Rhonda, you suggested that I put into writing the subject that I would
like to discuss with you this afternoon. My idea is to suggest a
possible new way to view the Division 1 questions.

Hampshire's original idea was that Division 1s would be 4 projects and
would be begun and completed during the first year. However, now a lot
of people (faculty and students) are convinced that 4 projects is not
right for everyone's first year. I agree, based on our experience. So
then, I think there are two possible routes for the discussion to
proceed in. The first (which we began to explore a number of years ago
with the two-course option) is to explore what kind of a "Div 1
experience" would properly fit into the first year. The second is to
ask how we might reframe a Hampshire education so that projects fit
into it more effectively.

As much as I agree that the discussions we are having are a terrific
response to the question of what we can fit into the first year, I
want to explore the kinds of proposals we might see from the second.

The discussion of the second direction assumes that the main parts of
a Hampshire education --- projects, a concentration, and a culmination
project --- are fundamentally worthwhile and should be kept, but that
we have discovered that we are trying to fit them into a structure
that may not be appropriate for many students. Another way to put it
is that the ideas behind the Divs are good, but that the structure of
Divs sometimes makes us confused about the roles of those processes,
and sometimes does not allow the right kind of space for those
processes to work.

This alternative discussion I suspect would emerge from the second
question therefore relies on new kinds of structure. I am going to
suggest here one kind of new structure that might be explored in that
discussion. Suppose we had a "Main Contract" and decided to include
all of a student's work that is currently included in Divisions 1 and
2. A part of this "Contract" would be four projects, one in each of
the schools. They would have to be completed before the completion of
the contract. Also included in the contract would be an area of
concentration. With a system like this, students who feel the need to
do their more concentration-like work before their breadth-work would
be allowed to, and students who choose to do their breadth-work first
would be allowed to. Those students who are ready and eager to pursue
projects upon arrival at Hampshire can do so; those who are not ready
are not forced into an activity that is not appropriate to them. This
makes the first year feel like a much more productive time than it
currently feel like for some students (who are rightly confused about
whether their learning activities fit into Div 1s, 2s, or nowhere at
all). Additionally, it gives the necessary room to students (like
myself) who do not want to try to fit a project in before they have
found one they are really enthusiastic about.

This "Projects and Courses" idea is presented as an example of the
kind of new structure that might emerge from exploring the second
question, not as {\em the} answer that emerges for the second
question. I simply hope that we (Hampshire) consider that second
question sometime in our discussions.


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(which we tried with the 2-course, and now may try with a new
kind of Div 1) may be responding not to the real problem (we are
trying to fit projects into the wrong space) but to a kind of straw
man that was unknowlingly constructed when the college was designed
(how can we fit Div 1s into the first year).

These slightly different ways of reading our current problems propose
completely different courses of action. If we respond to the second
reading of the problem (as I think the current first-year discussion
may be), then it is logical to think about what the best kinds of
things that can fit into the "Div 1/First Year" combination. And so we
are having good discussions about what we could do in the first
year. And we really are.



It was not my intention here to argue for an integrated Course/Project
plan. Rather, I sought simply to suggest it as a possible alternative
route for the discussion. 



An alternative to solving our pre-2-course-problems (which, as we now
know, were not solved by the two-course option) is to realize that
people can do their projects later, and still have perfectly good
experiences with them. I certainly have had an exceptional experience
with my SS div 1, which I am doing now in my third year. 

Lots of Hampshire folks think that the purpose of div 1s is to "learn
how to learn". Interestingly, this is also reportedly the purpose of
an entire Hampshire education. So then, the idea must be that the
first year is to prepare people for the bulk of their experience here,
when they will be "learning how to learn." Yet this brings me to the
confusijng conclusion that perhaps the first year is to "learn how to
learn how to learn".


So here's what we need to do: rename "div
1s" to be "Projects". Then rename the div 2 to be "Concentration
Contract" or something like that. You an do the projects anytime
before you do your div 3. Many folks I know really have been more
interested in doing their "Concentration" stuff before their
Distributed "Projects", and they won't budge. SO, FINE. Then do it
that way. We need to decide as a community what our BAs realy mean,
and I suspect they mean "depth, breadth, and projects". If this is a
correct suspicion, then our ideas about thinking Projects should be
done in the first year rather than whenever they really fit (an idea
deriving from the name, DIV 1s, which is a product of one of FPH's
silly mistakes we should have recognized long ago) is really itching
to be replaced.

So, what you do when you get here should count in your Contract, your
first semester or whenever. Of course. Also, I think people should be
including more projects in their actual contracts, but that is another
rampage for another day.