This course will provide an opportunity to study and experience the phenomenon of community and to discuss if and how communities can bridge differences among people.

GOALS:
The goals of a first year seminar are:
* to provide students a focused, rigorous experience that attends to ways of knowing and to the nature of intellectual inquiry;
* to challenge assumptions and biases and to help students understand the role of social and historical context in the shaping of ideas;
* to provide students with strategies for evaluation and interpretation and to encourage the building of informed personal perspectives;
* to encourage intellectual communities among students and faculty.
(taken from the faculty statement on the First Year Seminar)

The course is also intended to provide an opportunity for students to examine a topic from the perspective of a variety of disciplines, to develop their writing skills and to learn how to use library resources effectively in their research.

QUESTIONS:
FYS 47 is organized around a number of questions about community and difference. Some of these are:
"What is community and how is it created and sustained?"
"What benefits and responsibilities come with being a part of a community?"
"Is it possible to bridge differences (e.g. race, class, gender) through community?"
"Why do differences among people lead to conflict??
"What does diversity contribute to us and our experience?"
"What role do we envision community playing in our own future?"
The class will elaborate and add to this list of questions throughout the semester and begin to develop some answers.

EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING:
Experience will be an important ingredient in the learning process for this course. We have all had experiences, good and bad, with community and with difference, and these will provide part of the basis for our discussion and reflection. We also will be experiencing the building of community in our classroom as we learn together about our topic. This class will be intentional and self-reflective about community-building and bridging difference.

Much of our work in this class will take place in small groups of three or four students. Working in these groups will also provide an opportunity for experiential learning about community and diversity.

In addition to our personal and classroom experience, there is one more important experiential component in this course: learning about community and diversity through spending a couple of hours each week in volunteer work in the Easton area. Sites for community volunteer experience have been chosen to provide an opportunity for us to observe and participate in a community of people who are different from us. Observations and learning from these experiences will give us additional starting points for our class sessions.

In one of our early class sessions, staff members from the Community Outreach Center will make a panel presentation of the community volunteer opportunities available for our class and you will be able to make your choice of volunteer experience.

COURSE REQUIREMENTS:
1. Class attendance and participation:
Discussion will be a key part of our learning process in this course. Therefore attendance, preparation for class and participation in class discussions will be important for the success of the experience. Participation consists of thoughtful contribution to discussion in small groups, in the full class and on the WWW discussion board.

2. Reading (and viewing):
The class will review a wide range of literature and one or more films. These materials will be selected for each class and students are expected to be prepared to discuss these. Several of the writing assignments will be based on these materials. Optional reading will also be encouraged and each student will do some independent research on his/her own.

3. Writing:
There are six formal writing assignments of varying length. This course is a part of the College's Comprehensive Writing Program and a Writing Associate, Mark Coslett '01, will be working with students on their writing assignments. Attendance at individual writing conferences with Mark is required.
There will also be regular in-class writing exercises and these will be included in each student's writing portfolio and will be evaluated at mid-term and at the end of the semester.

4. Library Research:
The course will include training in library research and several assignments have been designed to introduce students to a variety of library resources and tools.

5. Volunteer Experience:
Students will be expected to spend approximately two hours each week working in a community setting. Learning from these experiences will be discussed in class and writing assignments will be based on reflection on the experience.

6. Use of electronic resources:
We will explore the widening world of electronic learning and discovery in this course. Students will be expected to read and contribute to discussion on our WWW conference board and to explore the resources gathered in our course Home Page.

COURSE TEXTS:
We will be reading all or most of the following books and you will find them in the bookstore:
Gloria Naylor, The Women of Brewster Place.
Alex Kotlowitz, The Other Side of the River.
Ruth Sidel, Battling Bias: the Struggle for Identity and Community on College Campuses.
Amitai Etzioni, Ed. The Essential Communitarian Reader.
There will also be a course set of articles we will be reading for this class available in the bookstore. Purchase of St. Martin's Handbook (Lunsford and Connors) is also required for this course and future writing courses at Lafayette College.

