News FeedFrom tap to environmental issues, many new classes are being created at Truman, by its own students.
While Truman prides itself on professors, not teaching assistants, leading classes, undergraduate students are stepping up and broadening Truman’s course list by teaching extra classes themselves. SIC, Student Initiated Courses, and SILO, Student Initiated Learning Opportunities, are the main programs available for students to create and teach classes. Both these programs officially started this semester but even before SIC and SILO, two environmental classes were already being taught by students.
Hannah Hemmelgarn said she took Expanding Environmentalism Consciousness class, a pre-SILO student-taught class, as a freshman. She said she enjoyed the student teacher so much that she ended up teaching two semesters as well as one semester of Grassroots Environmentalism, which is another pre-SILO class.
“I ‘taught’ – we would say precepted, because the role of the student in these courses is far from the institutional hierarchical idea of teacher versus student, we all learn together –Grassroots Environmentalism and Expanding Environmental Consciousness,” Hemmelgarn said.
Hemmelgarn taught the class once a week with two to three other preceptors and got paid through scholarship hours. She said the class mostly consists of weekly readings and weekly papers. She said the only hard part was grading papers.
“It can be hard to be both teacher and friend, and a lot of times I had a lot of friends in the course from the start,” Hemmelgarn said. “So it was important to establish that, while we as preceptors understand the hectic life of a student and want to be sympathetic, but we also have to have grading done by a certain time and want to be as fair as possible, so work standards are pretty high.”
Hemmelgarn said she rarely had a problem with students especially since both preceptor and student are passionate about the class. Almost all SIC and SILO classes are non-major classes, so both the teacher and students are simply attending because of interest in the subject.
“The benefits of being student-led far outweigh the shortcomings, especially in a discussion based class where students feel much more comfortable in a space where they don't feel like they are constantly being judged by someone who knows so much more than them,” Hemmelgarn said.
She said it was especially satisfying to go to class every week and see the development of peers and students and the preceptors learn as much as the students do. Though Hemmelgarn said she loves teaching her classes, she does not plan on teaching as a profession.
Senior Andrea Montgomery, has taken tap classes since she was young, but found Truman lacking in dance classes. To apply for a class, Montgomery submitted a proposal which included her goals and objectives for the class, budget, timeline and methodology to the Provost office to be considered for SILO this semester. Montgomery teaches a tap as a health 196 course and get’s paid a $500 stipend to teach.
“I would definitely like to see more dance classes on Truman's campus, because we don't have full time dance faculty, which makes dance courses for credit few and far between,” Montgomery said. “By utilizing Truman students the university could offer many more dance classes for relatively cheap.”
Mongomery said she feels that especially at Truman students are willing to step up and provide classes when they see lacking.
She said the only time she struggles with the class is when she has a lot going on with her other classes, and has difficulty trying to find time to make lesson plans.
“The students in my class are all extremely easy to teach, as they all do what they are supposed to and never act like I shouldn't be teaching them because I'm their peer,” Mongomery said.
Senior Cody Sumpter recently started teaching his own Science Fiction movie and dinner class. This class is based off other dinner and movie classes and is not through SIC or SILO. He leads the class once a week and get’s paid in credit hours.
“My friend Nathanial and I have been talking about doing a sci-fi movie class since our freshman year,” Sumpter said. “It is our senior year so we figured better late than never.”
Sumpter said he loves that Truman major classes are not taught by teaching assistants, but that it does not leave enough staff for extra classes.
“Students are the ones who notice the holes in the curriculum,” Sumpter said. “I think that’s what makes Truman unique is students here have so many interests, experiences and knowledge and that others [are] ready to learn. I think it’s great that Truman is allowing students to become so involved in the creation and execution of new classes.”
So far, SIC and SILO have only granted a few requests for classes but Sumpter said he thinks there will be more in the future once people hear about it.
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