Spring 2008 Classes
SPRING 2008 CLASSES
To see course descriptions and sign up for a class, please go to www.excotc.org to register.
SPRING 2008 CLASSES
To see course descriptions and sign up for a class, please go to www.excotc.org to register.
Who Can Participate in EXCO Classes?
Anyone. That's the whole point of EXCO: to be a truly public university by offering classes that are free and open to the public. No affiliation with any group is necessary.
What do I need to participate in an EXCO class?
You may need to buy books and other materials for your EXCO class, and your facilitator will let you know what those materials will be. EXCO has made recommendations to facilitators on ways to cut down on costs for participants, and encourages sharing materials among participants.
By when must I sign up for a class?
We ask that participants sign up for classes within the first couple weeks that the class begins. We encourage participants to contact facilitators directly to negotiate particularly late registration.
What is the obligation a participant has to the class?
If you are taking a class through EXCO for Independent Study credit at the U of M, then naturally you will negotiate your level of commitment with the EXCO instructor and the faculty member who signed your Independent Study form (often the same person). If not, then each EXCO class will determine what level of commitment or kind of obligation will be required of the participants.
How do I sign up?
You'll actually sign up for classes through the Twin Cities EXCO (of which U of M is one chapter) at www.excotc.org. The EXCO at the U of M partners closely with the EXCO at Macalester College; we pool our resources, and cross-list our classes. By signing up through this larger site, you'll also get to see what classes are offered at Mac's EXCO and if you take those classes, create the kind of trans-institutional community that is so central to EXCO's mission.
Who can facilitate?
One of the main purposes of EXCO is to provide a forum for anyone to facilitate who has knowledge, experience, or expertise on the topic. We encourage undergrads and community members in particular to facilitate a class through EXCO.
What kind of topics can I facilitate a class on?
One of the main purposes of EXCO is to provide a forum for courses that the University does not offer, especially courses that are connected to community engagement and progressive social change; however, courses can be offered based on any perceived community need or mutual interest.
What kind of format can my class take?
One of the main purposes of EXCO is to provide a forum for more experimental and politically engaged pedagogical modes and learning experiences. You can envision yourself in a wide range of roles--for example, as a organizer, collaborator, or presenter. The shape of the course is up to you: for example, you can form a reading group, conduct engaged research, lead a skills workshop, provide practical training, or teach through performance. You can facilitate alone or in collaboration with several other facilitators.
What is the time commitment?
We request that your course has at least four meetings per semester. (If you envision a course that meets less than 4 times a semester, you might think about registering as a workshop.) Other than that, you determine the level of commitment: for example, you can meet every other week, or a couple times a week; you can assign no outside work, or a substantial amount; you can meet for 30 minutes, or 3 hours.
How do I sign up?
You'll need to submit a proposal. Please go to "The Paperwork" (below, or under "Facilitate a Class" to the right) for instructions. Proposals for the spring semester are due by Dec. 31, 2007, and should be e-mailed to excoumn@gmail.com.
We also encourage you to run your idea by any one of our officers first; we can give you some feedback.
When do classes begin?
February of 2008.
What's the deadline to submit a proposal?
For the Spring semester, the deadline for proposals is the last calendar day of the previous year. So if you want to teach a class in the the Spring of 2008, please submit your proposal by December 31, 2007. We'll notify you of our decision, or contact you with any questions we have, by the second week in January 2008.
FACILITATORS NEEDED. We need facilitators and ideas for the classes under development. Check out the classes below. If you are interested in facilitating any of them, please express your interest to excoumn@gmail.com.
Theory and Practice of the Coop.
Access to Higher Ed.
Advanced Conversational Spanish.
Cross-Generational organizing.
f you would like to facilitate a course through EXCO, please click on the link below for the EXCO Course Proposal Form. You'll need to fill it out in full so that EXCO can get the information it needs about you and the class you want to teach. The form is a Word document that you can fill out electronically. After you fill it out, please return it to excoumn@gmail.com by Monday, Dec. 31st. If you have any questions, please contact any of our officers via e-mail. We will contact you in the first week of January 2008 in response to your proposal.
COURSE MATERIALS. We ask that facilitators and participants be creative about keeping course material costs down for participants. EXCO has some suggestions for ways to keep costs down, and prevent the need for participants to buy books at full price. Facilitators and collaborators can negotiate some tasks towards this end. Here are some possibilities:
1. Scan in PDF format whatever sections of a book the class will read, and then upload the document, and share via e-mail.
2. Share and circulate bought books.
3. Members of the class who have library memberships can take out copies for others in the class who don't.
4. Order used books through local bookstores.
Mission Statement
The Experimental College (EXCO) is an autonomous university that both envisions and enacts a “public” university by offering unique courses that are free and open to anyone.
EXCO seeks to embody the vision of a democratic university that serves the common good.
EXCO is committed to inclusion, community involvement, and progressive social change.
EXCO offers both a model of what the U might be, and a tool to make it so: EXCO is both an alternative university outside the U of M, and a subversive university that seeks to change the U of M from within.
EXCO is designed to both examine and overturn the alienation and exclusion created by the political hierarchy, bureaucracy, and neoliberalization of the university, by
CONNECTING:
--theory with praxis
--scholarship with activism
--campus with community
--workers, students, and faculty with each other
--the university communities with communities at large
And
CREATING:
A space where people come together to:
--share their talents in an inclusive, open, non-hierarchical, non-coercive setting
--become authentically involved in their education
--question, live, and transform their education
--build networks between and among groups
--build solidarity on campus to grow a public university
--organize for social change
EXCO COURSES:
--provide a large imaginative net to welcome any kind of content and form
--respond to community, campus, and public needs
--offer truly public access, involving university and non-university members not just as participants, but also facilitators and collaborators
--employ a variety of educational and pedagogical tools
--meet regularly as decided by those organizing them
--channel the U’s resources (classrooms and monies); use existing infrastructure
EXCO COURSES MAY:
--collaborate with other grassroots groups on campus
--carry out original research committed to social change
--arise from problems and material realities right here at the U, the community, or the world
--culminate in direct social action in response to problems and realities
--be taken for credit as part of Independent Study
The EXCO of U of M began in the Fall of 2007 at the Twin Cities campus. EXCO was one of many movements started across campus in response to the AFSCME strike in September 2007, an event that served as a catalyst for re-thinking the U of M as a public, land-grant university.
The Experimental College movement began in 1966 when universities and colleges across the U.S. saught to include more alternative voices in the culture of the university. The EXCO at the U of M is closely affiliated with the EXCO at Macalester College in St. Paul, which began in Spring 2006.
EXCO Officers:
Eli Meyerhoff, PhD candidate, Political Science, meye0781@umn.edu
Amy Pason, PhD candidate, Communication Studies, pason001@umn.edu
Arnoldas Blumberg, BA candidate, Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies, blum0136@umn.edu
Isaac Kamola, PhD Candidate, Political Science, kamo001@umn.edu
Kathryn Wodtke, BA candidate, Liberal Arts, wodtk005@umn.edu
Lucia Pawlowski, PhD candidate, English, pawl0068@umn.edu