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- Founding - Old
Sem - Name - Women
- First Graduates -
- King Chapel - Physical
Education - May Music Festivals
- OCAAT -
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Robert Lewis
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Curiosity lured Cornell faculty members to Colorado College
to study something called a block plan. Students in the mountain college
in Colorado Springs started learning one course at a time in 1970. It
was a concept that allowed for uninterrupted stretches of study time for
discussion and labs, less review time, better attendance, more field trips,
etc. Cornell College dean Robert Lewis was sold on the idea. But there
were dissenters and much debate when it was proposed that Cornell give
it a try.
For English and music professors there was worry that cramming
a course into 3 1/2 weeks posed "external constraints." How could someone
practice the trumpet for three weeks then take months off before trying
again? Or how could you possibly squeeze six long novels into a Hemingway-Faulkner
course in 3 1/2 weeks? And for faculty members the discipline of devoting
so much time to one subject would require a supreme effort to hold student
interest.
In the end faculty and students were daring enough to give
it a try and One-Course-At-A-Time (OCAAT)
was voted in by the faculty with a 2-to-1 margin in March 1978. That fall
it was embraced as a useful teaching tool. More importantly, as enrollment
took a nosedive in the '70s, it became a marketing weapon used to carve
a niche in the college market. It worked. Enrollment broke out of its
doldrums.
Students learn in nine 3 1/2 week terms each school year.
Books are read and thoroughly dissected. Plays are produced in just a
few weeks. And Cornell, because it was willing to gamble on an innovative
concept, became known as a college with vision.
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