Departments, programs reconsider theses, other senior capstones

On Nov. 4 the Philosophy Department approached the Committee on Curricular Policies (CCP) with a proposal to drop its required senior thesis. The proposal, which is still in discussion, sparked a larger conversation about the function of senior requirements at Vassar.

"The main concern was whether or not [the senior thesis] works equally well for all of our majors," said Professor of Philosophy and Chair of the Department Uma Narayan. "It's a very individual project."

According to Narayan, the senior thesis did not always reflect some students' aptitude. "Students are very different. Being smart is not cashable into doing well in your thesis," said Narayan.

The Department proposed to make the thesis optional, allowing students to complete their major by taking an additional 300-level seminar rather than writing a thesis. According to Narayan, the seminar could provide as much of a challenge as a thesis and offer the structure that some students need. "It wasn't necessarily true that a thesis was different from writing three long, sustained papers," Narayan said of the senior seminar option. "It's already a pretty demanding major. There's no desire to make it any easier."

The Philosophy Department's proposal, which the Department had been considering for several years following a re-evaluation of all of its major requirements, inspired lengthy CCP discussions about the role of Vassar's senior academic requirements. "CCP had a vigorous discussion of what departments and programs do to distinguish the senior year for their majors. While we did not vote on anything, the prevailing sense of the discussion was that there is value in building special experiences for seniors into the structure of the major. We thought such capstone experiences could take a variety of forms and didn't necessarily have to be theses," wrote Dean of the Faculty Jonathan Chenette in an e-mailed statement.

Chenette continued to write that, despite recent questioning of thesis requirements, most CCP members supported some kind of senior year major requirements. "I was fascinated to see how many members shared an interest in maintaining distinctive curricular elements to cap off a Vassar education," wrote Chenette. "My sense of the discussion was that people are open to a variety of ways of accomplishing this goal: theses, seminars, performances, exhibitions, field work, etc."

There has been a small trend away from the requirement of a senior thesis in recent years. Today, out of the 46 majors offered at Vassar, 19 require a senior thesis or project. Ten of those require a thesis specifically. Between 1989-1990 and 2009-2010, seven departments dropped the requirement of a thesis or project. However, doing away with the requirement is not the same as doing away with a thesis altogether. Many departments do not require a thesis for the completion of the major, but do give students the option of either writing a thesis or completing a project. Often the senior thesis or project is required to be considered for honors.

In the past five years, three majors have made previously required theses optional: the Geography and English Departments and the Latin American and Latino/a Studies (LALS) Program. Professor of Geography and Chair of the Geography Department Yu Zhou explained that, like the Philosophy Department, the Geography Department did not believe that the thesis was working well for all majors. Completing a thesis is still strongly encouraged, though, and all majors are required to take a senior seminar that includes a thesis preparation component.

"We're still struggling in the sense that, as professors, we want to encourage students to do it," said Zhou. "We regret every year that some students choose not to do it."

Zhou expressed a preference for theses over seminars because of the research and writing skills that the process fosters, though she recognized that not all students feel that they can make the commitment. "A thesis has a somewhat different flavor. You have to capture the discipline of literature," she said. "The question is whether we should twist their arms to do it."

Associate Professor of Political Science and Latin American and Latino/a Studies (LALS) Program Chair Katherine Hite explained that students majoring in LALS now have a wide variety of senior capstone options beyond the traditional thesis. Students can elect to work on a traditional year-long written thesis under the direction of two program-affiliated faculty members, replace the thesis with an additional 300-level class, or do a senior project—which still requires a written component, but emphasizes community involvement rather than research.

"We have recently formalized an alternative to the traditional senior thesis that allows students to conduct a major project in the community, growing from work students have been involved in over the course of their years at Vassar in Poughkeepsie," wrote Hite in an e-mailed statement. "U.S. Latino/a studies programs have their origins in the joining of university students with grassroots organizers to create multidisciplinary curricula recognizing the contributions of Latino communities. Our new senior project option reflects that spirit. So now, LALS students may attain honors through either an excellent thesis or [a less traditional] project."

In both the LALS Program and the Geography Department, at least half of the majors still complete a senior thesis or project. Each major also requires the completion of the thesis or project for honors consideration.

Though the lack of a required traditional thesis could be viewed as a step away from serious intellectual achievement, many in the English Department have experienced the complete opposite. "There were people who were concerned that the majors were just going through the motions and that it wasn't a big commitment, and we wanted to open up the range of possibilities," said Professor of English and English Department Chair Michael Joyce. Joyce said that, before making the thesis optional, faculty members considered a variety of possibilities, finally settling on the current choice between a thesis and an extra seminar.

"We've had remarkable success just saying to people, ‘you can choose to do it,'" Joyce said. According to Joyce, the percentage of majors who complete a thesis has steadily risen since the thesis became optional—65 percent of English majors graduated having completed a thesis in 2007; 69 percent in 2008; and 79 percent in 2009. Joyce expects an even greater percentage of majors to complete theses this year.

