Inquiry on Residential Settings and the Liberal Arts

Sub-inquiry on out of class student/faculty collaboration: Benefits and relevance in a liberal arts education

The following is an overview of the background and progress of the "student/faculty collaboration" sub-inquiry as of February, 2003. Although this page will be updated periodically, please do not hesitate to contact Anne Bost (bosta@wabash.edu) or Charlie Blaich (blaichc@wabash.edu) if you would like to discuss this project more thoroughly.

Abstract
One of the primary explorations of the Center of Inquiry in the Liberal Arts at Wabash College is to study the interplay of "formal" and "informal" curricula in liberal arts education-understanding how and why students benefit from the embedding of in-class learning ("formal curriculum") into a larger learning environment of student-student and student-faculty interactions outside the classroom ("informal curriculum"). Numerous investigators have lauded the benefits of out-of-class experiences for undergraduate students (reviewed by Terenzini, Pascarella, and Blimling (1) and Kuh (2), among others), with particular emphasis on frequent student/faculty interaction and involvement of students in faculty research programs (3).

Yet, despite general agreement on the positive impact of such experiences, much remains to be learned about (A) different ways of structuring student/faculty interactions outside the classroom to maximize student learning, (B) the dynamic balance of the intentional structuring of internships on the one hand and the serendipitous matching of student/faculty pairs (with differing expectations and teaching and learning styles) on the other, and (C) correlations of specific student benefits with specific types of structured student/faculty out-of-class interactions. We are using on-campus summer internships as a model system to investigate these areas. In the ongoing pilot study, we are examining the experiences of student/faculty pairs engaged in summer internships at Wabash College in the natural and social sciences and humanities for 8-week periods between May-July, 2002, and/or May-July, 2003.

The full report
Read the full report on progress of this inquiry in Adobe® Acrobat® format.
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References

1. Terenzini, P. T., E. T. Pascarella, and G. S. Blimling (1999). Students' out-of-class experiences and their influence on learning and cognitive development: A literature review. Journal of College Student Development, 40, 610-623.
   
2. Kuh, G. D. (1995). The other curriculum: Out-of-class experiences associated with student learning and personal development. Journal of Higher Education, 66: 123-155.
   
3. Astin, A.W. (2000). How the Liberal Arts College Affects Students. In Distinctively American: The Residential Liberal Arts Colleges, S. Koblik and S.R. Graubard. New Brunswick, Transaction Publishers: 77-100.