HANDBOOK FOR HONORS
JUNIOR YEAR FIELDWORK
UNDERGRADUATE HONORS PROGRAM
SAINT XAVIER UNIVERSITY
3700 WEST 103rd STREET
CHICAGO, IL 60655
2010 EDITION
CONTENTS
Page
INTRODUCTION
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SECTION I
Rationale, Objectives and Expectations for Honors Fieldwork
Range of Fieldwork Options
Finding the Placement Site
Fieldwork Supervisor
Fieldwork Products
Fieldwork Proposals
Honor 350/51: Honors Fieldwork Seminar
Course Credit
Integration with fieldwork requirements or electives in the major
A Summary of Steps in the Fieldwork Process
Special Arrangements for Study Abroad
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SECTION II: APPENDIX
List of Fieldwork Placements for the classes of 2003-2010
Supervisor Evaluation Forms
Description of a Preliminary Research Project as Fieldwork option
Sample Fieldwork Proposal Form
Sample Fieldwork Proposals
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INTRODUCTION
This handbook provides students with specific guidelines and procedures for their junior
year fieldwork experience, and includes some advice to help them avoid some of the
common hazards and pitfalls involved in pursuing a successful fieldwork project. We
welcome the suggestions of Honors students and any faculty who have served as
fieldwork supervisors for making this handbook more useful. We welcome any other
advice or recommendations about fieldwork component of the Honors Program that
should be included to aid future Honors students and faculty engaged in this stage of the
program.
This handbook is primarily designed for the student’s use, but it also contains some
information that will be of interest to fieldwork on site supervisors and also to the
student’s academic advisor in his/her major field. Copies of the Handbook are on file in
the Honors Program Director’s office. Honors students should request additional copies
for any of their advisors who want to understand the purpose and mechanics of the
Honors Fieldwork experience.
The first section articulates the purpose, expectations and guidelines for completing each
stage of the fieldwork process. We have tried to use specific examples to clarify some of
the questions students raise or the problems they sometimes encounter, and have added
pieces of advice (at the risk of sounding preachy).
The second section is an appendix of key documents, including model proposal forms, a
list of past fieldwork placements, the supervisor’s evaluation form, among others. If after
reading this handbook, the student still has questions concerning the Fieldwork process,
please contact the director of the Honors Program, Dr. Mary Beth Tegan.
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SECTION I
RATIONALE AND EXPECTATIONS FOR HONORS FIELDWORK
TO THE STUDENT: Why engage in Honors Fieldwork?
The founders of the Saint Xavier University Honors Program felt strongly that the
program should help to bridge the gap between learning and doing, between theory and
practice, and between the academy and the larger world where people work, create and
serve their communities. The fieldwork experience is intimately tied to that part of the
Honor’s Program mission that seeks to “channel abstract knowledge into avenues of
service for the human family.” It reinforces the program’s unifying objective to develop
skills and nurture habits of mind that encourage and enable students “independently to
pursue knowledge in their chosen fields and, ultimately, to advance learning.”
Engaging in “hands on” experiences in your area of interest will better prepare you to
succeed in the training and the advanced learning that you will pursue after college. Such
experience also will challenge you to think critically about your professional interests and
goals. Fieldwork experience can fuel even more passion for a profession to which you
find yourself drawn, or it could reinforce some reservations and doubts you may be
entertaining. In all cases, the experience will enable you to learn more about your area of
professional interest, and to make more deliberate decisions about pursuing it. Finally,
“hands on” experiences in the professional setting may fuel your own research interests,
inspiring you with issues and ideas you would like to examine more deeply and
deliberately in your Honors senior research or creative project.
FIELDWORK PLACEMENT OPTIONS
Placement options are as diverse as the students pursuing them. (See Appendix A-1 for a
list of placements where Honors students have engaged in their fieldwork.) You may
choose to do an internship in a work setting of interest to you, e.g. a law office, a
computer program design company, a radio station, local newspaper, clinical or
educational setting, etc. Or you may engage in structured observations at a site that will
enable you to learn more about a specific field that interests you. Although not yet
licensed to practice physical therapy or speech pathology therapies, students have
proposed fieldwork experiences where they gain permission and sustained access to
observe treatments and to ask questions and absorb the expertise of professionals working
in the field. Other students have shaped fieldwork experiences in tutoring, with
placements ranging from preschool to undergraduate college settings.
