In spring quarter, a new set of seminars will give UCLA students the opportunity to study everything from peak oil to 1980s pop culture.
But instead of being taught by professors, students in these seminars will be taught by their peers.
The seminars are the product of the new Undergraduate Student Initiated Education program, which allows student facilitators to teach one-unit seminars on topics of their choice.
Michelle Sassounian, the third-year political science and philosophy student who created the program at UCLA, said she based it on UC Berkeley’s DeCal program, which has been around for 25 years and now includes 120 courses taught by more than 250 student facilitators.
“I thought it was pretty ridiculous that Berkeley had a program like this and we didn’t,” said Sassounian, the Academic Affairs commissioner for the Undergraduate Students Association Council.
Sassounian has been working on implementing the program at UCLA for over two years, and this year it was approved for a two-year pilot period.
As the first day of class draws nearer, fourth-year English student Aaron Fai said he is not too worried about teaching a seminar next quarter. His is titled “American Short Story Today” and will deal with stories written in recent years.
“I feel very prepared as far as what I’m going to do with the class,” he said. “But I think everyone’s worried about enrollment and whether there will be students there on the first day of class to teach.”
Students will not be able to sign up for the seminars until after spring break. In the meantime, the facilitators will be holding a publicity fair for their seminars on March 7, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. in Bruin Plaza.
Sassounian emphasized the importance of enrollment to the program’s future.
“If the seminars are well-attended, that sends the message that the students are ready for a program like this,” she said.
According to the UCLA College Web site, student facilitators must be juniors or seniors with a declared major. Only freshmen and sophomores may enroll in the seminars, and students may only enroll in one student-led seminar during their career at UCLA.
Fai said he is looking forward to participating in the program.
“It’s neat just to be a part of the pilot program,” he said. “It’s nice to give a little back to UCLA.”
Fai, who plans to spend next year teaching English in Kyrgyzstan as part of the Peace Corps, also said he thinks teaching a seminar will provide valuable career experience.
“It will definitely be good practice in handling curriculum and planning classes,” he said.
Academic Senate Chairwoman Adrienne Lavine said she thinks the program will be beneficial to both the students in the seminars and the facilitators themselves.
“The facilitators will benefit tremendously because when you teach something, that’s when you really learn it,” she said. “The students in the class might benefit from the freshness and enthusiasm a student facilitator will bring.”
Student facilitators have already had some practice in classroom planning and leadership. When they applied for the program in fall quarter, they were required to submit a general plan of their proposed seminar, and to find a faculty member to sponsor and advise them.
The 16 students who were selected to be facilitators were required to enroll in a pedagogy course during winter quarter to prepare them for teaching.
“It was pretty extensive,” Fai said of the course. “Students should be confident that the facilitators are really well-trained. (In the pedagogy course) we’ve tried to find out what works in a university setting. We’ve talked about what we’ve enjoyed in seminars and tried to cull the best parts of that.”
Sassounian said facilitators were encouraged to work with their faculty sponsors to create a more effective course. However, some students had trouble finding faculty members who were willing to sponsor them.
“It’s not the easiest thing to get a faculty member to put their support behind something that they don’t have complete control over,” Sassounian said.
Lavine said that while she did not have any reservations about the program, she understood the faculty members’ concern.
“The faculty might be hesitant just in that they have to devote some time to the student facilitators,” she said.
Fai said he thought facilitators who already had established relationships with professors had an easier time finding a faculty sponsor. Fai enlisted one of his thesis advisers, English Professor Stephen Dickey, to sponsor his seminar.
The Academic Affairs Commission also helped put student facilitators in contact with possible faculty sponsors.