Explorations, an advising program for incoming freshmen, may suffer a significant decrease in class offerings next year. With the original deadline having passed, the number of applications to teach classes in the 30-year-old program has dropped by more than half with no explanation.
Explorations seminars are credit-bearing classes that are led and designed by a team of undergraduates and supported by a faculty advisor. The Experimental College, which runs the program, has been able to offer between 15 and 17 seminars in past years, but this year the college has received only six completed applications- a number that could drastically impact the advising options available for next year's freshmen.
According to Dean of Advising Chris Nwabeke, unless more students apply to teach seminars, the low number will simply result in fewer opportunities for entering freshmen to experience a unique University program. The original deadline was March 15, but the Ex College is now willing to negotiate extensions for applications.
"The Explorations program exposes first-year students to a new way of thinking about issues," Nwabeke said. "[It] affords them the opportunity for bonding and for learning how to adjust smoothly into the academic community at Tufts, and provides them peer instructors who serve as role models."
Ex College Director Robyn Gittleman said she is baffled by the drop in applications. "The Exploration proposals that we have gotten are as good as any we have had before so I know there are students who have the potential to teach a great Exploration," Gittleman said. "For a school with many activist students, it is surprising that so few have taken advantage of this opportunity... for both themselves and the new students."
Receiving thousands of requests each year from entering freshmen for spots in less than 20 seminars, Explorations is the most popular advising program today. Even in its first year, the Ex College had to turn away students who wanted to enroll because the program lacked space.
"Students who were in an Exploration know how important and special the program is as an introduction to both academic and extra-curricular college life," Gittleman said. "Although teaching is not easy, it is very rewarding. It can be a real capstone experience, something students will remember as their best Tufts experience many years after they have graduated."
Both Gittleman and Nwabeke said they would be as flexible as necessary in trying to influence more students to apply.
"We will continue to solicit and encourage upperclassmen to serve as instructors, educate them about the benefits of the program to first-year students and to the University," Nwabeke said.
Saying that teaching is another form of learning, Gittleman thinks that student leaders find the program a rewarding opportunity to explore subjects of their own interest.
Senior Sarah Molenkamp, who co-taught "Perceptions of American Politics" in the Explorations program last semester, called the experience one of the best in her life and said she would recommend other students to the program.
"I learned a lot doing it, I met a lot of really cool people, I got to have a relationship with the freshmen I never would have had otherwise and I grew a lot during the process," she said. Molenkamp said she could not understand the drop in applications.
Since 1972 Explorations seminars have focused on topics ranging from "The Vietnam War in Film" and "Bioethics" to "Boston Basics" and "Harry Potter."
Perspectives, a similar program with more of a structure, has received 16 applications- a number on par with previous years.
