Environmental Studies Program
Rankin Hall
The University of Montana
Missoula, Montana 59812-4320
Phone: (406) 243-6273
Email: evst@mso.umt.edu
http://www/umt.edu/evst
To:
From:
Re:
Date:
Tully Thibeau, ASCRC
Dan Spencer, Environmental Studies
Submission of Vietnam courses to ASCRC
November 11, 2014
Dear Tully,
I appreciate having the opportunity to address the initial concerns of the ASCRC about my eCurr
submission to get permanent course designation for two 3-credit course that make up the 4-week
Vietnam travel seminar course. I hope to address each of the concerns you raise in your email of
10/23/2014. I have revised my memo of October 26th to address the points we discussed by
phone yesterday, November 10th. I hope this memo and the revised attachments (course
syllabus, course itinerary, and spreadsheet with course hours) will help the ASCRC in your
deliberations about the Vietnam course.
1. We (EVST as the host program, together with our partners in the Mansfield Center and the
College of Forestry and Conservation) request permanent course numbers for ENST 427:
Society, Economy and Environment of the Mekong Delta, and ENST 437: Climate Change
Effects and Adaptation in the Mekong Delta. I have developed separate course syllabi for
each course that includes the separate course descriptions learning outcomes, assignments
and readings for each course. I am attaching the syllabi to this memo.
2. We are requesting three credits for each course. You initially suggested that the course be
taught within the confines of Wintersession, and suggested it be one 3-credit ENST 493
course, the course number designation for general study abroad courses. However, the
Vietnam travel seminar course is significantly longer than Wintersession, and these two
courses together have far more contact hours than a 3-credit Wintersession course.
Wintersession has 15 class days, and classes meet for 3 hours a day, for a total of 45
classroom contact hours. Because the Vietnam course begins a week before Wintersession
and has program days on weekends, there are 22 full program days, plus two days of travel
on either end, for a 4-week experience. As you and I discussed yesterday, the Vietnam
course probably fits the category of “special programs” most closely. Particularly because
Wintersession may no long be continued in a few years and we may therefore need to run the
Vietnam course during the summer, we would like it to be considered as a special program
rather than as a Winter session course.
I have attached a spreadsheet that shows the contact hours on a daily basis for the 22 program
days. For clarity I have separated academic experiences from other required cultural
experiences in three separate columns to reflect academic contact hours, cultural activity
contact hours, and additional coursework hours (for course work including required readings
and written assignments). The spreadsheet reflects the course itinerary that I also include
here. There are approximately 121 formal academic contact hours (classes, lectures, etc.)
during the 22 program days, plus an additional 8 hours of required pre-trip and post-trip class
meetings for a total of 129 academic contact hours. There are another 43 hours of required
cultural activities. We required the students to complete an average of 3.5 additional course
work hours each day during the Vietnam course in order to complete assigned texts and
written assignments, for a total of 77 coursework hours during the Vietnam program. There
are an additional 20 hours of required pre-trip hours (required readings, including one
textbook, and a required written essay to be completed before departure to Vietnam), and an
additional 10 hours of required post-trip hours to complete all written assignments by
January 23, 2015. The total of required academic, cultural, and coursework hours comes to
272. With the recommendation that a standard 3-credit course require 135 hours (45 hours of
class time + 90 hours of coursework), the 272 total hours translates to 6 credits. We request
that these 6 credits be divided into two 3-credit classes as reflected in the attached course
syllabi.
3. As I mentioned to you in my earlier memo, the Vietnam course parallels or exceeds in length
of time and contact hours several international courses already approved by the ASCRC, all
of which grant six credit hours. I believe the closest parallel courses to the Vietnam classes
are the international programs in the College of Forestry and Conservation, which
historically has included the Vietnam course as a cooperative arrangement between
Environmental Studies, Natural Resource Science and Management (NRSM), and the
Mansfield Center (which functions as our official liaison with the U.S. State Department and
Can Tho University). For comparison, here are the CFC International Study Abroad
programs already approved for six credits by ASCRC (available at:
http://www.cfc.umt.edu/studyabroad/programs/default.php)
Indian Himalaya: May 19 – June 10, 2015 (23 days, including travel days);
RSCN 352 (3 cr) + PTRM 353 (3 cr)
New Zealand—Australia: December 26, 2014 – January 19, 2015 (25 days, including
travel days); MIS/MGMT/PTRM/NRSM 345X (6 cr)
New Zealand: May 23 – June 17, 2015 (26 days, including travel days);
PTRM 345X (6 cr)
Vietnam: December 26, 2014 – January 19, 2015 (25 days, including travel
days); ENST 427 (3 cr) + ENST 437 (3 cr)
We believe approving ENST 427 and co-requisite ENST 437 with permanent course
numbers at 3 credits for each class will help to maintain consistency in the Study Abroad
programs that the University of Montana offers.
4. In case the ASCRC would want to review other materials from the Vietnam course to make
sure it can meet its course objectives, I have created 4 Dropbox document folders, and I have
put in them (1) The course syllabi, the course schedule for 2014-2015, and the contact hours
worksheet; (2) two sets of course evaluations from the 2013-2014 class (one for SELL, the
other – much more extensive – for EVST and the Mansfield Center); (3) the required
readings for the courses (other than the 3 required books), available to the students on
Moodle (the course syllabus indicates which of these readings are to be done prior to
departure from the U.S.); and (4) a set of several of the PowerPoint lectures given to the
students in formal academic setting by professors and researchers at Can Tho University, our
partner institution. (After each lecture, which in accord with Vietnamese university customs
typically last two to two and one-half hours, the professors make their PowerPoints available
to us so that the students can use them for study and preparing their written assignments.)
Rather than inundate your email with dozens of attached files, I have shared each of these
Please make these available to any ASCRC member who would like to see them. If you send
me the email addresses of interested committee members, I can provide them access to the
Dropbox folders.
6. In an effort to make sure the course experience is a rigorous and high quality academic
experience for the students, EVST, NRSM and the Mansfield Center have developed a
detailed, 5-page course evaluation form that each student completes at the end of the course.
As you and the ASCRC review these course evaluations in light of your concerns about
ENST 427 and 437, I draw your attention particularly to Questions 5 and 15 (though I
encourage anyone interested to read the entire 5-page evaluation forms, as that will give a
more holistic sense of the course experience.) Question 5 reads: “Was the workload
appropriate for the number of credits (6) offered? And, did you have to work harder or less
hard for these credits compared to other courses? Are you receiving comparable grades?”
Reading the answers the students provide may help you in your assessment of the appropriate
number of credits to provide. Question 15 reads: “How would you describe the Vietnam
Study Abroad program to an interested student? Would you recommend it to other UM
students? Why or Why Not?” The answers to this question give a good indication of what
the students are gaining from the Vietnam course experience. Several describe it as the
single best course or academic experience they have had at UM. We have worked very hard
over the years we have been developing this course to make it a stellar academic and
experientially profound experience for the students (and the instructors), and we are
confident we have succeeded. Hence we seek permanent course numbers and six academic
credits for what we believe to be an excellent academic experience that supports UM mission
of academic excellence for the Global Century.
I look forward to meeting with the full ASCRC committee at your scheduled meeting on
Tuesday, November 18, 2014. I very much appreciate the careful attention you have given to my
course proposals and the detailed feedback you have given me.
Warmly,
Dan Spencer, EVST