Photo Courtesy of Connecticut College
Last Thursday, the Connecticut College community gathered for the fourth annual All-College Symposium. In this Symposium, seniors from different pathways and centers presented the projects and research they have done through the college’s Centers and Pathways.
Through these Centers and Pathways, seniors were able to specialize their study in interdisciplinary topics. For example, seniors in the Data, Information, and Society Pathway were able to learn how to interpret data and apply it in a variety of topics in which they were interested.
Interested seniors applied for Centers or declared Pathways during the first semester of their sophomore year. They then spent the next four semesters taking the necessary courses and researching to create their senior projects, which they presented at the Symposium.
This year, 239 of the 426 seniors (56%) chose to be a part of the five centers, ten pathways, and one certificate program included in the Connections program.
Though many might think the Connections curriculum has always existed, the curriculum was not fully implemented until 2016 for the class of 2020. The new curriculum was the result of many years of development following a thorough review of the college’s previous curriculum.
According to the Connecticut College website, this process was led by faculty and titled “reVision.” This process led to strengthened first-year seminars, a new team advising system, the creation of ConnCourses, and new graduation requirements. At the heart of the new curriculum was the creation of integrative Pathways and academic Centers.
The creation of the new curriculum led to a considerable amount of attention for the college. President Katherine Bergeron appeared on a Forbes podcast, Sirius XM, and The Chronicle of Higher Education to discuss Connections. Additionally, the college was honored by The Aspen Institute and received a $750,000 grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to help implement the curriculum.
This additional interest in the college extended to prospective students. According to reports on the college’s website, Connecticut College reported receiving a record number of 6,400 applications just two years after the implementation of Connections.
However, just six years later, much of the enthusiasm has petered out among many students.
Ben Jorgensen-Duffy ‘23, an Educational Studies and Human Development double major and History minor, first learned of the Connections program when touring as a student. “There was a lot of promotion of Centers and Pathways as the default for what you were going to do,” said Jorgensen-Duffy. “Centers were sold to me as really easy to get into and that if you wanted to get into one you could.” However, it quickly became clear that this was not the case. “I applied to PICA [Program in Community Action] and didn’t get into PICA and they referred me to [the] Power, Knowledge, and Practice Pathway.”
Jorgensen-Duffy later joined the Power, Knowledge, and Practice Pathway but not all was smooth sailing from there. “We had one thematic inquiry class which was just an education class which was kinda confusing and very loosely based,” said Jorgensen-Duffy. “Then we kinda came up with an animating question but honestly for all of junior year there was absolutely no structure and support there [in our pathway].”
Leading up to the Symposium, Jorgensen-Duffy felt that his Pathway did not have much of an impact on his academic journey in college. “It seems like I have done a lot of cool things and that I have done my individual path through my college experience but in completing those they really had absolutely nothing to do with the pathway,” said Jorgensen-Duffy. “The pathway provided no structures that supported them and I just did stuff that I would’ve done anyway and now reflectively I can say that it was part of this journey that they want me to talk about.”
Jorgensen-Duffy felt like the pathway was more of a resume builder than a life-changing experience. “At the end of the day, what I feel like is that the pathway gives me an opportunity to sell myself in a way that’s somehow creative and it makes the school look like they have something special going on with their academics but on both ends it’s really more of a performative dressing up of a normal college experience than anything substantive.”
The biggest problems Jorgensen-Duffy found with his experience in the pathway were related to staffing. “[Conn] has way too many pathways and not enough people committed to teaching them, especially since it takes a lot of commitment to be with the same cohort over the years.” This personally affected Jorgensen-Duffy, as the support he received in his pathway was often inconsistent.
When asked about what he would do if he was in charge of Pathways, Jorgensen-Duffy was clear. “If I was in charge of Pathways, I’d probably slim down the number of Pathways offered, offer a lot more guidance on what requirements are, and have more consistent advising throughout to have more opportunities to engage in the pathway more deeply,” said Jorgensen-Duffy.
Likewise, Will Bryant ‘23, a History and Music Studies double major and Education Studies minor, also a member of the Power, Knowledge, and Practice Pathway, encountered many of the same problems in his journey. “I joined my pathway because I decided going into my sophomore year of college that I wanted to become an educator,” said Bryant. “Since Conn was dialing back their Education Department, [the Pathway] was a way for me to become more invested in what I thought would be an education path.”
However, Bryant’s Pathway experience was not at all he expected. “Our advisor had to step down during the experience and it felt very weird when we were flying in the dark for a while,” said Bryant. “We had no checking in, no new advisor, and very little structure after our initial Thematic Inquiry.” As a result, roughly half of Bryant’s peers in the Pathway dropped out.
Ultimately, support came, but much later than Bryant would have liked. “The only support we had after was before the Symposium when we had to talk about how much of a positive experience it was at the Symposium.”
Though the experience of a pathway was not what he expected, Bryant has no regrets. “Even though the experience wasn’t what I thought was sold to me, I don’t regret it,” said Bryant. “I was able to structure more coursework well to reflect my pathway and what I was passionate about.”
If given the opportunity to bring changes to the Pathway system, Bryant “would totally restructure it.” He continued, “Pathways are a big selling point of the college, and Symposium day is a huge day so why students are left unsupported after their initial thematic inquiry and land in their senior year without knowing what’s going on is beyond me.”.
In addition, Bryant feels that the pathways should have more support. “I think there definitely needs to be more regular check-ins,” said Bryant. “I think there maybe should be a one or two credit course junior year to ensure people are on-track with their pathways because it’s pretty common for people’s animating questions or goals to change as they get deeper into their work.”
In contrast, a junior in the Goodwin-Niering Center for the Environment has enjoyed her experience. “[The experience] has had its ups and downs but overall it’s been positive,” said the junior. “It’s really nice to have a smaller community on campus and we have seminars every semester and the topics are very interesting.”
Though the junior believes that her overall experience has been positive, not all has been easy. “I do feel that [the Center] can be unnecessarily stressful at times with requirements,” said the junior. “You have to do an internship the summer after your junior year in Centers and you have to take three classes that relate to your proposed project that are outside your major and that’s the real issue for a lot of us at the moment.”
In contrast to the lack of guidance others experienced in Pathways, the junior has had no problems with support in her Center. “We have quite a lot of guidance,” said the junior. “We always have a faculty advisor each semester as well as three to four faculty members dedicated to the center and an additional faculty group.”
Through her experiences, the junior would recommend Centers to all. “I’ve been talking to a lot of people about how centers are very useful for people who know what they want to do in the future and have a concrete idea of what they want to do for a project,” said the junior. “But, I’d definitely recommend everyone to look at Centers and talk to advisors.”
Aware of the challenges many of her peers in Pathways face, the junior would like Pathways and Centers to have more common ground. “I’d definitely make the Centers and Pathways as a whole more cohesive,” said the junior. “I’d make them more of the same across the board.”
At the end of the day, it seems as though many students don’t regret joining a Center or Pathway and like the idea, but feel as though much can be improved across the board. These improvements would include adding more staff support and guidance in pathways, having clearer guidelines in both centers and pathways, and adding more opportunities for those in pathways to get to build community. Hopefully, the college can take steps to reflect these prevalent suggestions.
