LEARNING COMMUNITIES IN

HIGHER EDUCATION

An exploration and deep analysis of the CEP undergraduate major as a

case study of learning in community

Matt Wildey

June 2015

ABSTRACT

The learning community has gained recognition in recent years as an educational method

offering a sharp contrast to the standardized traditional education system. In principle,

learning communities more effectively educate students by applying theories of

community to the learning environment, creating an important bridge in student

experience. Their impact on student learning can be better understood through deep

analyses of learning community case studies. The Community, Environment, and Planning

(CEP) major at the University of Washington is a unique, intentional, student-designed and

student-governed learning community that has existed in a state of constant evolution

since its inception in 1993. In this research project, I draw on Mitchel and Sackneys

framework of learning community capacities to analyze the programs efficacy and develop

a base of informed practices. Specifically, I ask first, how well has CEP developed its

capacity as an effective learning community, and, second, how can CEPs informed

practices be more broadly applied in a higher educational context? As part of this research,

I also develop a history of CEP, drawing from a review of historical documents and key

informant interviews. This history gives context to two years of participant observation in

the program. My results show that CEP is performing at a high capacity, though like any

learning community living system it has room for growth and improvement. A deeper

analysis allows me to conclude that the process of learning is vital and should be given

equal weight to learning outcomes, which has direct implications for the future of structure

and pedagogy in CEP, other higher education learning communities and even the standard

educational system.

Wildey|2

Acknowledgements

I want to thank so many people for supporting me during this project. These people

include:

Christopher Campbell who took the time out of being the new Chair to the Department of

Urban Design and Planning as well as the Director of Community, Environment, and

Planning to be my mentor through this project and personal life.

Kelly Hostetler, CEPs Program Manager, for providing a space of constant learning

opportunity.

Nico Martinucci, CEPs Program Assistant, for additional assistance and support.

Morgan Wright, for providing a listening ear and helpful support when needed.

My fellow CEP peers, for constantly pushing me and the rest of the community to achieve

the highest level of work possible and supporting me every step of the way.

Wildey|3

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................. 2

Table of Contents ................................................................................................................. 3

List of Figures and Tables .................................................................................................... 4

Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 5

Authors Note .................................................................................................................................................... 5

Context CEP Case Study ............................................................................................................................... 5

Literature Review ................................................................................................................ 7

State Of Higher Education- Brief Critiques ................................................................................................... 7

Learning Theory................................................................................................................................................ 8

Community Theory ........................................................................................................................................ 10

Brief History of Learning Communities ...................................................................................................... 11

Learning Community Capacities Framework ............................................................................................. 14 Personal Capacity........................................................................................................................................................................ 15 Interpersonal Capacity ............................................................................................................................................................... 17 Organizational Capacity.............................................................................................................................................................. 19

Learning Community Capacity Framework: A Summary ......................................................................... 20

Methodology....................................................................................................................... 23

Overview .......................................................................................................................................................... 23

Historical Document Review......................................................................................................................... 23

Key Informant Interviews .............................................................................................................................. 24

Other Data Compiling Tactics ....................................................................................................................... 25

Participant Observation ................................................................................................................................ 26

Methodology Justification ............................................................................................................................. 27

Results................................................................................................................................. 28

Overview .......................................................................................................................................................... 28

Personal Capacity ........................................................................................................................................... 28 Overview ...................................................................................................................................................................................... 28 Professional Narrative ................................................................................................................................................................ 30 Professional Networks................................................................................................................................................................ 32 Professional Novelty ................................................................................................................................................................... 33 Knowledge Construction ............................................................................................................................................................ 34 Presencing ................................................................................................................................................................................... 36

Personal Capacity: Review ............................................................................................................................ 37 Informed Practices ...................................................................................................................................................................... 37 Areas for Growth......................................................................................................................................................................... 37

Interpersonal Capacity .................................................................................................................................. 38 Overview ...................................................................................................................................................................................... 38 Affective Climate ......................................................................................................................................................................... 40 Cognitive Climate ........................................................................................................................................................................ 42 Team Building ............................................................................................................................................................................. 45

Wildey|4

Interpersonal Capacity: A Review ................................................................................................................ 46 Informed Practices ...................................................................................................................................................................... 46 Areas for Growth......................................................................................................................................................................... 46

Organizational Capacity ................................................................................................................................ 47 Overview ...................................................................................................................................................................................... 47 Socio-Cultural Conditions ........................................................................................................................................................... 47 Structural Arrangements ............................................................................................................................................................ 48 Discourse Patterns ...................................................................................................................................................................... 50 Leadership for Learning ............................................................................................................................................................. 51

Organizational Capacity: A Review .............................................................................................................. 52 Informed Practices ...................................................................................................................................................................... 52 Areas for Growth......................................................................................................................................................................... 52

Analysis ............................................................................................................................... 53

Informed Practices ......................................................................................................................................... 53

Areas for Growth ............................................................................................................................................ 54

Discussion ........................................................................................................................... 56

Next Steps ....................................................................................................................................................... 57

Conclusion .......................................................................................................................... 59

Personal Reflection ............................................................................................................ 60

Bibliography ....................................................................................................................... 61

List of Figures and Tables

Figure 1: Elements of Personal Capacity ................................................................................... 17

Figure 2: Elements of Interpersonal Capacity ........................................................................... 19

Figure 3: Elements of Organizational Capacity ......................................................................... 20

Figure 4: Learning Community Capacities Framework Key Elements ..................................... 21

Figure 5: Conceptual Process of Methodology ......................................................................... 23

Table 1: Component of Learning Patterns (from Vanthournout et al. (2014)) ......................... 9

Table 2: CEP Faculty Spreadsheet Example ............................................................................... 26

Table 3: CEP Core Courses, Description, Historical Number of Instructors ........................... 35

Wildey|5

Introduction

Authors Note

Community, Environment, and Planning is a two year, interdisciplinary undergraduate

Bachelor of Arts major at the University of Washington. I began this major in Fall of 2013,

unaware of the deep history that was the foundation of the program I was entering. As I

became more aware of the different components of the major, I began to have many

questions. I wondered how these different components had come to be, why they werent

different, how the major was building on itself, and the extent to which CEP students were

re-inventing the wheel. This research project was aimed to satisfy the personal desire for

knowledge I had of the program as well as to address a clear need I saw for the program.

This project started earnestly, but I am deeply appreciative of the fact that it was allowed to

be a process through which I was able to find a pathway of research. This report is part of

that pathway.

Context CEP Case Study

The American university education system has offered a traditional form of education for

many years through methods that have been widely critiqued. Learning communities are

an alternative to many of these methods. This will be further discussed in the literature

review. I have chosen to use CEP as a case study of an undergraduate learning community

because of its particularly unique qualities and because it is severely under-researched in

terms of learning communities. The CEP program originated in 1993 when the College of

Architecture and Urban Plannings undergraduate program experienced a split.

