ࡱ> 574a )jbjbtt "2"FFFVZ Z ,RC CP  XP P P   P D.,fD, P P  ` HW~ n0 ,\P \P ZZZZAcademic Excellence and Rigor May 2006 The pursuit of academic excellence through a rigorous program of study is central to 91s educational mission and is the driving force behind the Colleges educational policy decisions. The members of the 2005-06 Committee on Educational Policies and Planning (CEPP) believe that an explicit statement defining what the College means by academic excellence and academic rigor is long overdue. As we formulate our ideas, we are fortunate to have available for reference the Academic Vision Statement of 2004 and the Strategic Plan of 2005, both of which provide inspired commentary on the broad topic of academic excellence. We hope that our statement not only complements, but also further develops the critical messages expressed in these documents. More importantly, though, we hope that the entire 91 communityand, in particular, its facultywill make it a priority to reflect continuously on the concepts of academic excellence, challenge, and rigor, and consider how these concepts might animate our principal responsibility to educate 91s student population. During the 2002-03 academic year, CEPP produced the colleges first document specifically devoted to articulating 91s academic identity: the Academic Vision Statement. Although the facultys response to the vision components of the document (critical thinking, communication, citizenship, and collaboration the four Cs) was mixed, the response to the statements Preamble, drafted by VPAA-DOF Chuck Joseph, was unequivocal. The preamble clearly and eloquently captures the type of education we strive to provide 91 students: It is an education that will inform and energize their lives regardless of the career path they choose to pursue. It is an education that instills flexibility and intellectual agility; hones lifelong learning skills that prepare one to engage the world in responding rather than reacting to its ever-evolving issues; inculcates a taste of interrogation and genuine criticism; venerates the power of reasoned argument in arriving at the conviction of ones beliefs; enriches our lives by sensitizing us to the intricate workings of our complex world; and prepares our students most ably for virtually any career, rather than a single one (pp. 1-2). The executive summary of 91s long-range strategic plan, Engaged Liberal Learning: The Plan for 91: 2005-2015 echoes the sentiments expressed in the Preamble to the Academic Vision Statement. It reads: Our overarching objective, therefore, is to become a College that fully realizes the objectives of our Mission: one that inspires, challenges, and supports the highest levels of excellence for all our students, not just for some or even many of them as evidenced by their achievements in realizing the values of engaged liberal learning while at 91 and expressing them throughout their lives. The 91 we envision expects that an intellectually rigorous, transformative educational experience will lead to graduates whose achievements at 91 will launch them into the next phase of their lives, who are prepared to function effectively in the complex and increasingly diverse world of the 21st Century, and who understand and embrace the responsibilities of living as informed, responsible citizens. (italics added) Members of the 91 community can be justifiably proud of the efforts they have made to achieve many of the objectives set out in the Academic Vision Statement and the Strategic Plan. There is, however, additional work to be done. CEPP believes that the more explicit the College is in defining what is meant by the highest levels of excellence, the more deliberate the faculty and staff can be in pursuing the Colleges principal goals. If we are to deliver an intellectually rigorous, transformative educational experience to all of our students, we must be willing to scrutinize far more critically the work that we do both inside and outside the classroom. This definition of academic excellence, CEPP believes, represents the first step of that critical self-examination. While we recognize that no two members of the community will likely define the concepts in precisely the same way, we are nonetheless confident that the Colleges faculty, staff, and students share some basic assumptions about the characteristics of academic excellence and rigor. We begin, therefore, with a list of student attributes. Aspirational in character, and gleaned in part from the statements described above, these attributes are ones we seek to instill in our students. A high-achieving student, one who embraces the responsibility for initiating and producing independent work, will: commit to diligent study, pursuing personal scholarship that exceeds the requirements of a professor, course, or curriculum develop in-depth knowledge and expertise in a particular field of study write and speak with clarity and style use quantitative reasoning to solve problems recognize enduring theories, interrogate their validity, and willingly come to conclusions that may question standard disciplinary assumptions value disciplines other than ones chosen major and embrace those disparate disciplines to deepen and broaden a world view recognize the role that methodology plays in the development of a certain line of reasoning, and how methodologies vary from one discipline to another as well as within disciplines identify a thesis in all its complexity and the manner in which the author developed it, and demonstrate the ability to reconstruct that argument evaluate an established opinion/analysis by introducing new evidence or reinterpreting the given evidence develop a well-constructed argument using primary sources or data and present the argument persuasively and articulately apply ones skills and knowledge beyond the classroom to contribute to the campus and world community in an enlightened manner. In addition to inspiring the 91 student to achieve some, or all, of the characteristics cited above, the facultys responsibility is to cultivate an academic environment in which the pursuit and generation of knowledge is core to our community identity. As faculty we commit ourselves to transmitting to our students the excitement and gratification we experience from furthering academic study and research. We welcome and encourage our students to share investigatory opportunities and to join us in collaborative research projects. By sharing our passion for diligent research and creative projects we simultaneously introduce our students to the rigorous standards of professional scholars and artists. Academic rigor is a process by which faculty use various pedagogical techniques to challenge continuously a student beyond his or her self-expectations. These methods might include any number of traditional teaching toolschallenging reading and writing assignments, difficult exams, engaging discussions, tougher grading standardsbut what they all have in common is the goal of greater challenge. We must nudge, and, if necessary, push each studenteven our very bestto discover hidden, untapped abilities where engagement, critical thinking, and boundless inquiry lead to intellectual transformation. The overall process of intellectual transformation requires active participation from both the faculty member and the student. The faculty member is responsible not only for recognizing a students demonstrated capacity for achievement, but also to identify the unique methods that will stretch that students intellectual capacity beyond its current limits. The students responsibility is equally critical: he or she must sacrifice the comfort that accompanies the feeling of coasting through ones courses and be willing to reflect constantly on past performance and then acknowledge that he or she is capable of more. The student must also take ownership of his or her education. Together, the student, the faculty, and the College must foster a culture in which significant intellectual independence is rewarded. In the end, the pursuit of academic excellence is an ongoing process that some students may never embrace. Nevertheless, CEPP believes that such a pursuit represents the highest aspiration of any institution of higher learning. Our goal must be to offer a transformative educational experience where students flourish in an intellectually rigorous environment, one where they learn to appreciateand even enjoydeeper analysis, more complex thinking, and greater intellectual challenge. The quest for academic excellence and rigor, therefore, is inherently a process and never a result; for if a college believes it has realized its goal of excellence through rigor, it will inevitably languish.  The Academic Vision Statement (2004) is available at the CEPP homepage, http://www.skidmore.edu/academics/CEPP/index.html.  The strategic plan is available at the Presidents homepage, http://www.skidmore.edu/administration/president/. 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