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Teach in COLLEGE

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Teach in the first-year Civic, Liberal, and Global Education requirement!

In autumn 2021, Stanford launched a new first-year requirement, the Civic, Liberal, and Global Education requirement, or “COLLEGE.” The COLLEGE requirement emphasizes a first-year experience that engages all of our increasingly diverse students in a purposeful study of liberal education and encourages the exploration of academic opportunities they can encounter at Stanford. It seeks to provide a shared basis on which all students may build their Stanford education, strengthening the common understanding of university values and community across the undergraduate population. Finally, the new COLLEGE requirement underscores Stanford’s commitment to educate students for responsible citizenship in an increasingly complex and interconnected world.

We invite interested faculty to offer courses as a part of the new requirement. There are two main ways to participate:

Option 1: Join an Existing Faculty Team

You can join one of our existing faculty teams and teach a seminar in one of the following courses designed for COLLEGE:

Option 2: New Course Proposal

A team of faculty can offer a new course on the theme of Global Perspectives that addresses the learning goals provided below. Global Perspectives courses may be either a cluster of seminars or lecture with discussion sections, but are offered in the spring quarter only. Faculty interested in submitting a new course proposal may contact one or all of the following to discuss preliminary ideas, before constructing a proposal:

  • Lianne Kurina, Professor (Teaching) of Medicine, and Chair of the First-Year Requirement Governance Board; lkurina@stanford.edu,
  • Dan Edelstein, Professor of French, and Faculty Director of Stanford Introductory Studies, danedels@stanford.edu
  • Parna Sengupta, Director of Stanford Introductory Studies, parnas@stanford.edu

Why teach in COLLEGE?

In addition to the exciting opportunity to engage with first-year students, teaching in COLLEGE offers:

  • Pedagogic development and support with our partners in CTL
  • Collaboration with COLLEGE lecturers who are full-time specialists in teaching first-year students

In Summer 2021, there was a summer quarter course incubator opportunity. This allowed faculty to develop innovative curricular and pedagogical ideas for their first-year requirement courses (focused on Civic, Liberal, and Global Perspectives). It provided these faculty teams with the space, time, and the support of university resources (including a stipend) to work collaboratively on their courses.

Learning Goals for the Civic, Liberal and Global Education requirement

The COLLEGE requirement is overseen by the First Year Requirement Governance Board.

COLLEGE courses on Liberal Education should:

  • Equip students to reflect critically about their educational goals and to explore academic opportunities.

COLLEGE courses on Citizenship should:

  • Introduce students to different ethical theories, and equip them with the concepts and methods necessary for working through ethical quandaries;
  • Provide students with a historically grounded sense of where democracy comes from, the trade-offs it involves, and the main dangers confronting it;

COLLEGE courses on Global Perspectives should:

  • Develop the critical and ethical thinking skills and knowledge base for responsible local, national, and global citizenship.
  • Develop in students an awareness of cultural diversity, as well as cultural self-awareness, and the ability to recognize connections between cultural, economic, and social practices across countries
  • Provide students with a set of methods for conducting comparative or systemic studies of global phenomena.