Architecture decided to create its own individual undergraduate program, leaving no

program for those interested in planning. A group of students along with Dennis Ryan

(Chair of the Department of Urban Design and Planning) and Paul Niebanck (visiting

professor from UC Santa Cruz) were able to navigate the bureaucracy at the University and

come up with a major that fit certain goals. Since its inception as a major 20 years ago, CEP

has evolved. It is quite distinct from other undergraduate planning majors and is, despite

evolution, remains one the most unique undergraduate majors in the United States. This

project will seek to address this evolution through two central questions:

1. How well has CEP developed its capacity as an effective learning community?

2. How can CEPs informed practices be more broadly applied in a higher educational

context?

Wildey|6

This research has the potential to affect a wide variety of stakeholders. At its core, this

report can benefit CEP students, staff, and faculty in the present and future by allowing

them to give critical thought on different aspects of the major. It also is a chance to give

some additional credibility to a major that stands out as alternative learning in a sea of

professional rigidity. This credibility benefits the CEP community, but also more broadly,

other forms of alternative education. The different levels of the University in which the CEP

major exist: Department of Urban Design and Planning, College of Built Environments,

University of Washington, each have a certain stake in development and quality of the CEP

program and this research can benefit that. Finally, the most important stakeholder is me,

as this is a chance for me to deepen my own understanding of the program in which I have

spent the last two years.

This report will begin by discussing literature surrounding learning communities in higher

education, placing CEP into a broader educational context, and specifically explaining the

Community Capacities Framework through which I will offer an analysis of the CEP major.

Then, I will discuss the methodology I used to better understand the history of major. Next,

I will discuss the results of applying different components of CEP to the framework

followed by an analysis of this application as well as a broader discussion of its

implications. Then, I will conclude the main report with a final synthesis of my thesis. I will

argue that the process of learning should be given more importance compared to the

outcome of learning. I will wrap up this report with a personal reflection.

Wildey|7

Literature Review

State Of Higher Education- Brief Critiques

The education system, particularly how well it produces positive learning outcomes for

students, has been heavily critiqued. Despite recent innovations, most students in our

current educational system experience learning in a solitary format of show and tell (Tinto,

2003). A key figure in the critique of the education system is Peter Senge. He is best known

for his development of the learning organization in response to his many critiques of

mismanaged formats of learning and schools. He makes four assumptions about schools.

1. School structure does not promote partnership, community, collective goals, but

rather control and specialized responsibility.

2. Schools create fragmented knowledge. The only way to get beyond this is to create

special programs that are interdisciplinary.

3. Nave realism is the idea that schools teach the truth, but that it is only one truth,

and may not even be true.

4. The balance of competition and collaboration is way too askew, pushing students

apart not together (Senge, 1994)

It is worthwhile to note that similar critiques were being engaged in academic conversation

around the same time frame of the development of the CEP major. Such criticisms often

relate to who is teaching the students (Syke, 1988), the content of the curriculum (Bloom,

1987), and what students are not learning (Ravitch, 1988). Gabelnick et al. (1990) write

about how the need of reformation in contemporary undergraduate education in general

can be traced back to the ideas of Meiklejohn (1932) and Dewey (1938), both of which

critique the process by which the learning is taking place.

In 1995, a Commission on Undergraduate Education was formed to evaluate the essentials

of this type of education, outlining ten major ways to change undergraduate education

including removing barriers to interdisciplinary education and culminating with a capstone

experience (Boyer Report, 1995). According to Katkin (2003), this report dramatically shifted

the way higher educational institutions viewed the undergraduate experience and learning

process. This may be because the Boyer Report saw the University as an ecosystem where

students could link together different fields and see connections, where faculty interact

with students, and where these students are active participants, not just passive receivers

(1995).

Wildey|8

Commonly theorized questions include what the purpose of higher education is or how

efficient higher education is at achieving such purposes (Smith 2001). We might divide

purposes of higher education into different categories like liberal, research, pre-

professional, etc. However, what seems at the core of all such types of purpose also seems

equally obvious: learning.

Learning Theory

In the traditional view of learning, teaching is the process of transferring knowledge from

one individual (the teacher) to another (the learner) or from the educational context (the

school) to the practice context (the workplace) (Mitchel and Sackney, 2011, pg 43). This

traditional view of learning is often also associated with an educational gap that must be

made up through the process of learning. In this section, I will present a commonly

theorized alternative to this tradition, the constructivist theory, as well as look at how that

fits into different conceptions of learning patterns.

In the constructivist theory of learning, knowledge is a process of building, not just

absorbing. This is an active process that results in a qualitative change in understanding.

This approach assumes that as people confront challenges in their world, frameworks they

use to make sense of these challenges are enmeshed with a socially constructed

understanding (Mitchel and Sackney, 2011). Mitchel and Sackney continue to say that

the constructivist approach views teaching as an intervention in a continuous process of

knowledge construction that is always contextually sensitive. Instructional practices from this

perspective value and seek the learners point of view, structure learning opportunities that

will extend or challenge the learners suppositions, offer curriculum and ideas that are

relevant to the learners, and assess learning in the context of daily living. In other words, it is a

process of facilitating the construction of knowledge rather than one of dispensing

knowledge. (pg. 43)

Significant research effort has been invested in exploring the ways in which students learn

in higher education. This research includes studies in diverse areas including: cognitive

aspects of learning, learning styles, intellectual styles, learning conceptions, approaches to

learning, aspects of self-regulation, study orientations, and motivational aspects of

learning (Vanthournout et al (2014). These studies seem to seek to combine these various

features into an integrated model of learning. Vanthournout et al. (2014) created a learning

pattern model that looks at each of these different features of research (see table 1 below).

This model suggests that some aspects of learning, such as learning conceptions and

Wildey|9

learning orientations, are more resilient to change, and partially influence or regulate the

more change-able learning strategies (Vermunt, 1998, 2005)

Table 1: Component of Learning Patterns (from Vanthournout et al. (2014))

LEARNING COMPONENT LEARNING DIMENSION MEANING

Processing Strategies Deep Processing

-Relating and Structuring The extent to which student

actively relate aspects of the

content

-Critical processing The extent to which students

adopt a critical angle

Stepwise Processing

-Analyzing The extent to which students

methodologically review and

analyze content

-Memorizing The extent to which students

memorize the learning

content

Concrete Processing The extent to which students

attempt to apply the content

to concrete situations

Regulation Strategies Self Regulation The extent to which students

actively steer their own

learning

External Regulation The extent to which students

rely on teaching staff or the

learning material to steer

their learning process

Lack of Regulation Lack of clarity on how to

steer their learning process

Conceptions of Learning Intake of knowledge The extent to which students

regard learning as the

absorption of knowledge

Construction of knowledge The extent to which students

see learning as the

construction of knowledge

Use of knowledge The extent to which students

see learning application of

knowledge

Cooperative Learning The extent to which students

see learning as a cooperative

process

Wildey|10

Stimulating Education The extent to which students

see learning as bring

stimulated by teachers or

the learning environment

Orientations to learning Personally interested The extent to which students

are intrinsically motivated to

learn

Self-test oriented The extent to which students

are motivated to learn by a

drive to prove themselves

Certificate oriented The extent to which students

are motivated to learn by a

desire to test themselves or

acquire a certificate

Vocation Oriented The extent to which students

are motivated to learn by a

profession

Ambivalent The extent to which students

experience problems with

motivation

It seems that the constructivist theory of knowledge is only one conception, but that it is a

valid and useful conception. What seems also important is that paired with this conception

of learning are different forms of strategies and orientations to learning that may make this

learning construction stronger, like through a deep process of personal interest. One

limitation of this model is that it seems to stratify these different features, where

combining some may be incredibly beneficial. For example, cooperative learning and

learning construction do not need to be mutually exclusive. Learning could be a process of

cooperative construction. As it seems, such cooperative construction would be best done in

community.