"I would emphasize in the larger campus dialogue, we come down strongly in favor of the capstone project, the capstone opportunity. We're not retreating from the thesis, we're re-energizing the thesis," said Joyce. As part of the revival of the thesis, Joyce said that the Department has been encouraging students to approach the thesis in a variety of creative ways beyond the traditional piece of extended analytical writing—though many English majors do opt for a traditional thesis.

College-wide, the percentage of graduating seniors who complete either a senior thesis or project has declined slightly in the past decade. In 1999-2000, a peak of 70 percent of students completed a thesis or senior project, while in both 2007-2008 and 2008-2009, 58 percent of students did. Chronologically, the decreasing trend roughly mirrors the shift away from the required thesis or project in these departments.

The Classics Department is also beginning to review its major requirements, including the senior project. Though the Department will still require the senior project, it is considering ways that it might be better connected with the curriculum. "Sometimes senior projects that exist as stand-alone projects can be hard for students to get started on, be hard for them to really get focused as to what they want to do, and don't always provide that sense of completion, that sense of a capstone to our curriculum," said Associate Professor of Classics and Chair of the Classics Department Bert Lott.

The Political Science Department's thesis is well established as an optional undertaking, though it is, like the optional thesis in many departments, required to achieve honors upon graduation. Professor of Political Science and Chair of the Political Science Department Andrew Davison explained that the thesis works best for students when it is the result of an idea that a student has hoped to pursue even before senior year, and that the Department does not see the thesis as their primary senior capstone experience. "We require that all our majors take at least one seminar during their senior year," he said. "That's really how the Department views a ‘capstone' experience."

Some departments may have made theses optional for practical reasons. Davison suggested that it would be difficult for the faculty in the Political Science Department to serve as advisors and thesis readers for more than 50 senior majors. "It's good that we have the optional thesis because it's there for students who want to do it, and that includes students who may or may not be eligible for honors," he said. "I think people usually know right away if it's something they want to do," he continued. "We usually ask our students to begin thinking about their thesis topic in the junior year."

Mandana Nakhai '10, a political science major who opted to write a thesis, said, "In some ways, it's definitely more of a conceptual challenge than anything." She continued, "Even as an undergrad just being able to work one on one with a faculty member and get a lot further into something than you would otherwise."

"It's kind of a nice thing just to do a thesis in general because you're opting to complete this thing by yourself and coming up with it by yourself," said Luke Stern '10, an urban studies major. Stern, however, is happy with his decision to work on a senior project involving photography in Poughkeepsie rather than an extended written thesis. "Being able to hold something at the end of the year was important to me [when deciding to do a senior project]," he said. "And it's nice to be able to show other people that. You know, you can't really hand people a 40-page paper and be like, ‘check it out.'"

"I have a personal belief in the value of culminating experiences for seniors, as a way of helping students bring together the threads of their learning and prepare for the transition to post-graduation pursuits," wrote Chenette. "This seems particularly valuable at an institution like Vassar with relatively few requirements and a deep commitment to cultivating students' independent creative and research capacities."

Associate Professor of English Tyrone Simpson, who also sits on CCP, added that some might argue that an optional thesis or project was consistent with the openness of Vassar's curriculum, though he fully supported a wide rand of projects. "[With] a liberal arts curriculum, one of the attractive features to students is its flexibility," he said. "I think there is an interest on the part of the faculty as well as students to provide more flexibility as to what the culminating project could and would be." One potential concern as departments move to making theses optional is its potential effect on other departments. "I think there is a conception in the student mind—I may be wrong about it—that some students choose the path of least difficulty, so there might be the perception if most departments do not have the thesis requirement and your department does, you might discourage students from becoming a major," said Zhou.

"There is a concern about the extent to which a thesis requirement may make majors or programs more attractive or less attractive based on that requirement, because students may enjoy the freedom of doing something more creative," said Simpson. "So it definitely has something to do with producing majors, and sustaining majors, and retaining majors, and matriculating majors."

However, in some departments, such as Classics, the thesis addresses disciplinary concerns and is therefore pedagogically indespensable. "I don't think there's any chance that we're going to stop having some kind of senior requirement, some kind of capstone experience," said Lott. "It's hard for us to think that someone is well-trained in classics without that experience of putting their ideas and their conclusions down in the kind of writing we do as a discipline."

Discussions about the goals of a senior year experience and the best way to achieve them are ongoing. Departments will be asked to consider their respective approaches in a set of questions included in the self-evaluation process. "This discussion at CCP took place on the same day we were considering questions to ask departments and programs to address when they undertake periodic self-studies and external reviews," wrote Chenette. While CCP has yet to respond to Philosophy's proposal, the question for all departmens that came from this discussion was: "Please describe the senior experience for your majors (i.e. thesis, project, seminar) and its relation to the major curriculum and to students' lives after Vassar. If you have no required senior capstone experience, please explain your thoughts about the way your majors experience their senior year in the major as summation and preparation."

The discussion continues about the best way for senior year requirements to provide structure as well as room for creative, intellectual thought. "Every year it works substantially well for most of our students," Narayan said. "The value of the thesis, when it is realized, is for a student to work on something they had a gleam in their eye about."