EVALUATION:
Grading will be based on class participation, writing assignments, and library assignments. There will be no examinations in this course.
Writing assignments will be evaluated not simply on the final product but on the whole process of writing. Students will accumulate a portfolio of notes, drafts and final essays. In-class writing will also be added to the writing portfolio. A preliminary grade will be assigned to the portfolio at mid-term and a final grade at the end of the semester. Anyone who wishes an interim grade may request one at any time. Students will have at least one conference with the instructor to discuss progress in the course.

INSTRUCTOR'S OFFICE HOURS:
I am generally available in 105 Hogg Hall during normal office hours. You are encouraged to make an appointment with me or with my secretary but you may also stop by without an appointment to see me, and if I am free, we certainly can talk.

COURSE OUTLINE
So that the class itself may develop a sense of common purpose, the course is organized flexibly. This will allow us to adjust the amount of time spent on each topic to the interest that the class has in that topic and to choose alternate routes in the process of exploring diversity and building community.
The outline that follows will provide a general road map for the course but we will modify and choose the specific routes as we go along.

SECTION ONE: (September 1- roughly Sept. 24)
"WHAT IS COMMUNITY? WHAT ROLE DOES IT PLAY IN OUR LIVES?"
We begin with some basic questions. What does community mean? When and where have we experienced it? What role has it played in our lives? How do we form community and participate in it? In our class? On campus? In our volunteer sites? In these beginning weeks, we will get to know one another and share some of the wealth of experience we bring to this class from our own lives. We will try to build community in our class and in our small groups through formal and informal activities. We will read a novel about a low-income, African-American neighborhood and the community that formed and broke apart there. We will close this section of the course by seeing the musical "Rent" in New York.
Finally, each student will establish a connection with a volunteer program in Easton.

SECTION TWO: (roughly September 23 – October 1)
"HOW DO WE DEAL WITH DIFFERENCES OF RELIGION AND GENDER IN A COMMUNITY?"
For the next few weeks we turn to a consideration of diversity, looking particularly at matters of religion and gender and at the ways that religion and gender make us think and act differently from one another. We will discuss the issue of gender in the context of looking at Deborah Tannen's work on communication and we will discuss differences in religion by looking at religious conflicts historically and now in Ireland. We will view the film "In the Name of the Father" to conclude this section of the course.

SECTION THREE: (roughly October 6 — October 27)
"HOW DO WE DEAL WITH ISSUES OF RACE IN THE U.S.?"
Here we will be reading about a incident that took place in Michigan that illustrates the difficulties communities in the United States often face in dealing with racial differences. We will also read several essays on race and view a film "Do the Right Thing," all of which address the racial question.

SECTION FOUR: (roughly October 29 – November 17)
"HOW DO DIFFERENCE AND COMMUNITY AFFECT ONE ANOTHER ON A COLLEGE CAMPUS?"
Here we will look at the interrelationships between community and diversity as they are played out on college campuses. We will be reading Sidel·s Battling Bias during this part of the course, as well as other essays, and the film "Higher Learning" as we discuss how these relationships are manifested on other and our own campus.

SECTION FOUR: (roughly November 19 – December 10)
"CAN THOSE WHO DIFFER CREATE AND SUSTAIN COMMUNITY?"
We will end the course by asking if people who are different from one another can create community and whether they should try to do so. Must a community be homogeneous to survive and be cohesive? We will be looking here at public policy issues and examining the newly formed communitarian movement. We will read essays that lay out communitarian positions and will critique this point of view in comparison to radical, liberal and conservative alternatives.
We will also have small group presentations on public policy questions during this part of the course and will evaluate our own attempts to form community in our class.

SUMMARY OF ASSIGNMENTS
Writing Assignments (summary — further instructions will be distributed for assignments 2 through 6.)

1. Due Date: 9/10 (by class time); Revisions due 9/22
Describe a community (other than your nuclear family) that you have been a part of and assess its impact on who you are at this moment. (one to two pages)

Example: When I was growing up, my family actively participated in the Presbyterian church located at the crossroads of the small rural village where we lived. Every Sunday, after worship, most of the congregation would gather outside the front doors of the church and talk about the events of the day, goings-on in the town, etc.
My essay would describe this community of church members by race, age, vocation, length of time living in the town, etc. I would describe where and how often the community gathered and discuss the way this community supported its members in times of trouble and the values that were collectively held by the community. Finally I would reflect on how my beliefs and values were influenced by my participation in this community.
Your essay might examine a formal group like a team, a cast, a club, etc. or an informal group, such as a group of friends who hung out together.
The essay should not exceed two pages typed double spaced. You will begin the writing process with an in-class free-writing exercise and will spend some class time in small groups going over your draft of the essay.
In this essay, I will be looking for clear, vivid description of the community you have chosen and a thoughtful analysis of the impact of the community on who you are now.

