Go to bottom of document
Go to: Program Requirements
Secretary: Delores A. Jackson, C 330, 702-7148
Students come into the program with a question or an interest broad enough to
be developed into a set of problems in a field of knowledge, but not so broad
that it is a cosmic puzzle or a passion for something as vague as "literature"
or "science." This interest may be in any of the conventional fields of
knowledge or cut across them. Usually, however, it is not one that could be
easily pursued in other undergraduate programs as they are presently organized.
Go to top of document
The core of the I&M program therefore consists of two sorts of courses and
tutorial work. Some courses are designed to pursue directly the student's
special interest. Most of these would normally not be I&M courses; rather,
they are selected from offerings elsewhere in the College. Another group of
courses is designed to stimulate the kind of reflective examination of
assumptions described above. These are mostly, but not exclusively, I&M
courses. Some I&M courses are intended to examine the possibilities and the
difficulties of formulating and practicing a "method" or a "discipline." Others
are designed to exemplify the process of carrying on an inquiry in the context
of examined assumptions about the asking of questions and the ways in which
answers to them can be developed. The junior and senior papers function as
points at which both sides of this core are brought to a manageable focus by
each student. In them, students should practice for themselves, with faculty
guidance, the kind of disciplined and self-conscious inquiry the program aims
to encourage.
Summary of Requirements
6 I&M core courses as described under Program Requirements. These
courses vary with the student and yearly offerings.
5 NCD 299 (Independent Study)
11 (total)
It is expected that the student also takes courses specifically relevant to the
junior and senior projects as background for the independent study work.
Go to top of document
Grading, Transcripts, and Recommendations. The independent study and major
papers required by the New Collegiate Division are best evaluated in faculty
statements on the nature and quality of the work. In support of the independent
study grades of Pass, Incomplete, and No Credit, faculty
supervisors are asked to submit such statements to student files maintained in
the NCD office. Responses to the major papers and copies of the papers
themselves are also available in this collection of statements, which is used
to support graduate applications and to evaluate NCD candidates for Phi Beta
Kappa, College honors, and other awards. Students should request statements of
reference from faculty with whom they have worked.
At the student's request, the registrar includes the following statement
with each transcript:
The New Collegiate Division works with a small, selected group of students.
There is less emphasis on letter grades than in other Collegiate Divisions and
greater emphasis on independent work (NCD 299), including substantial papers
submitted at the end of the junior and senior years. Students do some
substantial portion of their work in close association with a tutor or tutors,
and this work is graded Pass/No Pass only. Grades are supplemented with
qualitative statements available from the Master, New Collegiate Division, The
University of Chicago, 5811 South Ellis Avenue, Chicago, Illinois 60637.
Go to top of document
Honors. Honors are awarded in all the New Collegiate Division
concentrations. In I&M, the essential requirement for honors is an
exceptionally distinguished senior paper. Papers considered worthy of honors by
the initial readers are referred to a third reader whose identity is unknown to
the student. In addition, honors depend on the student's grades, especially in
the concentration; 3.25 is roughly the floor, but because a good deal of NCD
work tends to be ungraded, the grade point standard cannot be stated precisely.
Faculty evaluations of ungraded work are taken into account along with grades.
DONALD N. LEVINE, Peter B. Ritzma Professor, Department of Sociology and the
College
WENDY RAUDENBUSH OLMSTED, Associate Professor, Division of the Humanities and
the College
Go to middle of document
Go to: Summary of Requirements
Go to: Faculty
Ideas and Methods
Program Chairman: David Smigelskis, C 326, 702-7125
Program of Study
The program in Ideas and Methods (I&M) is designed for College students who
want to combine serious investigation of a subject matter with organized
reflection on how problems are formulated and subject matters defined and
investigated.
Program Requirements
The I&M program proceeds on the hypothesis that no subject matter is ever
investigated without working assumptions about what subject matters there may
be and how a problem is formulated. Reflection on these questions therefore
requires thinking about what such assumptions might be and how they work. It
develops easily into such questions as what procedures are available for
tackling problems and organizing materials into subject matters. The program is
designed to encourage and demand reflection on these dimensions of
thinking as conditions affecting not only the development of the student's
special interest but of all interests.
Go to bottom of document
Go to bottom of document
Go to bottom of document
Faculty
PHILIP W. JACKSON, David Lee Shillinglaw Distinguished Service Professor,
Departments of Education and Psychology (Human Development), Committee on the
Analysis of Ideas & the Study of Methods, and the College