Community Theory

Communities have been studied for thousands of years. The ancient Greeks thought

deeply about community and how citizens interacted in their conception of the polis

nation-state. Since the late 1800s, the use of the term community has remained to some

extent associated with the hope and the wish of reviving once more the closer, warmer,

more harmonious type of bonds between people vaguely attributed to past ages (Elias

1974, quoted by Hoggett 1997: 5). One of the earliest conceptions of community can be

attributed to Ferdinant Tonnies (who originally wrote on the topic in the late 1800s),

Wildey|11

distinguished between Gemeinschaft, which is often translated as community, and

Gesellschaft, often translated as society. The former refers to groupings of people based on

feelings of togetherness and on mutual bonds. The goal of these members is this feeling of

being mutually together. The latter, refers to groups sustained by individuals seeking

personal aims and goals (Tonnies, 1957).

Approaching community theory can be done in many different ways. Common ways to do

so include through place and interest. (Willmott 1986; Lee and Newby 1983; and Crow and

Allen 1995). Place refers typically to the spatiality of the community, or the space in which

the community is able to interact. For most of history, this has been in some form of face to

face contact, though with the growth of other forms of communication, the concept of

place is necessarily expanded. Interest refers to a shared sense of attention on a specific

topic and is typically what gives the community its strongest sense of identity.

Blending together this conception of how students learn (in higher education) and theories

of community creates a significant educational format that is a stark contrast to the

individualistic format of traditional education. The next section gives a brief introduction to

the learning community as this format.

Brief History of Learning Communities

Learning communities offer a stark contrast to the format of education and teaching that

permeates a significant portion of our schools. Unlike many programs which exist at the

periphery of the academic experiences of students, learning communities seek to

restructure the very classrooms in which students find themselves and alter the way

students experience both the curriculum and learning within those classrooms (Tinto,

2003).

Certainly, when conceptualizes learning communities, one must start with John Dewey

Alexander Meiklejohn. Writing in the early 20th century, Dewey articulates an argument that

learning is social and students should have the opportunity for experience through

experiment and purposeful learning (1938). This centralizes the learning on a level of

responsibility on the individual within the community. On a related note, but often thought

of as contrasting, Alexander Meiklejohn was writing in the same time frame as Dewey.

Meiklejohn was often thought of as the idealist compared to the pragmaticism of Dewey.

This is because he pushed for the academic system to promote democracy and had

relatively high standards for the faculty in such systems (Nelson, 2009). However, both

Dewey and Meiklejohn envision systems that regard schools as important laboratories for

Wildey|12

democratic citizenship (Smith, 2001). Both Dewey and Meiklejohn were engaged in a

conversation about improving learning in 1920s and 1930s, a conversation that would not

be significantly rearticulated until the 1980s spurred from the aforementioned crisis in

education. By this time, there had been some opportunity to experiment with new forms of

learning communities. In 1990, Gabelnick et al. (1990) identified five major types of learning

community curricular models in higher education: linked courses, learning cluster,

freshman interest groups, federated learning communities, and coordinated studies.

Linked courses pairs two courses together so that a specific group of students registers for

both as a cohort. Faculty members teach individually but may coordinate syllabi to some

extent to build on the other course. An example of this is pairing a writing course with a

course in the humanities. Learning clusters expand on the idea of the linked course by

taking up the majority or entire semester or quarter for the student. Freshman Interest

Groups link courses together, but are geared towards having a smaller cohort within large

lecture commonly found for freshman students and typically include some form of peer

advising. The federated learning community is similar to a freshman interest group in that

there is an additional seminar attached to the linked courses, but it remains only one

educational period in length. Coordinated studies are where the faculty and the students

are both engaged full time in interdisciplinary, active learning around themes. The

Evergreen State College is well known for an educational system based on this model

(Gabelnick et al, 1990)

The idea of the learning community has entered into other arenas as well, such as in

residence halls with living-learning communities where students who share courses also

live in the same part of a residence hall (Tinto, 2003). At the University of Washington, there

are many of ways for students to interact with these forms of learning communities. There

are linked courses, especially with an interdisciplinary writing link program. The Freshman

Interest Group program has been strong since the early 1990s. However, both of these

programs are limited to only one quarter and are geared mostly towards freshman.

Learning communities of this form might likely be formed not to increase student learning,

but rather to increase student retention.

Out of the five listed forms of learning community, the form most relevant to CEP is

coordinated studies. However, even this form of learning community does not fully explain

CEP, as it refers more to keeping to the theme of learning for only one term at a time,

rather than a full two years of an undergraduate degree as is the case with CEP. The case of

Wildey|13

longevity with a learning community seems to be extremely rare in higher education, and

part of what makes CEP so incredibly unique.

Because CEP doesnt seem to fit any of the learning community models that Gabelnick et al

(1990) identified, it seems that a different definition may be required. However, both Tinto

(2003) and Mitchel and Sackney (2011) argue that there is no universal definition of a

learning community because of constant shifts in teaching methods and learning

practices [but there is] consensus that you will know it when you see it in practice

(Mitchel and Sackney, 2011, pg. 9). The question that they seek is not what a learning

community is but instead what the qualities are that learning communities use that are

effective. However, they do agree on some commonly utilized features of learning

communities:

Shared Vision and goal

Built around collaborative work culture

Engage willingly in reflective practice and experimentation

Cultivation of renewal and improvement that is facilitated by data

Leadership tasks and roles distributed throughout community of responsibility

Culture of high trust and mutual respect (pg. 11)

Tinto (2003) has his own list of features shared in learning communities:

1. Shared knowledge- students taking courses together constructing shared curricular

experiences

2. Shared knowing- by asking the students to construct knowledge together, learning

communities involve students socially and intellectually in cognitive development

than would be different if they were alone

3. Shared responsibility- learning communities ask that students become responsible

for each other in the process and participate in collaborative groups requiring

mutual dependency.

Tinto also highlights a few other key features of learning communities that came through

significant research by the National Center for Teaching, Learning, and Assessment. The

research displayed that:

Students in learning communities tended to form their own self-supporting groups outside of the

classroom and spent more time together than students in traditional programs. In fact, some

students saw those groups as critical to their ability to continue in college.

