concern for students. For the 2019-20 school year, on-campus housing costs at least $10,600 per academic year per student and at most $14,840 for rooms with more space. Many students are driven to seek housing off-campus, which often has lower rental rates. However, many of these students who live off-campus and do not stay in Philadelphia over the summer or study abroad for a semester struggle with finding people to sublease their housing, adding to financial burden. 

Recent policy changes requiring all first-year and sophomore students to live on-campus (starting with the class of 2024) may exacerbate this financial stress, as they obligate students to pay for more expensive on-campus housing rather than saving significant amounts of money by living off-campus.

Solutions

SCUE recommends the following changes to the on-campus residential system:

1. Establish a task force to examine ways to reduce on-campus housing costs.
   Financial concerns affect nearly every student on Penn’s campus, and the question of living on- or off-campus should not be a decision based on cost but instead on the type of community a student would like to live in. Living off campus means students are farther away from many of the amenities and services Penn has to offer (such as dining halls and counseling.) It can be more difficult for a student living off-campus to use these services, which may have adverse effects on their mental health and wellbeing. Over a full academic year an individual student sharing the cheapest two-bedroom apartment option pays only half of what a student living in on-campus housing pays for similar amenities.

2. Restructure on-campus housing to have only upperclassmen and First-year housing and guarantee upperclassmen the ability to live in the same college house for the rest of their time at Penn. Having all first-year students live together enables all first-year students to access programming designed specifically for them and allows them to build communities within their own class. Other Penn services, such as CAPS or Career Services, could handle common first-year issues with easier access, such as adjusting to a college workload or dealing with homesickness, and could provide “office hours” for first years in specific areas.
   Starting in their sophomore year, upperclass students should be able to live in a College House with the peace of mind that comes with knowing that the annual search for housing will not be stressful. Knowing that one and one’s housemates will live in the same College House for the remaining three years can also increase the sense of community, social value, and engagement with house programming within these College Houses, and may render them more desirable to students.

3. Improve conditions and layout of all College Houses to increase community spirit and college house identity by emphasize accessible communal gathering spaces in all future constructions and renovations which aim to bring students together.

Looking Forward to White Paper 2025

Physical changes to campus and its buildings may take significantly longer than five years, SCUE hopes to see progress on these issues for the next White Paper, such as announcements and planning of building renovations, a formation of a committee to evaluate the impact of housing prices on student communities, and the restructuring of the College House system.

Service-Based Learning

Status Quo

Service-based learning was initiated at Penn in conjunction with the founding of the Netter Center in 1991 and the introduction of Academically-Based Community Service (ABCS) courses. ABCS courses were established to create mutually-beneficial relationships with the University City community and to allow students the opportunity to become active, creative, contributing citizens of a democratic society while at Penn, part of Benjamin Franklin’s founding mission for the University. The program has grown from 4 courses and 100 students in 1991-1992 to 74 courses and approximately 1700 students across the undergraduate and graduate schools in 2017-2018. Currently, only Civic Scholars, a selective four-year honors program run by Civic House for undergraduates with a special interest in civic engagement, community affairs, and social policy, requires students to complete ABCS courses for recognition at graduation. There are also several extracurricular service-learning opportunities through the Netter Center. However, elective ABCS courses offer the primary method for Penn students to engage in civic education in the Penn curriculum for-credit.

Problems

ABCS courses face several issues. In our focus groups, SCUE saw a general theme: the predominant reason participants had not enrolled in ABCS courses was lack of awareness and opportunity, especially among those in Wharton and the Engineering school. As recently as  the 2020 Spring semester, only 1 ABCS course has been offered in either the Engineering school or in Wharton each semester dating back to the Fall of 2018, whereas the majority of ABCS courses are concentrated in courses in the Nursing school and the College and are elective courses. Additionally, a concern expressed in focus groups was that ABCS courses were very time-consuming and were difficult to fit into dense semesters, especially given travel time to service sites, with little incentive for taking these courses beyond the service itself.

Recommendations

1. SCUE recommends that all Penn students be required to take at least one ABCS course as a requirement for graduation.
   Based on our focus groups, this idea has resonated with students. With expanded requirement fulfillment (as discussed above), this recommendation will allow students to integrate ABCS courses into their schedules more conveniently. Additionally, making ABCS courses a requirement will increase student awareness across all four schools, unite students with seemingly disparate academic interests through service, and create more shared academic experiences among Penn undergraduates. 

2. SCUE recommends expanding ABCS course offerings, allowing more ABCS courses to fulfill Sector and Foundational requirements in the College, and creating more ABCS courses that fulfill Wharton and Engineering requirements.
   While nearly 2,000 students take ABCS courses each year, SCUE’s school-wide survey found that 58 percent of students have interest in taking an ABCS course. While increasing overall ABCS course offerings is the most basic way to meet this demand, SCUE additionally recommends that there be at least one corresponding ABCS course that can fulfill each of the Foundational Approaches and Sector requirements in the College. This solution is two-fold: it can both increase the number of options for courses fulfilling requirements and increase the overall number of ABCS course offerings. Only five ABCS courses offered in the Spring 2020 semester fulfilled Sector and Foundational requirements (see Appendix 2). Additionally, ABCS curricula could be expanded to improve accessibility of ABCS courses across all areas of study. For example, ABCS courses in the Engineering School might incorporate missions of impact-focused clubs Access Engineering; Wharton courses might expand upon the existing financial literacy pilot course or community-based enterprise, and sustainable business practices.

3. SCUE recommends increasing accessibility of ABCS courses through improved transportation options to and from service sites.

Since ABCS courses require regular community service outside of class time which can discourage students from taking them, the Body recommends expanding student resources for transportation. Currently, the Netter Center provides a van service to some community service locations as well as single-use SEPTA cards for travel to-and-from service sites. However, the University could fund initiatives to expand van availability or students could be given a semester-long SEPTA budget for travel to and from a community service site rather than single-use cards in order to make travel more flexible. It is also important to make transportation to and from service sites more accessible to students with disabilities, as discussed in the Accessible Transportation section. 

Looking Forward to White Paper 2025

While transforming ABCS courses into a graduation requirement is a large curricular change which SCUE do not expect to see in the next five years, the Body hopes to see growth in the number of ABCS course offerings, expansion of ABCS courses fulfilling requirements, and diversification of the departments offering courses with service learning component in the next five years. Given Penn’s engagement initiatives during the 2020-2021 Year of Civic Engagement, making service learning an academic priority is vital to perpetuating Penn’s commitment to shaping community-oriented citizens  SCUE believes that expanding ABCS course offerings will be an important step in eventually integrating ABCS courses as a graduation requirement for all undergraduates as a cornerstone of a Penn education.