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Another option is to engage in research under the direction of a faculty mentor: students
in the sciences, for instance, might begin a program of laboratory research with a faculty
mentor that culminates in their Honors Senior Research or Creative Project. The junior
year fieldwork, in this case, would be the “spadework” for that major project. A related
option for students outside the sciences is to satisfy the fieldwork requirement by
completing a “Preliminary Research Project” (for detailed description, see Appendix, A4). Again working under the direction of a faculty mentor, the student would begin doing
research in a topic area they would like to pursue for their Senior Honors Project. By the
end of the fieldwork experience, they may well have compiled their survey of sources on
the topic, have read a good portion of them and have come up with a tentative outline for
their senior project.
Students also have designed original, independent fieldwork projects that have supplied
them with hands on experiences and sharpened their skills in areas of professional
interest to them. Examples might include designing a Website for a particular audience
on a particular topic (e.g. “the local Chicago music scene”) or designing and
implementing a promotional and marketing strategy to improve attendance at the
university’s film series.
Finally, an option which we strongly encourage as a particularly enriching form of
fieldwork experience is study abroad. Students who have chosen to study abroad for a
semester or a year report dramatic and invaluable “life transforming” experiences. They
discover more about the world, humanity and themselves by living and studying in
another country than they have in any other mode of learning . The experience has a
lasting effect on their academic, professional and personal lives. Faculty and staff
mentors can help you locate a study abroad program and placement that is right for you,
and also help you navigate issues involving expenses and financial aid.
FINDING THE FIELDWORK PLACEMENT
As an Honors student, you are expected to take the initiative in locating your fieldwork
placement, but you will be assisted in your efforts by a wide range of faculty and staff
members. Staff from our Career Planning and Placement Office will speak to Honors
students about procuring internships at area companies, firms or agencies, and also about
Alumni Mentors who are willing to work with undergraduates seeking fieldwork
opportunities. Our International Studies coordinator will work with students interested in
going abroad as a fieldwork option, and all faculty, administrators and staff at the
university will be informed that Honors students are interested in pursing fieldwork
options, internships or preliminary research in areas where they might be seeking interns.
The Honors Fieldwork Coordinator, currently Dr. Mary Beth Tegan, will serve as liaison
between faculty/staff./administrators who suggest interesting internship or research
options for Honors students, and the students who might want to pursue them.
You also are encouraged to consider family members, relatives, friends, neighbors and
acquaintances working in a profession that you’d like to pursue. Tapping such personal
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contacts might enable you forge a fieldwork placement and to pursue interesting and
educational activities at that site which might not be available to others. Any student who
has exhausted all possibilities without finding a satisfactory placement will be
encouraged to pursue the Preliminary Research Project option, which has the advantage
of getting them well “ahead of the game” in research and planning for their Honors
Senior Project.
FIELDWORK SUPERVISOR
In whatever placement you select, you will need to identify one person as your fieldwork
supervisor, whose role is to oversee the work you are doing and to assess its effectiveness
from the perspective of a trained professional in the field of the placement. The
supervisor’s role will vary according to the placement: internship and lab research
supervisors often assign duties and tasks and supply the specific training required to
execute them. Faculty mentors for Preliminary Research Projects will direct you towards
key literature in your subject area and help you identify a focus for your research.
Mentors for independent projects such as the film series promotion or website design
projects mentioned above can provide specific advice about strategies and can offer
suggestions for modifying approaches when you run into difficulties. Your supervisor
will complete an evaluation of your performance at the end of your fieldwork experience.
FIELDWORK PRODUCTS
At the completing their Fieldwork Placements, all students will turn in to the Honors
Fieldwork Coordinator some “product” resulting from their experience. Again, the
nature of the product will vary depending on the nature of the fieldwork activity.
