DeCal @ Other Campuses
Recently DeCal has been contacted by many passionate, motivated students across the country (and even internationally!), who are interested in starting DeCal-like programs at their colleges and universities. Some student-initiated programs have been in existence for a while, some are just getting started, and some are still being mulled about in the minds of interested students. Here is some information about the programs we know of. If you are a student at any of these schools interested in developing the program, we will be happy to connect you to the other students involved with student-initiated education at your campus. Please contact us for more info.
UC Campuses
UC Davis has a chapter of the Education for a Sustainable Living Program (ESLP), which offers Action-Research Projects for credit. These are projects initiated by students and having to do with environmental sustainability issues. For more info about UC Davis’s ESLP student group, visit http://eslp.net/davis/davis.htm and for more information about Action-Research Projects visit http://eslp.net/ARProjects.htm.
UCLA debuted its first student-initiated courses in the spring quarter of 2006. Their USIE (Undergraduate Student Initiated Education) program is being piloted for two years. It was spearheaded by student Michelle Sassounian, Academic Affairs Commissioner of UCLA’s student government (Undergraduate Students Association Council). Visit their website at http://www.usieseminars.org/.
UC Merced, the newest addition to the UC system, just started in 2005. Its first student government is in place for the 2006-2007 school year. Stephanie Chan is a senator at UC Merced’s student government, who is interested in getting student-initiated education started at her school. This is the first time that the ideals of democratic education and student-initiated courses are present at the very formation of a student government. We look forward to seeing democratic education evolve at Merced! For more information about UC Merced’s student government, please visit http://www.asucm.org/.
UC San Diego has many students interested in student-initiated coursework, though it has not yet been organized on a big scale. COGS 91 is a course offered by SCANS (Students for Cognitive and Neurosciences), taught for the first time in the winter quarter of 2006. It was taught by Professor Jaime Pineda but in subsequent quarters will have more and more oversight by the CSSA (Cognitive Science Student Association). For more info on this student group, visit http://cssa.ucsd.edu. Interest in student-initiated education has also been expressed by Kylee McGee of the Education for a Sustainable Living Program (ESLP) and undergraduate student Martin Dubcovsky.
In fall 2006, Jenn Shin from UCSD’s Amnesty International contacted DeCal to help her start a UC and the Bomb class. (UC & the Bomb started at UC Berkeley and has since spread to UC Santa Cruz and UC Santa Barbara). In spring quarter 2007 she will be co-teaching a senior seminar with Physics Professor Hirsch entitled “UC-made nuclear bombs: Good or Bad?” In spring 2007, Brittany Young from UCSD contacted DeCal, asking to get in touch with others on her campus who are interested in starting a student-initiated education program there. She is drafting a proposal to pilot a program of student-initiated seminars at UCSD. Laura Kwak, a member of LINK, contacted us in spring 2007. She is interested in helping start a DeCal-like program at UCSD, in order to educate the student body about North Korean politics. The seeds of democratic education are definitely being planted at this campus!
UC Santa Barbara showcases democratic education through its Education for a Sustainable Living Program (ESLP). This group also has chapters at Berkeley, Davis, LA, San Diego, Santa Barbara, and Santa Cruz. Katie Maynard is a graduate of UCSB and is currently the Group Studies Project Coordinator of the program. They are working on making their courses more accessible to the general student body. For more info please visit http://orgs.sa.ucsb.edu/esl/.
UC Santa Cruz also has a chapter of the Education for a Sustainable Living Program (ESLP). In the spring quarter of 2006 they offered many courses, including “UC and the Bomb,” modeled after the long-running UC Berkeley course examining the relationship between our University and nuclear labs. For more information about ESLP courses at Santa Cruz, please visit http://www.eslp.net/santacruz/santacruz.htm.
There are 10 campuses in the University of California system. We are unaware of student-initiated education programs at UC Irvine or UC Riverside. UC San Francisco offers graduate programs only.
