Future of sophomore workshops uncertain as student interest wanes

Sophomore workshops may be in their last year at Princeton, according to Associate Dean of the College Hank Dobin, who initiated the program.

When the first five workshops — "designed especially for and available exclusively to" sophomores — were offered in the residential colleges three years ago, they were enthusiastically received, Dobin said.

But not only has interest in the program since dipped, students also now have a tendency to neglect or drop out of the not-for-credit workshops, he said.

"I know that in some colleges they've had problems all down the line, from finding faculty to . . . students not showing up when they say they will," said Germanic languages department chair Michael Jennings, who added that his own experience with the program has been entirely positive.

Dobin said he believes time constraints hampered student interest in the workshops. "The experiment didn't work because everyone is just so busy. It's as simple as that," he said. He included faculty members in that assessment, noting that they receive no compensation for teaching the workshops.

Each workshop, fully funded by the program, typically has included four or five evening sessions and a concluding event or field trip. Faculty members are invited by Dobin to participate in consultation with the residential colleges.

This spring's Butler College workshop — African-American Studies and religion professor Ephraim Isaac's "International Conflict Resolution in the Coming Century" — met for the first time March 2. At the end of the workshop, Isaac's students will take a field trip to the United Nations in New York City. A second workshop on a similar topic will run concurrently in Forbes College, Dobin said.

"It's not all Woodrow Wilson School-type material," he said of the program in general. "We try to cover a variety of topics."

Though some workshops have suffered from a lack of student interest, others have become increasingly popular.

Jennings' "How to Read a Photograph" workshop, for instance, has run in Rockefeller College for the past three years. The workshop was so well received that last year's sophomore class repeated its trip to New York museums and galleries over this intersession.

"People were very interested," said Arthur Steinbock '01, an RA in Forbes, of the workshop.

"Having it outside of class like that really took off some of the pressure," he added, noting that he did not believe the not-for-credit nature of the workshop made students lazy or disinterested.

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Isaac also applauded the workshops' format and the fact that they are not for credit. "It's like the Socratic method, a collaborative effort," he said. "Knowledge should not be a matter of reward and punishment. . . . There are still people in the world who believe in learning not for money and credit, but for the love of [it]."

At least a dozen sophomores have signed up for his workshop this semester, Isaac said. An Ethiopian Jew and international mediator who knows 17 languages, he said he plans to discuss reconciliation in Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa, Northern Ireland and the Middle East.

Isaac said he believes the workshop format works well for sophomores. "I think they have a footing," he said, "a clearer sense of where they ultimately want to be."Jennings agreed, calling the workshop program "one of the most important things we've done in years at Princeton."

"I think students crave that kind of intellectual experience, if it's pitched right," he said.

Though the issue has been discussed at length, there is no definitive replacement program planned for sophomore workshops, Dobin said. Changes to existing course offerings might occur, he added, noting that a study done about five years ago indicated that sophomores wanted, among other things, more preparation for junior-year independent work.