Students working at newspapers or radio stations may submit a portfolio of articles they
wrote for the paper or a series of tapes of programs they hosted or produced for the radio
station. Students will be encouraged to keep a log and journal of their activities,
observations and insights on the job, and may submit as their fieldwork product related
entries from these writings, or perhaps a paper that develops more fully a theme that
recurred in their writing about the experience.
Students may focus upon a particular issue that arose in their placement site, perhaps one
that is gaining attention in the profession as a whole, and, after researching some of what
has been written on the topic, they may write a short paper connecting their experience of
the issue to the ongoing discussion of it in the profession. (e.g. an intern in a medical
setting may have observed controversy regarding HMO coverage for a particular
treatment. She may choose to discuss the issue and her observations of its effects on
patient treatment, supporting her points with recent sources addressing the issue.)
Other sorts of products are also possible. Students engaging in laboratory research with a
professor may report the outcomes and significance of experiments they have conducted,
and students who have pursued academic programs abroad may submit sample work they
have completed or an essay exploring the effects of the experience on them, intellectually
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and personally. Students will describe their anticipated fieldwork product in the
fieldwork proposals they submit to the Honors Program Director during the spring of
their sophomore year.
FIELDWORK PROPOSALS
By February 1 of their sophomore year, students will submit to the Honors Program
Director a proposal outlining their junior year fieldwork plans. The proposal will include
the anticipated placement site, the contact information for their supervisor, the number of
hours per week they expect to work, which semester(s), including summer, they will be
engaged in the work, what sort of work they will be engaged in, how the experience
advances their academic or professional development, and what sort of fieldwork
“product” they anticipate turning in at the end of the experience. (See Appendix for
proposal form and sample proposals.) You may not be able to supply all of this
information by February 1 because you may be pursuing a number of options, and some
companies or agencies may not make intern selections until later in the spring. But you
still will have to turn in a proposal indicating what efforts you have made towards finding
your placement or formulating your project, and whatever information you can supply
about the options you are pursuing.
The Honors Program director will read and respond to proposals throughout the spring
semester, letting you know what additional information is required for the proposal to be
approved. Your proposal must be approved before the beginning of the fall semester of
your junior year. No student will be admitted into Honor 350 (Honors Fieldwork
Seminar) unless her/his proposal has been approved.
HONOR 350/51: HONORS FIELDWORK SEMINAR
All junior year Honors students will enroll in Honor 350/51. Although you will be
engaged in a range of individual fieldwork placements, your class will continue to meet
weekly in order to share fieldwork experiences and the insights you have gleaned from
them. The seminar will be designed around the umbrella theme “The Dynamics of
Work,” and issues to be addressed will include power issues in the work place, issues of
race and gender, the effects of management style and office culture, factors that promote
alienation or motivation, disparities between work place expectations and realities, ethical
issues that arise in the work place. You will share with your peers your most rewarding
experiences, surprises, disasters, challenges, successes and lingering qualms about the
work in which you have engaged. During the course of the seminar you will be asked to
submit both your Fieldwork product and your on site Fieldwork Supervisor’s evaluation
of your performance.
Another goal of the Fieldwork seminar is to help you develop your proposal for your
senior year research or creative project. During the fall semester, you will be exposed to
model proposals and final projects. Guest faculty from various disciplines will review the
conventions of research and research design in their areas and will share the excitement
and rewards of discovery in their fields. You will begin preliminary reading to help you
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identify the general area for your project. During the spring semester of your junior year,
you will be required to select a faculty mentor as advisor for your project, and to
complete a fairly detailed project proposal
Your grade for Honor 350/351 will be based on your performance in the seminar, your
fieldwork supervisor’s assessment of your Fieldwork performance, and your progress in
developing an effective proposal for your senior project.
COURSE CREDIT
Typically, Honors students will take three credit hours of Honors Field Work (Honor
350) in the fall and three credit hours (Honor 351) in the spring of their junior year. One
credit hour each semester will be committed to the Field Work class meetings (one hour a
week, on the average.) The other two credit hours each semester will be dedicated to the
on site Field Work experience. Students are encouraged to register for these two credit
hours both in the fall and spring, but must register for at least two credit hours of on
site field work during the course of the year; they must register for at least one of
these on site credit hours in the fall semester. This means that students will be taking
from four to six credit hours of Honor 350/51 during their junior year, depending on
whether they register for 2, 3 or 4 credit hours of on site field work; but they must
register for at least two of those credit hours in the fall semester (one credit hour for the
class, at least one on site credit hour), guaranteeing that, during the fall semester at least,
they will be participating in a field work experience as well as meeting with the class.