Learning community students became more actively involved in classroom learning, even after

class, bridging the gap between their academic and social lives.

Students perceived themselves to have had enriched learning experience in community.

Students graduated at a higher rate.

Wildey|14

There seems to be significant support for learning communities as a positive educational

pedagogy. Despite certain struggles or drawbacks like some students preferring not to

learn with others and faculty and staff collaborations, learning communities seem to have

much more potential than is being utilized. CEP seems to be filling this pedagogical space.

However, because it doesnt fit other models, it seems quite necessary to articulate and

analyze how it fits into the puzzle of models of higher education.

Learning Community Capacities Framework

Mitchel and Sackney wrote the second edition of Profound Improvement in 2011 after over a

decade since the first edition came out. They were particularly concerned with re-framing

their original work with the addition of their research within schools. The book focuses

more particularly on professional learning communities, or those learning communities

specific for the teachers because they are the primary holders of educational expertise

and knowledge and are at the front line of communication with students (pg. 19). They

state that if the teachers dont know how to practice community themselves, then they

have a limited foundation to pass that along to the students. However, they do note

specifically that their model can be applied to other groups, just that they were attempting

to fill a gap in literature regarding professional learning communities. For this reason, I

believe it to be fully justified to use this framework to analyze the CEP major as a learning

community.

Mitchel and Sackney construct their framework of learning community capacities on living-

systems principles. They draw heavily on Capra (1996) when saying that:

ecology presents a world of interconnected and interdependent elements that are held

together by the purpose and meaning of the system in which they function The practical

aspect of the ecological perspective has enabled us to demonstrate the interconnections and

reciprocal influences among the processes and practices. The living systems construct has

enabled us to situate and develop naturally as living beings and how they build schools that

reflect the character of a structurally coupled learning system. (xiii)

In other words, they intend to frame learning communities as holistically as possible,

acknowledging all elements that make up them and the interaction of these elements. It is

also important to mention that they come from a social constructivist viewpoint that

conditions should be created to support and promote collective as well as individual

learning (pg. 7). They say that individual learning grows out of conversations with others.

Wildey|15

Both of these ideas set up Mitchel and Sackney and are embedded in their framework of

learning community capacities.

Mitchel and Sackney mention being frustrated that the educational discourse referring

often to building capacity without explaining for what they were building capacity or what

kind of capacity that is (pg. 15). They argue that there has been insufficient attention to

what Starratt (1999) calls a curriculum of community and what [they] might call a

curriculum of capacity. This model that they produce is broken down into three types of

capacities: personal, interpersonal, and organizational. They are quick to note that, like with

any model, this one is very flexible to each situation. It is emphasized that their model be

permeable and expandable (pg 16). I intend to utilize the framework in a way that treats

it as something that helps understand living systems, specifically the system of CEP.

Furthermore, this research is intended to articulate informed practices based on the

framework, rather than best practices. Mitchel and Sackney rethink knowledge transferring

in this way because

the best practice discourse assumes that the quality of teaching practices can be assessed in

isolation from school and classroom contexts, whereas the informed practice discourse

situated the meaning and effectiveness of practices in specific classroom and schools, with

specific teachers and students, and in relation to specific learning moments. (pg. 30)

In this next section, I will explain each of these capacities. The purpose is to tell the story of

CEP through this framework, making it come alive like the living system that it is. Following

a description of each portion of the framework, I will discuss briefly how it is relevant to

CEP and this analytical research. Then I will move towards explaining the methods I used to

gain information about the program to apply to this framework.

Personal Capacity

Mitchel and Sackney by saying that the foundation of ones personal capacity is a search for

ones theory of practice or for identity (pg. 20). Developing a personal capacity is

confronting the values or belief systems you have and seeking ways to become

empowered to search for new knowledge that can reconstruct the narrative youve created.

They go on to call for a need for congruence between espoused theory and theory-in-use,

meaning that the core beliefs of ones personal educational theories match what actually

occurs. In order to tease out this congruence, Mitchel and Sackney outline three steps:

1. Descriptive reflection- outline of events, circumstances, situations. To be more

reflective and less of a description, it should also describe the conflicts, successes

and failures, emotions, and intensions.

Wildey|16

2. Analytic and evaluative reflection- examining discrepancies in descriptive analysis

between intensions and effects

3. Evaluative phase- particularly hard because acknowledging that personal change is

required can threaten ones sense of self and professional identity but can lead to

profound improvement

This process will lead to the creation of a professional narrative. It is necessary that this

narrative be comprehensive and honest so that when analyzed, the identity of the

individual can be based less on personal belief and more on evidence. Through this

process, the individual will be able to identify knowledge gaps. Rather than address these

gaps as issues, a high capacity learning community will reframe them as areas for growth.

The growth and learning process often happens cyclically through a series of compelling

disturbances that create both planned and unplanned learning which cause the individual

to reframe their knowledge base, thereby reconstructing their professional narrative. What

is important through this learning process is maintaining a sense of presence within an

appreciation of the whole (pg. 50).

Mitchel and Sackney separate personal capacity into the external and the internal. The

external is where the individual will be exposed to more new things because they have a

more diverse set of connections that allow access to novel ideas. This requires the learner

to have a more articulated professional narrative. In the internal, the network that the

individual has is more homogenous in nature, but this creates a stronger set of ties to the

network. The internal is the safe ground upon which one should experiment with the

novelties of the external. This mutual ground is where personal capacity is at its highest.

Wildey|17

Figure 1: Elements of Personal Capacity

Interpersonal Capacity

Interpersonal capacity shifts the focus from the individual and their learning, to how the

learning that happens within the group is shaped by the interactions among the members.

These interactions deeply affect the nature of relationships and the character of the groups

in which the individual live and work. Mitchel and Sackney make it clear that groups as

entities, do not learn, but rather it is the individuals within the groups who learn and shape

the environment. This environment should have the capacity to facilitate good learning.

The group can support the learning, it can sustain the learning, it can engage the learning,

but it cannot learn. The group provides some scaffolding, shared understandings, and

supports for individual learning and directs it toward goals and purposes that are shared

by the members of the group. Moreover, the creation of shared goals, purposes, and

Wildey|18

understandings can happen only through a group process. Collective learning, from this

perspective, is a process of mutual influences and interdependent learning that transpires

in a group context and is shaped by group norms, expectations, interactions, knowledge

bases, communication patterns, and so on. (pg. 54)

Mitchel and Sackney assert that because learning is a difficult process, there are two types

of conditions that make it happen more easily: the affective climate and cognitive climate.

The affective climate is made up of the valuing of others ideas (affirmation) and involving

them as participants in your process (invitation). Within any group of people, there is

always a possibility for conflict. However, in high capacity learning communities, this

conflict is seen as an opportunity to learn rather than to be avoided. It is more important to

follow a consensus-based solution creating process, than what the actual outcome or

solution is. If you follow a process of affirmation and invitation, a collaborative culture

based on trust will be created. As people learn to work with one another, they become

more confident in expressing their ideas. As trust levels increase, participation in collective

processes also increases. Low trust levels in the community create situations where

sensitive issues and conflict are avoided.

