The Digital Past, Fall 2013

Dear Students:

As you probably know, you are among the first to take a class in Mason’s new ALT (Active Learning with Technology) Classroom. To learn more about your experiences taking classes in this space, the Office of Institutional Assessment and the Center for Teaching and Faculty Excellence are hosting two 1-hour focus group sessions. Your feedback will help us think about how to design and build other classrooms on Mason’s campuses.

If interested, please RSVP to attend one of the upcoming focus group meetings:

Session 1: Monday, December 9th, 2-3 pm

Location: University Hall, Rm 3647

Or

Session 2: Monday, December 9th, 4-5 pm

Location: University Hall, Rm 3647

Please know that your choice to participate will not have any effect on your class grade. In fact, your instructor will not know whether you participate or not until after grades have been submitted.

If you plan to attend a focus group, please email Brice Struthers at bstruthe@gmu.edu with the following information.

· Session 1 or Session 2

· Name of the class you took in the ALT classroom this semester

· Your contact info, cell and preferred email address

Space is limited and snacks will be provided!

Thank you,

Office of Institutional Assessment

Center for Teaching and Faculty Excellence

Please fill out the form to contribute to your collaboration and your group.

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/121xBm75Kb3Q94v8XPSBGjtKVBgLHIHjdzn1NzDdQO-M/viewform

Do you like history but do not plan on majoring in it?  If so, why not minor in it?

If you are taking this class, you are already at least one-third of the way to a history minor.  (That is, if you have already taken HIST 100 or 125.  You have to take one of these two courses at some point in order to fulfill your gen ed requirement in Western Civilization or World History.)  All you need for a History minor is 12 more credits, or 4 more classes.  Some of you may have taken an additional history course along the way, which means that you may already be halfway towards the History minor. You should check with the History Undergraduate Office to make sure you’re choosing the right courses, but the basic message is this:  you’re probably much closer to getting the History minor than you might think.

Getting a minor is a good thing.  It is good for your resume, mainly to show prospective employers that you have a breadth of interests and that you took your college education seriously enough to do the academic planning necessary to complete a minor.  Plus, a minor gives purpose and direction to your elective courses, so that when you are taking elective credits as a junior and senior you are not just randomly selecting courses that happen to fit your schedule.  If you like history at all, filling up some of those elective credits with history courses should be more rewarding and fun than simply choosing courses at random.  And we offer around 30 different upper-level history classes every semester, on almost every conceivable topic, and at every time slot.  Almost none of these classes have prerequisites, so you can take nearly any one you like, at any time.  And our instructors are outstanding:  the student evaluation scores for history classes at Mason are significantly higher than either the college or university average.

If you have questions about the minor, please contact the department’s Undergraduate Coordinator, Carrie Grabo (cgrabo1@gmu.edu), or our Undergraduate Director, Dr. Joan Bristol (jbristol@gmu.edu). Signing up for a minor is easy.  All you need to do is go to the History Undergraduate Office, in Robinson B361, and talk to Ms. Grabo or Dr. Bristol.  And signing up doesn’t obligate you to complete the minor, either:  if you sign up for the minor but do not complete it, you can delete it at any time and the minor simply won’t appear on your diploma.