U. can get 'in touch' with preceptorials

Students can now try their luck getting into the popular, not-for-credit seminars on-line through Penn InTouch. For the first time, students can register for the Student Committee on Undergraduate Education's preceptorials -- the extremely popular, not-for credit mini-seminars which are entering their sixth semester -- alongside their regular classes through the Penn InTouch on-line registration program, rather than through SCUE's Web page. With pre-registration in full swing and ending this Sunday, the University Registrar has already counted more than 2,200 requests for next semester's 15 preceptorials, the content of which were announced last week. Each seminar has room for just 10 to 15 students. After being inundated with thousands of student requests for the fall preceptorials, SCUE decided that it did not want to deal with the burden of randomly enrolling students in the preceptorials. "This is a huge accomplishment for us, and we will take the good with the bad," said SCUE Chairperson Rachael Goldfarb, a College senior. "Hopefully there will be no more bribes and no more death threats." The magnitude of student interest in the preceptorials program is due in part to the facts that the ideas for the courses are generated by students and that they are led by the University's most esteemed faculty and staff. Additionally, the courses require at most a total of 15 hours. According to Goldfarb, the philosophy behind the SCUE-initiated program is to promote student-faculty interaction for the sake of learning without the pressure of grading. Students will find the preceptorials linked from the course timetable on the Registrar's Web site. Each seminar has been assigned a registration number by the University Registrar. "We went to the University Registrar, Ron Sanders, to beg for this change," said Goldfarb. "The overwhelmingly positive response demonstrates that the University is committed to institutionalizing preceptorials." "This is such a great idea because it gets SCUE out of having to defend who is admitted to the preceptorials," Sanders said. "No one can interfere with this process, as it is based almost entirely on luck and takes a great deal of pressure off of SCUE." The spring preceptorials offer a wide range of interests. From taking a guided tour of the Normandy invasion through the eyes of History Professor Thomas Childers to understanding the correlation between food and life according to Psychology Professor Paul Rozin, students will gain new perspectives, Goldfarb said. Most of the seminars require a small time commitment of one or two days. On a Saturday in March, for instance, Urban Studies Professor George Thomas will take students to Falling Water, a house in Central Pennsylvania, that was built by architect Frank Lloyd Wright on top of a waterfall. Other preceptorials include a "Photography Workshop," "Lessons in Japanese Etiquette," "Cyberspace 90210," and an explanation of what made Frank Sinatra a legend. As students prepare for the "real world," Sociology Professor Robin Leidner and Career Services Associate Director Peggy Curchack will explain why "work matters" and what factors shape how we value work in "Making a Living and Making a Life." Goldfarb said she "couldn't be more thrilled" about the spring selections. "Because of Penn InTouch, instead of focusing on enrollment we were able to focus more on generating the best seminar topics," she added.

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