Page sections
- Honors programs
- Interdisciplinary teaching
- Internationalizing the curriculum
- Learning communities
- Undergraduate research opportunities
- Service learning
Honors programs
Honors programs are designed for students looking for more intensive academic work. High grade-point averages are required to maintain honor student standing. Programs vary among the schools and colleges, but all depend on faculty willing to teach honors courses, or offer honors credit in their courses. The directors of the different college honors programs can offer assistance in designing good honors components to your courses.
Interdisciplinary teaching
The UW–Madison has a long history of support for interdisciplinary teaching and curricula. Among these are the many area and international programs (African Studies, East Asian Studies, European Studies, Global Cultures, Hebrew and Semitic Studies, International Studies, Latin American, Caribbean and Iberian Studies, Middle East Studies, Russia, East Europe and Central Asia Studies, Southeast Asian Studies), ethnic studies programs (Afro-American Studies, American Indian Studies, Asian American Studies, Chicana/o Studies), and Women’s Studies, as well as Biocore, Environmental Studies, Folklore Studies, Integrated Liberal Studies, Jewish Studies, Legal Studies, Medieval Studies, and Religious Studies among others.
Faculty sometimes find their home departments hesitate to release them to teach in interdisciplinary programs because of worries about which department will receive ”credit” for the professor’s teaching. The university tracks credits both by the department listed in the Timetable and by the department of the instructor. As an explanatory memo from the Provostnotes, university reports track student-credit hours taught back to the department that is paying the instructor’s salary. This procedure should help overcome some of the concerns that deans, department chairs and faculty have about teaching in interdisciplinary programs. For more explanation, see the Credits Follow Instructor policy.
Internationalizing the curriculum
The Global Gateway is the campus guide to international programs at UW–Madison.
Learning communities
The university has a rich tradition of encouraging the formation of communities within our large university setting. At UW–Madison learning communities encompass a whole breadth of organizations that bring together students, faculty and staff who share common interests. What all of these communities have in common is that students are active participants, setting the agenda.
One particular type of learning community — First-year Interest Groups (FIGs) — offers wonderful opportunities to help new undergraduates become integrated into academics at the university level. A FIG consists of a group of 20 first-year students who live in the same residence hall or residential “neighborhood” and who also enroll in a cluster of three classes together. Each FIG cluster of courses has a central theme, and the central or “synthesizing” course will integrate content from the other two classes.FIGS need faculty willing to organize a FIG and teach its synthesizing course. Contact the director of the FIGS Program, Greg Smith, 263-6504 or glsmith@wisc.edu.
The campsu has many other examples of learning communities, including residential learning communities. Many of these depend on the involvement of faculty and academic staff, including non-resident faculty directors for the residential learning communities. For more information about these, contact Paul N. Evans, director of University Housing, 262-6982 or paul.evans@housing.wisc.edu.
Undergraduate research opportunities
The 1998 Boyer Commission Report, Reinventing Undergraduate Education: A Blueprint for America’s Research Universities, argued that hands-on research should become increasingly integrated into undergraduate programs:
“…Undergraduates beginning in the freshman year can learn through research. In the sciences and social sciences, undergraduates can become junior members of the research teams that now engage professors and graduate students. In the humanities, undergraduates should have the opportunity to work in primary materials. … The research university needs to make that zone of transition from senior to graduate student easy to enter and easy to cross. For those who do not enter graduate school, the abilities to identify, analyze and resolve problems will prove invaluable in professional life and in citizenship.”
UW–Madison has many different research opportunities for undergraduatesthat need active particpation by faculty and academic staff.
UW–Madison offers many opportunities for students to engage in research; in some cases, programs provide to students and/or their faculty or staff mentors. See the listing at Undergraduate Research Opportunities. Faculty make important contributions to students’ education by integrating research opportunities in their courses, supervising independent research projects, or incorporating undergraduates in substantive ways in their research.
Students may approach you with ideas for research they would like to undertake, either under your direction or with a request for ideas about who might help them. For some assistance in advising students on how to proceed, see Getting Started with Undergraduate Research, excellent advice to students (with implications for how faculty proceed), compiled by Dr. Gary Roberts of the Center for Biology Education and members of the College of Agricultural & Life Sciences’ Honors & Undergraduate Research Committee.
Service learning
The Morgridge Center for Public Service offers many different kinds of assistance to help you teach a service-learning course or integrate service learning into your teaching.