This flexibility is designed to accommodate students with very different demands and
requirements for their majors.
INTEGRATION WITH FIELDWORK REQUIREMENTS OR ELECTIVES IN
THE STUDENT’S MAJOR
For most Honors Program students, Honors Fieldwork will constitute additional course
work beyond the requirements for their majors. In some cases, however, Honors
Fieldwork may be integrated into the student’s major course of study. For instance, a
three hour Honors Fieldwork internship at a local newspaper might also count as elective
or required internship hours towards the Communication major. Or students in Biology,
may satisfy their Honors Fieldwork requirement with projects they engage in while
registered for Biology Research, Individual Study or Internship hours. But in cases like
these, it still will be necessary for the student to satisfy any additional Honors
Program Requirements for Fieldwork: that is, they must attend the class, submit a
Fieldwork product and develop a senior project proposal. Essentially, they will be
satisfying requirements or electives in their major AND Honors Program requirements
with the same field work experience, but in order to earn this benefit, they must satisfy
the specific requirements of both programs. In cases where such integration is desirable
and merited, the Honors Program Director will work with each student individually, and
with the chairs of their major departments, to negotiate the integration of fieldwork
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requirements and the appropriate credit hours to be allotted both in the major and in
Honor 350/51.
A SUMMARY OF STEPS IN THE FIELDWORK PROCESS:
Based on the components of the Fieldwork experience described so far, the student
should expect to go through the following steps or stages for a successful Fieldwork
experience:
1. Students will receive a letter from the Honors Program Director shortly before the
beginning of the fall semester of their sophomore year explaining the Fieldwork
requirement. The letter summarizes the information outlined in this Handbook.
2. In Honors Program Seminar meetings during the fall semester of their sophomore
year, Honors Program administrators and Saint Xavier staff members will talk with
Honors students about fieldwork placement options. Students will investigate
fieldwork options, apply for internships, apply to study abroad programs, or design
individual research or applied projects under the direction of faculty mentors.
3. By February 1, initial Fieldwork Proposals must be mailed, e-mailed, campus mailed
or dropped in the office door pocket of the Honors Program Director. The proposals
must include as much of the information as possible requested on the Honors
Fieldwork Proposal Form (see Appendix A-5). Throughout the spring semester of
their sophomore year, the Honors Program Director will meet and/or correspond with
each student, helping them develop their proposals and guaranteeing that all of the
information required for approval is included. Approval of the fieldwork proposal is
a prerequisite for admission into Honor 350: Honors Fieldwork Seminar.
4. During the course of the Junior Year Fieldwork Seminar students will share their on
site experiences, which they will analyze in the context of more general issues
regarding workplace dynamics. They will submit their fieldwork products and have
their fieldwork supervisor’s evaluation of their performance sent to the Fieldwork
Seminar Coordinator.
SPECIAL ARRANGEMENTS FOR STUDENTS WHOSE FIELDWORK
CONSISTS OF STUDY ABROAD
Honors students who choose study abroad as their fieldwork placement will not be
required to register for Honor 350/51 during the semesters when they are abroad. This
requirement will be satisfied by their course enrollments in the curriculum they have
undertaken. They will be asked to forward a “fieldwork” report to be presented in class
in whatever format they desire, just as all other students will be reporting on and
analyzing their experiences in class. They will submit a Fieldwork Product like all other
students in Honor 350/351 and will be encouraged to think about a senior project that
might be generated by their experiences, observations and studies abroad. They will be
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expected to focus upon their senior project proposal during the summer between their
junior and senior years.
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SECTION II: APPENDIX
APPENDIX
List of Fieldwork Placements for the classes of 2003-2010
Supervisor Evaluation Forms
Description of a Preliminary Research Project as Fieldwork option
Sample Fieldwork Proposal Form
Sample Fieldwork Proposals
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