An Introduction to COMPASS, the UMass Dartmouth Learning Communities Initiative
In Fall 2003, the UMass Dartmouth Learning Communities Initiative launched its first series of learning communities, linking first-year Gen-Ed courses to first-year writing courses (with the exception of an Honors Psychology/Philosophy pairing). Instructors for those linked courses collaborated on curriculum and learning outcomes in an attempt to help students see the interrelatedness of subjects and learning, and to nudge them to forge connections between disciplines where perhaps none were readily apparent, and to allow faculty to move outside their disciplinary silo. So, for instance, Business, Government, and Social Responsibility, when paired with Critical Writing and Reading, would ask the crossover question (of both faculty and student): How can a Management course in corporate ethics help us understand writing, and how can a first year writing and reading course help us understand corporate ethics? Prompting these reversals in critical perspective complicates and vitalizes the material in both courses, leveraging student and faculty alike to think at higher levels of abstract reasoning. In 2003, faculty in Political Science, Philosophy, Psychology, Anthology, Women Studies, Physics, Management, History, and English teamed up to form learning communities. In 2004, under the new name COMPASS (Community Of Motivated People Actively Seeking Scholarship), Math, Philosophy, Anthropology, Economics, Physics, and English faculty joined one another in forming learning communities.
The educational philosophy of COMPASS doesn’t rest on curricular development, however. COMPASS also depends on the early establishment of a learning cohort, students who share a pair of courses, and who, through regular and familiar interaction with those other students (in common pursuit of an academic goal), begin to form relationships, both scholarly and social. To foster these bonds, class size is kept low, and enrollment is restricted to those students in the learning community. Because of the small class size and restricted access, students in COMPASS come to know each other quickly, and when working best, students in COMPASS speak with each other – while having lunch in the cafeteria, between classes in one of the lounges, or in their dorms – about how to get a handle on some thorny concept, or how to tackle an upcoming project, etc. Students helping students, working collaboratively to address their collective uncertainty. More is gained here than just increased scholastic understanding (although that would in itself be enough); owing to the intentional structuring of the learning communities, very early on in their very first semester students begin to form trusting relationships with each other that not only augment their academic experience, but augment their social experience as well.
A COMPASS tenet is that students will respond more positively to an academic program if they feel a sense of collegiality in it, and the sooner the learning community can foster that collegiality, the sooner the positive benefits will begin to take shape. Yet, this applies not just to the classroom, but to the University culture in general, and so to this end COMPASS models a third facet beyond linked courses and an established/limited cohort: the peer mentor. Each pair of linked courses and student cohort is joined by a peer mentor, an upper-level student trained by the Office of Student Affairs to serve as an intermediary and student advocate across a range of needs, from helping new students locate campus services to helping them manage their time effectively, and many points in between. Working in conjunction with their learning communities faculty, COMPASS peer mentors also look to develop extracurricular activities which loop back into the classroom, be it showing a feature film which addresses classroom concerns, arranging field trips, and so forth. The peer mentor’s primary concern is to help new students acclimate themselves quickly to the campus, to expedite that moment when they feel integrated into, and a belonging member of, the campus community.
COMPASS is still young and growing. Perhaps you’d like to grow with us. If you are student centered, innovative, and willing to take on the challenge of coordinating your studies with that of a colleague from another discipline, or if you would like to help in developing and administering future COMPASS initiatives, please call or drop us a line.
| Jerry Blitefield 508-910-6601 jblitefield@uamssd.edu |
Ellen Christian 508-999-8758 echristian@umassd.edu |
Michael Laliberte |
