![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/Images\/Bates_Magazine\/summer06\/corkscrew-pg5-2591-CWEB.jpg\")
A 2005 Short Term class exploring the science of roller coasters visited Ohio’s Cedar Point Amusement Park. Here, an all-Bates complement rides the Corkscrew. Photograph by Brian Pfohl.<\/p><\/div>\n
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Beloved by students in its middle age, Short Term cruises along despite some design flaws, such as the way it compresses the fall and especially the winter semesters, and the way some students adopt a laissez-faire sense of fun during Short Term that reverberates through the ranks.<\/p>\n
At its best, however, Short Term and its courses provide what psychologist and Dean of the Faculty Jill Reich calls \u201cmeaningfulness of task.\u201d She\u2019s studied the development of perception, memory, and learning in children, and she says that when students attach great meaning to an experience \u2014 such as the Short Term unit \u201cRoller Coasters: Theory, Design, and Properties,\u201d which in 2005 included a field trip to Cedar Point Amusement Park, in Ohio \u2014 \u201cthey\u2019re better able to engage in the kind of complex thinking and problem solving that we seek to teach them.\u201d<\/p>\n
For the faculty, Short Term can simplify and energize teaching. \u201cStudents pursue one set of problems, and faculty teach one set of students \u2014 that\u2019s the great virtue of Short Term,\u201d says Professor of History Michael Jones, who, with Gerald Bigelow, lecturer in environmental studies, is debuting a course this year that takes students to the Shetland Islands to excavate a late-medieval farmstead.<\/p>\n
In addition, Jones says, Short Term\u2019s focused single-subject approach pays off with \u201cimproved esprit, identification as a major, and intellectual atmosphere.\u201d That\u2019s especially true for majors-only courses like \u201cIntroduction to Abstraction,\u201d aka Math Camp.<\/p>\n
History shows that Short Term arrived with a new calendar in 1965\u201366 featuring two semesters, an April graduation, then a two-month spring term into late June. Bates marketed it as a way for students get through Bates in three years by taking extra courses, but the underlying reason may have been economics: The new plan would keep the doors open longer and hasten the flow of brains through Bates. Indeed, President Charles F. Phillips, its champion, predicted eventual \u201cyear-round operation\u201d for Bates.<\/p>\n
History also shows that Phillips had perfectly misjudged a-changing times. The Mirror,<\/em> reflecting opinion on the ground in 1968, dissed the plan as an \u201cacademic endurance race.\u201d While other colleges were giving students and faculty more academic freedom (hence Colby\u2019s January Plan, begun four years earlier), the rhetoric around Bates\u2019 new calendar spoke of speed, time saving, and efficiency.<\/p>\n In 1969, President T. Hedley Reynolds announced Bates\u2019 return to a traditional academic schedule, but one that retained Short Term. (Bates still offers a three-year degree program.) For the first time, a Bates president acknowledged a more student-centered approach to academic administration. \u201cOur revised plan recognizes individual needs,\u201d Reynolds said.<\/p>\n Under Reynolds, the faculty insisted that students take only two Short Terms in four years, ensuring an uncrowded campus and a relaxed time and place \u201cconceived essentially in terms of special programs,\u201d in the words of a faculty committee in 1968 \u2014 code for courses involving field trips and other experimental offerings.<\/p>\n That culture remains today. In her own academic training, Lillian Nayder, professor of English, never took an education course, and she\u2019s never offered a Bates course that\u2019s cross-listed as an education credit. But in Short Term 2006 she debuted such a course, \u201cChildren\u2019s Writing Workshop,\u201d which brought Bates students to a New Gloucester elementary school to teach creative writing.<\/p>\n Jones and Bigelow\u2019s Shetland Islands course takes place this July, when the weather\u2019s best. \u201cWe\u2019ve moved cautiously into experimenting outside the traditional term,\u201d says Reich, \u201cbecause our goal for Short Term has to be quality.\u201d The Shetland course, plus one in August during the Bates Dance Festival, \u201cseem to be good ones to use to put our big toe in the water,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n Besides Short Term\u2019s 40th anniversary, 2006 also saw another landmark academic event, as the faculty approved the first major revision of distribution requirements, or \u201cGeneral Education,\u201d in more than 25 years. (See President Hansen\u2019s column.) With Gen Ed settled, says Reich, \u201cthe faculty may now turn to considering specific aspects of our curriculum to ensure that they achieve the high-quality learning experiences that characterize a Bates education.\u201d<\/p>\n For some faculty, Short Term creates a three-part academic calendar that is something of a \u201cwhirl,\u201d says Nayder, one with more stops and starts than Old Faithful. \u201cWe\u2019ve got two intense semesters with hardly any time between. You do feel a bit weathered by the time Short Term begins.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe cost of being able to focus on a single exploration is paid for by trying to push too much into too small a time in the regular academic year,\u201d says historian Michael Jones. \u201cSo any Short Term course ought<\/em> to be really good because intellectually they cost a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n Then there\u2019s concern about what Admissions staffers like to call the \u201claid-back Short Term atmosphere.\u201d Short Term grades don\u2019t count toward GPAs, students don\u2019t evaluate courses, and the weather\u2019s nice (or at least better than February). Thus the term has a \u201cfestival\u201d feel, says Nayder. \u201cThe atmosphere changes, and it can be difficult to transform that feeling into something academically productive.\u201d<\/p>\n For Reich, for now, Short Term\u2019s positives outweigh the negatives. \u201cBut we have to find a better way to solve the cons,\u201d she says. \u201cAre we utilizing the time in the most effective way? Is it really getting us where we need to get?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In 1965\u201366, Bates unveiled a new academic calendar: two semesters plus an…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":221,"featured_media":0,"parent":1199,"menu_order":7,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"_hide_ai_chatbot":false,"_ai_chatbot_style":"","associated_faculty":[],"_Page_Specific_Css":"","_bates_restrict_mod":false,"_dimp_site_id":"","_dimp_override_contact":false,"_table_of_contents_display":false,"_table_of_contents_location":"","_table_of_contents_disableSticky":false,"_is_featured":false,"footnotes":"","_bates_seo_meta_description":"","_bates_seo_block_robots":false,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_id":0,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_twitter_id":0,"_bates_seo_share_title":"","_bates_seo_canonical_overwrite":"","_bates_seo_twitter_template":""},"class_list":["post-1204","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1204","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/221"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1204"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1204\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13717,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1204\/revisions\/13717"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1199"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}