2. Due Date: 10/6 (by class time), draft reviewed with Mark by 9/30
Choose a character from "Rent" and a character from The Women of Brewster Place and, using the definition which your group has developed for community or your own definition, compare and/or contrast these two characters and their relationship to community. (three or four pages)

3. Due Date: 10/22 (by class time), draft reviewed with Mark by 10/16
Describe your first significant encounter with the community where you are volunteering in Easton. Compare your experience with people you meet with your preconceptions of who they might be and what they might be like. (three or four pages)

4. Due Date: 11/3 (by class time), revisions by 11/12
Each group will have chosen a "critical incident" (see library assignments) to research and each group will make a class presentation about the incident (10/27 or 10/29).
In this assignment, however, each member of the group will write an essay which states what the writer believes to be the "lessons" that might be learned from analyzing this incident. (three or four pages)

5. Due Date: 12/3 or 12/10, drafts reviewed with Mark one week earlier
In this essay, each student will address a question which has arisen from his/her volunteer work in Easton. The question will be developed with me during an individual conference that we will have during the week of October 26. (three or four pages) The due date for this paper will depend on when the small groups presentations are scheduled. The groups presenting position papers in the last week of the semester will hand this paper in the first week of December and the other two groups will hand in this paper in the second week of December.

6. Due Date: 12/1, 12/3, 12/8, 12/10 (depending on which group you are in), drafts reviewed with Mark one week earlier
This assignment follows the model established in writing assignment #4. Each group will select a public policy issue affecting community and/or diversity (see library assignment #3). After researching the issue, each team will make a presentation to the class (12/1, 12/3, 12/8, 12/10) about the issue. Each team member will be expected to defend his or her individual position on the issue in a speech that will be delivered before an imaginary legislative body, court or other audience (our class). The transcript of the speech will be handed in on the day of the presentation as the writing assignment. (three pages)

Library Assignments
Our libraries house state-of-the-art research tools and a wealth of information that can enhance any learning experience. Some of this information can be accessed through the college network or the Internet without even physically entering the library.
Since many of the tools are very new, however, to benefit fully from them requires some training and experience. The library component of this course will introduce students to several of the most important tools and give you a chance to try them out in your research for this course.

1. Due Date: 9/8 (by 9:00 a.m.) Find a definition of "community" in a library paper source other than a dictionary or encyclopedia. Post the definition on the class conference board on the course homepage with the correct MLA form of citation.
You will find that the word community is used in many different ways by people in different disciplines and settings. Look for definitions in books or journal articles that discuss community. You needn't limit yourself to the political science or sociological literature. Biology, Psychology and other disciplines use the term as well. A database search for the word community in the On-line catalog or a periodical index will yield a wealth of possibilities. When you have found a definition, type it onto our class conference board under the topic "definitions of community." (See the instructions in the syllabus concerning the conference board.) At the conclusion of the definition, type in the complete citation for the quote using the MLA format. Chapter 43 in the St. Martin's Handbook will show you how this is done. (Since underlining is a little complicated on this bulletin board you may indicate titles in the following way, _Title_.)
Do not repeat a definition that is already posted. If someone else has beaten you to the screen, find another definition. (The early bird gets the worm.)
I encourage you to work in pairs or groups on this assignment but each student must individually post a definition.
Our goal here is to gather a wide variety of definitions so that we can look at what is common and what differs among them as we build our own definitions.

2. Due Date 10/8 (by class time) Each group will choose an "critical incident" in recent history that has divided a community. Then the group will prepare a briefly annotated bibliography of sources that describe and analyze the event and its impact on the community.