University of Texas at Austin
Began in 2005, the Program for Democratic Education at Texas (DemTex) provides students with the opportunity to engage in democratic, egalitarian classes. DemTex remains committed to steer students towards their own educational interests and presents knowledge garnered by similar programs in the nation for sharing and building upon a collective wisdom. Classes offered through DemTex include 21st Century Fiction, Leadership towards a Sustainable World and Genocide. DeCal is honored to be a part of DemTex’s history and contributes to its inception.
“DemTex is community. It’s people who don’t want more colleagues or acquaintances but do want more people and friends. DemTex is here to bridge differences. We want to give each other the opportunity to build new friendships with people, who we might not normally meet. In today’s polarizing, zero-sum world, expanding perspective is tough because it’s hard to be ideologically vulnerable, to admit that you might be wrong because you’re afraid the guy next to you is waiting to pounce on your mistake.”
“So many students graduate without any idea of what they want to do, of what the world is like, of what is possible. DemTex is a safe and caring place to share and discover together. To find meaning and sustain it in a world that can often seem meaningless.”
- DemTex for the Dreamer
For more information, please visit DemTex website at http://www.demtexonline.com/index2.htm
Oberlin College
ExCo was begun in 1968 as an experiment in alternative education, and today it still provides the Oberlin community with perhaps the most enjoyable and most rewarding experience in college learning.
The Experimental College is run as a student organization and headed by a volunteer committee which is solely responsible for choosing the curriculum and maintaing the integrity of the program throughout the academic semester. In a given semester there may be between 60 to 90 courses, so there is always plenty of variety. Anyone may take
classes—students, faculty members, staff members, and townspeople alike. Those who demonstrate expertise and enthusiasm may teach a course as long as that course is judged to have educational merit and a reasonably serious purpose.
Due to its flexible nature ExCo reflects the current academic, intellectual, social, ideological, philosophical, political, emotional, sexual, and fashion trends of the Oberlin community.
Students may receive college credit for taking ExCo courses, which are offered for 1 to 3 credit hours.Each student may accumulate up to 5 of the 112 credit hours needed for graduation through ExCo, and, of course, can take any ExCo course for no credit at all. Those who teach ExCo courses also receive credit.
The ExCo Committee is the student organization that oversees and evaluates the applications of proposed courses, prints the ExCo catalogue every semester, handles the everyday bureaucratic tasks, and organizes ExCo registration.
All the information about Experimental College is on the website: http://www.oberlin.edu/stuorg/exco/
—Alex Roseman, ExCo treasurer
Stanford University
Stanford’s Student Initiated Courses (SIC) program allows student to design and facilitate classes in a variety of subjects. Many courses deal with topics typically underrepresented in academia or offer service-learning programs. Credit is granted for SIC courses, which are taught by students, faculty, or guest lecturers. About ten classes are facilitated each semester, with topics ranging from “Harry Potter: The Meaning Behind the Magic” to “Facing US-China Relations.” Facilitators are selected and trained in association with the Associated Students of Stanford University, and grant money is available to encourage projects in democratic education. For more information, please visit the SIC website at http://assu.stanford.edu/sic/red.html
Tufts University
The Experimental College at Tufts is a joint venture of faculty and students offering innovative education methods in general education courses. Students, professors, and members of the community have the opportunity to teach and learn in credit-bearing courses in a variety of areas. In addition, the first year programs “Explorations” and “Perspectives” offer upper-level undergraduates the opportunity to teach and advise younger students while gaining leadership and pedagogical experience. Ex College has been an integral part of the Tufts academic community for the past thirty-six years, and offers nearly 1500 students the opportunity to participate in non-traditional education each year. Check out the program at http://www.excollege.tufts.edu/.
Online
Wikiversity is a community for the creation and use of free learning materials, and activities. Wikiversity is a multidimensional social organization dedicated to learning, teaching, research and service. http://en.wikiversity.org/