The cognitive climate is based on the theory of social construction that roots learning in a

set of shared meanings with others. In order for these shared meanings to be created,

there must be conversation and collective reflection. In a high capacity learning community,

every member has the opportunity to verify, modify, or discard ideas and the community

together ultimately decides what is worth keeping. Communities may be inclined to resist

new ideas, preferring to rely on familiar ways of knowing and functioning. However, a

vibrant learning community is hungry for new ideas, it eagerly embraces them and quickly

seeks to determine how deeply and widely they illustrate things about which the

community cares (pg 61).

A relationship between the affective climate and the cognitive climate that allows for both

the mutually benefit from the other is the type of relationship that allow for the strongest

enhancement of the personal capacity. Paired with team building that is inclusive,

consensus-based, empowering, and focuses on open dialogue, this leads to a formidable

interpersonal capacity.

Wildey|19

Figure 2: Elements of Interpersonal Capacity

Organizational Capacity

The need for organizational structures that support a learning community stems from the

construction of schools as managed systems created to prescribe, direct, control, and

mechanize teaching so that learning outcomes are predictable, standardized, easily

measured, and readily comported (pg. 88). For Mitchel and Sackney, learning communities

with high organizational capacity are constructed so that the conditions in the school

allows for the strengthening and growth of personal and interpersonal capacities.

To construct such a capacity, the organization needs to think closely about three factors:

1. Socio-cultural Conditions

2. Structural Arrangements

3. Discourse Patterns

Wildey|20

In traditional schools, socio-cultural conditions are often characterized by norms of privacy

and individualism. Key in a high capacity learning community is the ability to create

conditions that break down the walls of tradition. Central to breaking down tradition in

search of the new is professional development that goes beyond one time activities and

begins to address any educational gaps as a space for renewal (pg. 92).

Mitchel and Sackney say that for structural arrangements to provide the most worth for the

learning community, it might be necessary to restructure the program in some form.

However, the pieces that are vital structurally include professional development time built

into existing school schedule, a network built out into the community to support learning,

use of evaluations and assessment that critically interprets and utilizes finding, and

authority that empowers others to be leaders.

An important factor in creating a critical discourse embedded in practice is that it reduces

the tendency of the teacher to blame the students when educational problems exist. This

discourse should allow for the construction of a collective meaning by the use of dialogue

between participants, especially including issues and alternative perspectives.

Having high organizational capacity means that the structural arrangements that are set up

in the learning community open the doors to new ways of thinking and acting (socio-

cultural conditions) that create more ingrained systems of action (discourse patterns).

Figure 3: Elements of Organizational Capacity

Learning Community Capacity Framework: A Summary

Mitchel and Sackney present a framework through which it is possible to evaluate CEPs

performance in setting up a learning community environment and acknowledging its

Wildey|21

capacities. A high capacity learning community has found a strong balance of each piece of

the organizational, interpersonal, and personal capacities. The figure below is a combined

version of the three capacities and is the framework through which I will analyze CEP.

Figure 4: Learning Community Capacities Framework Key Elements

It is necessary to justify using what might seem like an arbitrary tool to evaluate an

undergraduate major. I find that this framework of learning community capacities to be

particularly strong compared to other concepts of learning communities. The fact that they

are basing their framework off of a living systems mindset is essential. They cite Wheatley

(2007, pg. 33) in saying All living systems have the capacity to self organize, to sustain

themselves and move toward greater complexity and order as neededSelf organizing

Wildey|22

systems have what all leaders crave, the capacity to respond continuously to change. It is

important that Mitchel and Sackney see learning communities as living systems because in

this way, they see within them the potential for such complexity and room for responses to

change. The highly dynamic process of learning within a learning community deserves a

dynamic and flexible framework with which to evaluate it. Mitchel and Sackney use specific

anecdotes to highlight the majority of each feature of the learning community capacities. I

intend to employ a similar method when applying features of CEP to the framework.

Using this framework to evaluate CEP also has some limitations. Because the framework

was originally developed for use in building professional learning communities among

educators, particularly those in K-12 education, some of the aspects of the framework are

particularly appropriate for the educators and dont apply as directly to the students in the

learning community. However, because such an emphasis is put on how the teachers are

supposed to be continually learning to build their personal capacities, it seems possible to

apply even these aspects to the students in the community. Furthermore, because of the

flexibility in the framework that Mitchel and Sackney allow, there is certainly the distinct

possibility that many readers might not find it a strong enough to evaluate a university

undergraduate major. Additionally, this framework was only built on observations in

Western-style formats of education. Most research on learning patterns has been done

with Western students in higher education (Vermunt et al (2014), and this framework

seems like it should not be utilized to experiment with concepts that do not at least

partially fit the framework.

Wildey|23

Methodology

Overview

The purpose of the methodology conducted in this research was to explore the history of

CEP, to give context to the personal experiences I had in the program the past two years.

This research allowed me to understand many of the processes that exist currently, which

contributed contextually to the results and analysis section of this report. The figure below

outlines the conceptual process I used when beginning the methodology. The work central

to this research took place in step one and included a Historical Document Review and Key

Informant Interviews. These two forms of data gathering gave context to the two years of

Participant Observation I conducted in the major. Following this methodology section, I will

outline the results of the application of components of CEP to the Community Capacities

Framework. Then I will offer an analysis of those results. Following this, I present a

discussion formulated around the application of the informed practices to other settings.

Figure 5: Conceptual Process of Methodology

Historical Document Review

As progress happens within a program, and time in the moment dwindles, it can be difficult

to accurately document the processes that are occurring. Even if these processes are

documented, storage of this type of documentation can take up a significant amount of

physical space. This contributed to the elimination of much of CEPs past. Also contributing

to this elimination was an idealistic struggle surrounding creative thought within the

Wildey|24

program. On one hand, having detailed records can be used to build off of and create new

ideas. On the other hand, there is value in brainstorming fresh ideas for yourself rather

than having the ideas of others clouding personal creativity. This debate has also caused

much of CEPs history to fall to the wayside in lieu of saving only certain forms of

documentation.

I had the opportunity to access a wide variety of documents, most of which were stored in

CEPs Program Managers office. These documents were relatively well organized by past

program managers, which made the sorting through process a bit easier. I began by

reading a binder about the creation of CEP in 1993, including original emails between

students, Dennis Ryan Chair of the Department of Urban Design and Planning at the time,

Paul Schell Dean of the College of Architecture of Urban Planning at the time, and other

University administrators. This first binder led to more and more information. I met with

the Built Environments Librarian, Alan Michelson, early on in this research to discuss how

one goes about the process of reading through historical documents. His suggestion was

that I simply needed to start reading.