The term "critical incident" here refers to an event or chain of events that exposes the divisions in a community.
Examples:
1. The Million Man March in Washington in October, 1995.
2. The killing of three boys in Northern Ireland in June, 1998.
3. The killing of a black man in Texas last spring.
4. The Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings for the Supreme Court.
5. The Freeman standoff in Montana.

Each group is to choose its own incident. This list is only meant to be suggestive. Please clear your choice with me, however, as soon as possible.
The group will then proceed to research the event building a bibliography that consists of materials that provide a) description (newspapers, news magazines, etc.) b) analysis (journals primarily) and c) background (books, journals). Background material may predate the incident and will provide perspective on the nature of the community (or communities) involved, underlying conflicts, etc.
The final product will be a single bibliography to which each member of the group will contribute. It will follow the MLA format for citation and will consist of 10-30 entries. Each entry will include a one or two sentence annotation which shall describe the content of the entry. The bibliography will be evaluated on the basis of how complete it is, the quality and relevance of the entries and the correctness of the format.
The goal for this assignment is to provide a list of resources that the group will use to make a class presentation and to write papers on the incident chosen (Writing Assignment #4). 3. Due Date: 11/17 (by class time) In a similar fashion to library assignment #2, each group will choose a current public policy issue that relates to matters of community and/or diversity. Then the group will prepare a briefly annotated bibliography of materials that are relevant to the issue chosen.
Choose a public policy issue that will affect the cohesiveness of a community (nation, city, neighborhood, affinity group, family etc.) and/or will enhance or detract from its diversity. "Public policy" refers to government or institutional choices that affect the lives of individuals and groups.
Examples:
1. The issue of whether or not gays and lesbians should serve in the military and if so, what conduct is acceptable.
2. The issue of affirmative action policies in hiring or in college admissions.
3. Yale University·s requirement that all students live in co-educational residence halls and the challenge to that policy by the "Yale Five."
4. School systems decision to recognize and teach "ebonics" as a language.
5. Mandatory disclosure of HIV status by heath care professionals.
6. The role of women in military combat.
Again, this list is only suggestive. I encourage you to choose their own topic and recommend that it be a topic on which group members disagree. Please check with me when you have selected a topic.
The bibliography will again be common for the group and the same expectations and criteria will apply from the last assignment. The goal here is to provide each of you with a varied list of resources that will help you shape your own opinion in writing assignment #6.

ELECTRONIC RESOURCES
An electronic conference board has been set up for our course on the college network. It may be accessed at http://www.lafayette.edu/conf/fys47/home.html. The board will serve as a message center for us and a place to extend our class discussions. Everyone in the course will be expected to read the board regularly and contribute to the discussions contained there.
Reaching and using the board is quite simple. From any networked computer (in your room or in any of the public sites on campus, select Netscape or your own browser). Then type http://www.lafayette.edu/conf/fys47/home.html in the place where it asks for location or netsite. If you are using your own computer you can make a bookmark for this location so that you do not have to type it out each time.
If you have a problem with logging on or anything else concerning computer use, contact the HelpDesk at extension 5501.
The bulletin board is for the use of our class only and postings can and will be read by everyone in the class. Only I can create a topic, however.
I will ask everyone in the class to post something each week. Sometimes I will suggest a question or topic or you may wish to share experiences you have in your volunteer program or comments on the class discussion.
A few words about electronic etiquette. Some people find that writing messages electronically is liberating; others that it is constricting. For those who find it liberating, it sometimes happens that they find themselves writing things in a way that they would not use in personal conversation or in a letter. It is easy, for example, to whip off a biting, sarcastic response to someone else's posting, while in an angry mood late at night. Just remember that all postings are public and will have your name attached. Avoid writing things that you might regret later or that you would not say directly to the class or to another person.

We also have a Website for our course. Its location is http://www.lafayette.edu/millerg/fyshome.html. Again I suggest you make a bookmark of this address if you are working from your own computer. Here I will have a copy of the syllabus for the course and keep the most up-to-date version of the schedule of class meetings and assignments. We will also use this site as a launching pad for research for our course.
You may contact me individually by using e-mail. My e-mail address is millerg {at} lafayette(.)edu. I check my e-mail regularly and you should feel free to contact me there with questions, suggestions, complaints, or whatever. I will also use e-mail regularly to communicate with the class so you should check your e-mail regularly.