The  
		   Experimental
		    Program in
		     Education and
		      Community

EPEC At Hampshire College 1996 Brochure

EPEC Courses are small, flexible courses approved by the Experimental Program and Hampshire College as cocurricular courses. These courses are listed in the Hampshire College Academic History and may be included in a Hampshire student's portfolio, but will not be recommended for transfer credit. The courses do not fall under the jurisdiction of any of Hampshire's four schools and do not need faculty supervision. These courses, however, do not eschew faculty contact but rather encourage faculty participation as learners and resources. Some EPEC courses are exploratory, whereas others are oriented around a particular project. Often they include field trips, guest participants, and open presentations to Hampshire. Each EPEC course has a sponsor. Some sponsors are experts; others are simply participants. Students, staff, faculty, alumni, and friends of the College are all invited to sponsor and participate in EPEC courses. Some EPEC courses may be cosponsored by one of Hampshire's four schools. These will have additional approval procedures.

Most EPEC courses will be advertised in the EPEC course catalog, but some may be formed early in the semester. Hampshire students are the only participants officially listed on enrollment records. Though these courses are accepted as a part of a Hampshire student's portfolio, and may provide for the development of Division I and II projects, they do not count towards half of two-course options.

EPEC courses for this fall include Applied Sustainable Agriculture, Building the New Society: Intentional Communities and Alternative Schools, Utopias and Dystopias, Relativity, Experiential Computer Science, and the Hampshire Assessment Squad. Come to the Introductory Meeting or call for a full EPEC course catalog with course descriptions.

Community Meals - EPEC believes that education becomes much more meaningful when it can be shared with a community. Weekly Community Meals will provide a forum for formal and informal sharing, as well as an opportunity to bring different parts of the community together. This fall, these meetings will be held Thursday evenings.

Integrated Living-Learning - As an experiment in community-based education, some housing has been set aside in a dormitory for students who wish to create an intimate living-learning community.

Student Contract Facilitators are veterans in the Hampshire system. They help other students to design an education that reflects their personal vision, skills, and needs.

Peer Groups will be made of 5-7 students from all divisional levels. They will become familiar with one another's academic work and personal history. They will help each other to explore the possibilities for their education, as well as participate on each other's divisional committees.

Some Questions & Answers:

What do I (or what does Hampshire) get out of EPEC? Hampshire College believes that traditional courses are one of many important learning environments. EPEC provides a great deal of flexibility to help students include nontraditional learning experiences in their lives and education, complementing rather than replacing traditional forums. For many students, this is exactly why they are at Hampshire. Ordinarily, no student should plan to take more than one EPEC course in a given semester.

How can I sign up for an EPEC class? Come to the Introductory Meeting advertised in this brochure to find out the first meeting time for the course. Or talk to the course sponsor. Because preregistration at Hampshire is not binding, you may change to an EPEC course at the beginning of the semester.

Is EPEC separate from the rest of the college? No. Each EPEC program is open to the entire Hampshire community.

How much time commitment does EPEC require? Each EPEC Program entails a time commitment appropriate to its task and specifically agreed to by each EPEC class or group. For instance, one EPEC course may require only a few hours a week of meeting time, whereas another may entail many hours of preparation, field trips, and class meetings. Each class or peer group decides for itself.

When will EPEC classes meet? The first class meeting will be planned by the course's sponsor and announced at the Introductory Meeting. Later meeting times will be decided upon by the course members.

Do EPEC courses and peer groups have funding available for meals, materials, field trips, or guest speakers? Yes.

How can I sponsor an EPEC course? Contact the Director for details. Basically, sponsoring a course means writing a course description to be approved by EPEC and Hampshire College. We help you with this.

Who runs EPEC? As much as possible, EPEC is governed and administered by those involved. It is structured so that each class and peer group is self-governable. The few communal decisions are made in community meals. The Director, a student, handles the administrative details with the assistance of student interns who want to learn how to run the program. The Director, as well as several other advanced students, are also available as a resource for each of the classes and peer groups.

How Did EPEC Start? EPEC is a student-led program, conceived during a 3-week exchange in January, 1995 between two alternative colleges, Hampshire and the Johnston Center at the University of Redlands. Its gestation at Hampshire College spurred the formation of several student-led classes in the 1995-1996 school year, as well as the creation of the Alternative Higher Education Network.

Come to this fall's

Introductory Meeting and Curriculum Presentation

Thursday, September 5, 1996, 7pm

East Lecture Hall

Franklin Patterson Hall

Hampshire College

Potluck Dinner on the Library Lawn at 6:00.

At this meeting, each course will be briefly described by its sponsor. There will also be a time for questions of all kinds.