There were a wide range of historical documents that I processed. Some examples of these

documents include:

Email Communication

Proposals and Discussion Feedback

Annual Reviews

Strategic Planning Documents

Plumb Manuals

Senior Projects

Internships Reflections

Reflective Essays

During this process I took notes about different components of the major in one large CEP

history timeline. These notes were all descriptive in nature, but allowed reflection at a later

time. I focused mostly on reading documents from the first 10 years because that was the

information most foundational for my understanding of the current situation. This form of

methodology was bolstered by meetings I had with my mentor.

Key Informant Interviews

Throughout the process of this research project, my mentor was Christopher Campbell.

Christopher came to CEP in 2000 as a faculty member and has been the Director of the

Wildey|25

program since 2010. In the past year, he added an additional role to his plate Chair of the

Department of Urban Design and Planning. Now, Christopher plays these three roles. It is

safe to say that he has a depth of knowledge surrounding the program.

During the year, I met with Christopher approximately 8 times, each time for at least one

hour. The topics of each meeting were typically focused conceptually on the ideas of this

research project. However, it seemed impossible to discuss this research, without also

learning new information through stories from Christopher. During a few of these

meetings, I took audio recording of the conversation. This allowed me to go back into the

conversation and rethink the direction of the project, but also have additional historical

stories from which to draw information. Meeting with Christopher allowed me to access

more knowledge than would have been possible with most other individuals to which I had

regular access.

Other Data Compiling Tactics

To supplement the historical data gained from the document review and from Christopher,

I also compiled information in other ways. The most relevant method was through the

utilization of the Universitys archive of course time schedules. Early on in the research, I

planned to interview multiple faculty members to gain more knowledge about the

program. In order to gain the most holistic view of who instructed in CEP, I created a

spreadsheet of information gained through the Time Schedule archives. The University has

kept a separate web page of each quarters course listing, including instructor names, back

to 2002. Prior to that, there are scanned .pdf documents of what was a printed course

catalog. This was an extensive data collection process. I documented every class that was

listed in the course catalogs under CEP from Fall 1994 to Winter 2015, which includes

approximately 450 courses and 45 different instructors. A small selection of this data can

be seen in the table below. I also wrote notes about specific courses when there was

additional information available.

This data is limited for multiple reasons. First, the course catalog does not always

accurately reflect who actually taught the course, if the course was cancelled, or what the

nature or content of the course was. Furthermore, even when courses were listed, the

faculty member was not always listed, resulting in a significant number of entries without

that information included. This lack of data increased the further back into time I went.

Despite these limitations, this additional data source proved to be beneficial in the long

run. I will discuss this further in the Personal Capacity section of the Results.

Wildey|26

Table 2: CEP Faculty Spreadsheet Example

First Name Last Name Year Quarter Class Taught Notes

Marty Curry 2015 Winter CEP 200

Jan Wittington 2015 Winter CEP 302

Dennis Ryan 2015 Winter CEP 446

Mark Purcell 2015 Winter CEP 461A

Kelly Hostetler 2015 Winter CEP 491

Frederica Helmiere 2015 Winter CEP 498

Participant Observation

During the past two years, I have been a participant in all components of the CEP major.

Like my peers, I have attended all six core courses and participated in all four retreats. I

have completed all requirements of the major. Beyond the requirements, I took additional

leadership roles in the following ways:

Committee Point:

Community Engagement Committee, 2 quarters

Alumni Relations Committee, 1 quarter

Steering Committee, 1 quarter

Proposal Development:

I collaborated with my peers and staff to create and implement two significant proposals. I

became involved at the implementation stage of the grading policy for Governance

proposal passed in Fall 2013. I also started the discussion, wrote the proposal for, and

acted as the proposal facilitator for the creation of the new Alumni Relations Committee in

Fall 2014. Additionally, I attended meetings for other major proposals including one

concerning an honors component of CEP in Winter 2014.

Facilitator:

I developed a plan for facilitation of Spring Retreat 2014. I also worked closely with a group

of peers to plan CEP Orientation 2014. With a group of peers, I was involved in facilitating

each of these events. Additionally, I organized and facilitated summer meetings for

interested CEP students to discuss different components of CEP and address some issues.

I was also involved in the CEP community in many ways, and attended a wide variety of

social gatherings. Together, all of these experiences have allowed me to gain a deep

understanding of how most processes function and how students interact with those

processes. During the first year of the major, I wasnt actively thinking about this project, so

Wildey|27

my observations were more unintentional and can influence my analysis mostly in

retrospect. The second year of the major, I was inevitably giving deeper thought into all of

these experiences. There were times when a conversation about a component of CEP

would spark up and I would pay close attention to the goals and aspirations of my peers

concerning the topic. These observations have been rolled into my final results.

Methodology Justification

Because of the nature of the project and the data available to me, I believe these methods

allowed me to achieve the level of understanding needed to apply components of CEP to

the Community Capacities Framework. There are many different approaches I could have

taken to address these questions. I could have interviewed past students, staff, and faculty

about different components of the major to gain a more in-depth knowledge of the

components evolution. I could have similarly done a survey to quantifiably measure

different experiences in the major. I will discuss later how these methods could be utilized

to take this project further. I chose to focus mostly on building a personal base of

knowledge from the documents I had available to me in order to gain the most objective

and broad understanding possible. If given more time, I would have explored deeper

methods.

I am aware of the context in which I develop and understand the history of CEP. Because I

was conducting a process of looking back up to 20 years after the information was initially

created, I wanted to learn as much of the history as possible in order to create an accurate

portrayal of the major. I am deeply aware of the fact that much of what I write is not

complete knowledge and that it will likely not represent how all alumni feel about their

experiences in the program. I dont intend to claim such legitimacy. However, I do feel that

the results and analyses I offer can be understood and agreed upon by the majority of the

CEP community.

All information and data I compiled through this research has been electronically stored. I

would love to share it with any reader. Email wildey.matt@gmail.com for access.

Wildey|28

Results

Overview

The result of this project is the application of different factors of CEP to the three forms of

capacity outlined in Mitchel and Sackneys Learning Community Capacity Framework:

Personal, Interpersonal, and Organizational Capacity. These factors focus more on how CEP

is currently, but there are some factors that will have more historical context added to the

analysis. I believe that you cant analyze the present without knowing the context of the

past. These results identify informed practices and areas for growth within the different

capacities of the framework. By finding strong examples of each component of the

framework, I believe that I will be able to say that CEP is a high capacity learning

community.

I start by talking about each capacity individually. The general format of this starts with an

overview of the capacity and how it is built generally in CEP. Then I identify and discuss the

different factors that make up that specific capacity. After discussing the moving parts of

each of the three capacities, I move to integrating them with a discussion of how CEP

students interact within and between the capacities. It very important to note that any

feature of CEP that is mentioned within any individual capacity does not exist in a vacuum

and is constantly affected by the other features of CEPs learning community. Additionally,

each capacity mutually affects the other capacities and writing about each one individually

is only done for the sake of standard linear readability.

I acknowledge that this analysis of CEP has occurred through my own personal bias and

experiences with the major. Because of this, I recognize that the way in which I present CEP

may not reflect how every individual in the major feels about each piece of the puzzle.

