Dear Colleagues:

 

Faculty who met to develop a summer UTC study program in Oxford may be
wondering about the status and future of the program. Let me provide an
update here.

 

Our first summer program took 26 UTC students to the Oxford Centre for
Hebrew and Jewish Studies for five weeks in July and August 2007. Students
enrolled in two courses, offered by Bryan Hampton (English) and Michelle
White (History): Eng 499, Milton's Revolutions, and Hist 385: Tudor and
Stuart England. Michelle and Bryan did a marvelous job integrating site
visits or field trips into their course outlines. During a typical week,
students traveled to a historic location in Britain on Tuesdays and
Thursdays (usually departing by coach from the Centre at 8 AM, returning at
6 or 7 PM), while on Mondays and Wednesdays they were busy in the classroom
for 5-6 hours each day. Friday-Sunday they were free for individual travel
and many took advantage of the opportunity to visit Dublin, Paris, Rome, and
elsewhere. 

 

Based on student surveys conducted after our return to the US, the program
was a great success. It was an intensive learning experience and the
students worked very hard (as did the faculty) but the feedback was
gratifying.

 

Salary and Expenses

Faculty received summer school salary, plus travel expenses and housing.
Unfortunately, we were not able to adjust salaries in response to the
dramatic decline in the dollar's value nor to pay a per diem. Perhaps in the
future some adjustment may be considered. 

 

The Future

Our intention has been to offer this program each summer. For summer 2008,
however, we have run into a snag: the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish
Studies, even though it brought some additional housing on line in 2007,
does not have sufficient housing to accommodate the student summer program
and my summer NEH faculty institute, "Holy Land and Holy City in classical
Judaism, Christianity, and Islam." (for details, see
www.utc.edu/NEHHolyland) Since we had made a commitment to NEH prior to the
development of the UTC summer student program, I have been working to find
an alternate venue in Oxford for a 2008 student program. One reasonable
alternative has presented itself at St Clare's, Oxford (see
http://www.stclares.ac.uk/). St Clare's is an expensive "college" for 500
secondary school students from across Europe who board on campus. Although
associated with Oxford University it is not part of the university, and
therefore it is not bound to the university calendar. Consequently, it can
accommodate UTC students for a four or five-week summer program as early as
mid-May. The cost for student housing is about the same as at the Oxford
Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies. 

 

 

Call for Course Proposals

If we want a summer program in Oxford in 2008, we will need to move quickly
to:

 

1. solicit course proposals from UTC faculty. Ideally, we would like to pair
cognate courses that promise dual enrollment, as we did in 2007. They need
not come from the departments of History or English. 

 

2. then, we will have to encourage student enrollment 

 

 

As a first step, may I ask interested faculty to send me a course proposal
by Dec. 1st? A one or two paragraph description will be adequate at this
point. Please do indicate how the course will take advantage of the location
to schedule field trips or site visits. After the proposals are received, I
will schedule a meeting with faculty from the 2007 program so that we can
answer any questions you may have.

 

Thanks for your continuing interest. 

Yours truly,

Irven Resnick

Philosophy and Religion

 


* UTCSTAFF home page:  http://raven.utc.edu/archives/utcstaff.html *
* unsubscribe:  mailto:[log in to unmask]  *
*   subscribe:  mailto:[log in to unmask]    *