However, my methodology reflects an honest attempt at gaining the context necessary to

give the most unbiased analysis of the program.

Personal Capacity

Overview

At its core, CEP has a strong focus on the holistic development of the individual. Individuals

have an immense amount of responsibility to guide themselves towards their educational

goals. This degree of intentionality with personal education is unmatched by most other

undergraduate majors. This is articulated in many ways across the major. Phrases like A

Wildey|29

CEP education is fully lived, not passively taken, This is your major! and You get out what

you put in permeate the culture of CEP.

A CEP students journey within the major and within their own self-reflection is through

Summer Essays where CEP students are required to begin articulating their interests within

the major and their educational goals in general. In the Fall of their first quarter in the

major, students are required to submit an Individual Study Plan (ISP) that details the

curriculum plan theyve set for themselves based on these educational goals. The ISP is a

living document that the student has the ability to develop based on their changing

interests. At the end of the two years in the major, the students are required to submit a

personal reflection on their experiences in the major. Where the ISP is a document that

looks forward to the experiences in the major, the additional requirement of an E-Portfolio

is a chance for the student to look back on the full experience. All of these different

requirements of CEP are vital for the individuals in the major to create their personal and

professional narratives, the foundation of their personal capacity.

CEP students engage with professional novelty through their Senior Project, a year-long

capstone project that cumulates their learning in the major. Students projects have the

capacity to take many different forms, but engage with some form of research question

which can be answered through their project. Students present their senior projects at

Senior Project Night at the end of the year as an opportunity to open up their project to a

broader audience and receive feedback. Another way that students have access to novelty

is through their choice of methods and diversity credits. These requirements push students

to learn about topics of their interest but also to expand their worldviews in unintended

ways. Students can form their methods credits from any different number of programs

across the University campus. This interdisciplinary nature exposes students to novel ideas.

CEP students have many opportunities to access different forms of professional networks.

Through a quarter long internship requirement, CEP students connect their educational

goals to the work of an organization in the community. Furthermore, as CEP is a major with

a strong focus on Urban Planning, many of the core courses have components that involve

students getting out into the community and engaging with a variety of stakeholders,

clients, or community members. The relationship that are built through these foundations

often turn, for students, into a deeper connection or a future job with that organization.

Mitchel and Sackney assert that students construct their knowledge through a process of

interacting with compelling disturbances to their professional narrative. When CEP

Wildey|30

students begin in the major, they inevitably think about the world in a certain way. Through

the sequence of the six core courses, students are able to interact with new ideas that are

intended to build upon each other, scaffolding students a higher level of connected

knowledge at the end of the two years. Students have the ability to choose between taking

these courses for a standard grade or for Credit/No Credit, which allows the student to

focus their in-class learning towards their specific goals. Through their ISPs, students are

encouraged to connect the content of their methods credits to their other courses as well

as to their core courses, aiding in the construction of knowledge within the individual

student.

Presencing, or appreciating the situation in the moment, can be seen through the evolving

nature of the CEP students ISP. Students come into the program with certain ways of

thinking, but through each compelling disturbance, their interests are bound to shift while

they reframe their professional narrative. There is the general feeling that, not only will a

student change their ISP during their two years, but that, if a student doesnt change their

ISP, theyve done something wrong. Another way that CEP students are able to appreciate

and focus on their experiences in the present is through a process of self-evaluation that

follows the coursework and most extracurricular work in CEP. In this way, students look

inwards as a process of maturing to their present self.

Each of these factors plays a significant role in the development of the personal capacity of

students within the major. The next section will discuss each piece in more depth and will

offer some areas for growth.

Professional Narrative

The professional narrative may be the most important part of CEP. As the foundation of all

learning within individuals in CEP, the professional narrative is the basis for understanding

on which actions are made and further learning constructed. In CEP, the professional

narrative is understood as a journey, where the process of reframing the narrative is likely

more important than where the student ends up after graduation. The journey includes

many different pieces of introspection and self-reflection that allow the student to learn

from their past experiences and grow in profound ways.

A CEP students journey starts with Summer Essays before they begin the major. Most

students at this point in their education have not had an opportunity to give critical thought

towards their education, and have been following the process in much more of a passive

Wildey|31

way. The summer essays begin the two year journey of active thinking. Students are

required to respond to questions such as:

What is a college education for?

What does an educated person look like to you in your specific field?

What might you need to learn to achieve this ideal?

How will you embody the CEP values during your education and participation in CEP?

After students complete the essays and begin the program, they are pushed to

immediately start developing their Individual Study Plan. In CEP, students are required to

take 6 core classes and a few other requirements, with a significant amount of courses left

open to the student to develop their own education through methods credits. Students

have to think critically about their educational goals and set a tentative plan for the

following two years in the program outlining the courses that will help achieve those goals.

Students have to write how each course they plan taking will benefit them in their

education process, which many students have found is enough to reframe the course and

decide if they even want to take it. Once in a course, students can look at their ISP and have

a better idea of how that one course fits into the rest of their journey. The ISP is a

document that should be constantly revisited as a living document. This flexibility allows for

further development of the students professional narrative based on their changing

academic and personal interests.

The summer essays and the original ISP are both also helpful in reframing the professional

narrative when it comes to the end of a students experience in CEP. Students are able to

look back at what they wrote early in the program and realize how much growth they ve

achieved. Students are then asked to reflect on the CEP experience in two ways, through a

personal reflective essay and through a cumulative E-Portfolio. The reflective essay is a

highly personal document in which the student is able to combine their thoughts about

everything theyve experienced the past two years. If the students take this essay seriously,

this document alone could be relatively representative of their CEP experience and could

provide an opportunity for future reflection, once theyve forgotten these experiences.

Then, students combine all of these documents as well as artifacts of their learning into a

portfolio to be submitted for graduation. For the majority of CEPs history, these portfolios

have been in paper form. With recent technological advances, students are now required

to submit the portfolios online. The original E-Portfolios were just places that the

documents lived electronically. But in the past two years, have become more focused on

the possibility of using the portfolio in a professional way after graduation.

Wildey|32

The summer essays and first ISP are ways for the student to look forward to their

education and the reflective essay and E-Portfolio are ways for the student to look back at

the experience. These experiences are highly personal for each individual student and

taken seriously can lead towards profound improvement in their education through the

reframing of their professional narrative.

Professional Networks

Mitchel and Sackney distinguish between homogenous networks and diverse networks,

both having benefits for the learning community. CEP contains different types of networks

that students to which students have access. Besides the network within the current CEP

students, which will be discussed further within the Interpersonal Capacity section, CEP

students are required to do an internship and some community work in core classes. Both

of these give students a chance to expand their professional network, giving them access

to more novelty that can help them construct and define their professional narrative.

CEP student internships have varied significantly in location between public sector, private

sector, non-profit, job related, campus organizations, international organizations and more.

Students are required to fulfill a quarters worth of expectations for the organization.

Students then take the internship course. The requirements of the internship class have

not changed drastically in many years. The course is intended to offer students an

opportunity to articulate what they learned in the course. The internship is a chance for the

CEP student to get what might be their first real life professional experience, whether it is

working for the City of Seattle Office of Planning and Development or if it is working for

Roots Young Adult Shelter.

Another opportunity provided by CEP for students to expand their professional networks

comes through specific courses, largely through CEP 460, a course where students work in

teams to collaborate on a project for a professional client in a planning related field. This

type of professional connection is originally set up by the instructor, but gives the student

more opportunity to work out in a field of interest. When the CEP 460 course was originally

taught, it focused more on planning theories in context to current conditions. However,

over time students advocated for more direct planning practice in the core courses, which

has turned into the more client-based projects in this course. This has been one

improvement over time for expansion of the professional network.

CEP Senior Projects, discussed in the next section, require a senior to seek out a

professional mentor who can guide the student through the project. This is an example of

Wildey|33

a network that forms specifically surrounding the academic or professional interests of the

students, and can help the student succeed with those interests. These different pieces of

CEP make up the professional networks that will then incorporate into a students access to

professional novelty.

Professional Novelty

Some students come into CEP having a deep understanding of climate change and ethical

environmental responses. Some students have experience working in collaborative group

settings. But despite their past experiences, all students have plenty of potential for growth

and learning through the CEPs core courses, governance, extra requirements, and the

overall CEP experience. Having access to new diverse networks in the internships or in class

requirements gives an element of novelty that most students experiencing a lecture-based

education might not otherwise encounter. One additional requirement included in the

students curriculum is a diversity component. This is intended to make the student think in

new ways by challenging dominant systems that the student is used to. This course can

reflect any form of diversity, but has the potential to be the course that opens the student

up to the most amount of professional novelty.

Another piece of this experience that really pushes the individual student to seek out novel

ideas is the creation of a Senior Project. The Senior Project, for CEP seniors, is a chance to

dive deeply into a topic of their own choice, ask a question pertaining to that topic, and

answer that topic through some form of research. In fact, this very project is my senior

project (further personal reflection will happen at the end of this write-up). Senior Projects

vary as much as CEPs interdisciplinary style of education. To facilitate this process, fall and

winter quarters of senior year include a required seminar, CEP 490, intended to develop

and research, and carry out the senior project. This course requirement is relatively new,

only developing in 2013. Prior, students had the option to take similar courses, but they

were not a requirement. The final CEP core course, CEP 462, includes a significant push

towards the finalization of the Senior Project. The projects are presented at Senior Project

Night near the end of the quarter.

Throughout the process of developing a senior project, students have to think about so

many factors. Starting with the narrowing to a topic of interest, figuring out what questions

are relevant to the topic, narrowing those questions down to something that can be

researched in a given time span, and actually making that research happen all require that

students think in new ways and are flexible to changing situations. No student is able to

start the year with a clear plan for the senior project and go through the entire project

without encountering some kind of issue that doesnt require them to learn some new skill,

Wildey|34

a research workaround, or just simple information about the project. Senior Project Night

adds a new spin to this novelty. Reviewers watch the presentations and give feedback and

critiques to each student. After having spent an entire year on a project, Senior Project

Night is a refreshing way to see ones own project in a novel way. Senior Project Night was

created in 2001 to strengthen the quality of Senior Projects across the major.

The novelty of the Senior Project does have some inherent drawbacks. These drawbacks

come mostly with the fact that the project lasts for the entire school year and there is

constant pressure to produce a quality project. This leads to students experiencing high

levels of stress. As deadlines mount, students may spend more and more time focused on

their project, which might draw away from the rest of their learning throughout the year.

Furthermore, because the student is going so in depth into one topic, they may lose sight

of what novelty the project is bringing to their education. This all may be part of the

process, and a significant area for learning, but does also have these drawbacks.

Knowledge Construction

The structure of the core courses in CEP is intended for each class to build on each other.

The names of each course and the order in which they are placed have remained the same

during CEPs history. The general theme of each course has also remained the same, but

the specific course content is able to bend to the whim of different instructors. It seems

that instructors who have been teaching in CEP for longer would have a better

understanding of how their course fits in with the other courses. New instructors have the

potential to bring a fresh look to the course, but also might find it challenging to see the

connections in a way that allows them to teach CEP students with the connections in mind.

The table below shows each core course and approximately 1the number of different

instructors CEP has had for that course over the years. This faculty turnover has the

potential to challenge a CEP students ability to construct knowledge in a holistic manner. It

is common for CEP students to feel like the core courses dont connect together very well,

or even that the faculty dont know what each other are teaching.

1 This is based mostly off of research in the UW Time Schedule Archive. Some data was missing and

for some courses that were co-taught, the second instructor is was not listed. This table is just a

representation of the fact that so many different individuals have instructed in CEP. This does not

represent the instructor turnover. Furthermore, the descriptions are copied verbatim from the UW

Course Catalog, and do not reflect the syllabus that individual instructors create.

Wildey|35

Table 3: CEP Core Courses, Description, Historical Number of Instructors

Name of Course Description Number of

Instructors

CEP 301: The Idea of

Community

Theories of community and communal rights and

responsibilities. Experience building a learning community

within major. Explores struggles for community in every sector

of life.

6

CEP 302:

Environmental

Response

Explores issues of environmental crisis and societal responses.

Readings and reflective analysis from broad selection of

authoritative sources to develop grounded perspective in

ecological literacy and consciousness. Concurrently,

experiential education in challenges and practical responses to

building sustainable society through participation in

community-based environmental effort.

8

CEP 303: Social

Structures and

Processes

Investigates use of formal and informal social structures and

processes within context of community and environment.

Looks at patterns and institutions of social organization and

relationships among different sectors. Issues of

interrelatedness, citizenship, knowledge, and communication.

15

CEP 460: Planning in

Context

Examines theory against backdrop of practice for broad

historical understanding of social, political, environmental

planning. Critique from viewpoints, e.g., planning history, ethics,

ecofeminism, environmental justice, class and capitalism,

planning and global economy. Develop personalized history

reflecting individual experience, professional experience, and

philosophical heritage of planning profession.

7

CEP 461: Ethics and

Identity

Examination of personal, societal, vocational, environmental,

planning ethics. Readings and discourse on ethical foundations

for public life. Individual and group readings on values, human

potential. Develops understanding of ecological context, moral

responsibility, self-awareness. Constructs positive, diverse view

of humanity, environment regardless of race, gender, ethnicity,

beliefs.

10

CEP 462: Community

and Environment

Capstone quarter merges core seminars, disciplinary courses in

major, community field experiences for mastery of personal

knowledge and skills. Reflection and synthesis of themes in

major; engagement with contemporary issues. Compares

theoretical definitions of community and environment with

individual philosophies and knowledge within thoughtful,

applied context.

4

In terms of the actual sequence of courses, certain aspect of the scaffolding that is in place

seems to function properly for the growth of the individual student around the topics

discussed overall. However, the sequence might seem par