PREC 100

PREC 100, also known as First-Year Preceptorial, or informally as Precep or FP, is a mandatory course for entering first-years offered at Knox. It is a 1 credit course. It is taught by a large and changing group of instructors. The directors of the course program are David Amor and Martin Roth.

Between Fall 2004 and Fall 2006, the course was styled On Making One's Way. Beginning with Fall 2007, the course will instead be Conversations in a World of Strangers.

General Course Description

Official Course Description

"First Year Preceptorial is a broadly based inquiry into fundamental issues that define the human condition and inform significant choice. The course is organized about several topics basic to the way in which people define themselves and their relations to other people: the seemingly contradictory impulses toward individualism and membership in society, our attempts to find purpose through faith, creative inspiration, and reason, and finally the conflicts that we face and the strategies that we devise as we move to action. The course will meet MWF in individual sections for discussion and Tuesdays, all sections together, for lectures and films."

Credits and Prerequisites

The course is worth one credit. It does not satisfy any Foundation Requirements or Competency Requirements. All incoming first-years, except transfer students with special exemption, are required to take this course in Fall Term of their first year.

The Program

FP is designed to be the most introductory course at Knox, to stimulate critical thinking and so on. Due to its large size and wide variety of instructors, as well as the often-changing text and topic selections between school year and professor, it is impossible to condense the experience into a single page.

The wide variety of professors across all disciplines (Craig Southern has even been known to teach FP sections) is designed to bring different perspectives into the process (also, many professors are required, more than any one department could offer). The course is meant to incorporate each of the four areas of the Foundation Requirements in some way, but the "Arts" and "Math and Natural Sciences" disciplines, requiring as they do more specialized interest, expertise, and preparation on the part of students and professors than the other two ("Humanities" and "History and Social Sciences"), are generally less well covered. Tweaks are made each year to attempt to improve the system.

In general, the course uses a number of texts, including fiction and non-fiction, on various subjects. Almost every week there is a film showing or other presentation for the courses, which are all assembled together in Kresge Recital Hall for the purpose.

The course is discussion-heavy, and includes a wide range of tasks, including large and small groupwork. There are several papers, designed to hone liberal-arts writing skills. Generally there are few structured exams.

Praise and Criticism

As a course common to all first-years, there is an especially large amount of feeling about the course. For many it offers a good introduction to the liberal arts, although for many it may be more of a soft start. While most agree that there are good elements to the course, the quality of certain parts may rely on the abilities and predilections of the instructor. Also, the course attempts to condense several texts' worth of material, and the full wealth of liberal arts indication, into a ten-week sampler plate. Since the course is not designed to be fast-paced, and the direction is not specific, some aspects of the course lack meaningful depth. Every year attempts are made to improve or tweak the course, with mixed success.

2007-2008

Texts

Note: Not all professors use all texts

Curriculum Notes

Large changes in curriculum are likely, as the course has been renamed to "Conversations in a World of Strangers"

2006-2007 Curriculum

Texts

Note: Not all professors use all texts

• Nafisi, Azar. (2003). "Reading Lolita in Tehran." ISBN 978-0812971064.
• Appiah, Kwame. (2007). "Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers." ISBN 978-0393329339.
• Malcolm X, et al. (1987). "The Autobiography of Malcolm X: As Told to Alex Haley." ISBN 978-0345350688.
• Russell, Mary. (1997). "The Sparrow." ISBN 978-0449912553.
• Miller, Richard and Spellmeyer, Kurt. (2005). "The New Humanities Reader." ISBN 978-0618568222.

Films

• Hotel Rwanda
• Contact
• The Wedding Banquet
• Do The Right Thing
• Race: The Power of An Illusion (PBS Special)
• Osama

Links

Jennifer Templeton's FP page

2005-2006 Curriculum

Texts

Note: Not all professors use all texts

• Hurston, Zora Neale. (1990). "Their Eyes Were Watching God." ISBN 978-0060838676.

Curriculum Notes

"Their Eyes Were Watching God" was mailed out to all students with their course catalogues so that they could have it read by the beginning of the school year.

2004-2005 Curriculum

Texts

Note: Not all professors use all texts

• Hurston, Zora Neale. (1990). "Their Eyes Were Watching God." ISBN 978-0060838676.
• Malcolm X, et al. (1987). "The Autobiography of Malcolm X: As Told to Alex Haley." ISBN 978-0345350688.
• Chatwin, Bruce, et al. (1988). "The Songlines." ISBN 978-0140094299.
• Williams, Terry Tempest. (1992). "Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place." ISBN 978-0679740247.
• Morrison, Toni. (1998). "Beloved." ISBN 978-0452280625.
• Plato and Grube, G.M. (trans.). (2002). "Five Dialogues." ISBN 978-0872206335.

Films

• Bread and Roses

Curriculum Notes

"Their Eyes Were Watching God" was mailed out to all students with their course catalogues so that they could have it read by the beginning of the school year.

This is the first year the course is styled as "On Making One's Way," following numerous formatting changes.

Course Schedule

The course is offered every Fall Term, in numerous sections. All sections are MWF classes, with a single Common Experience class meeting on Tuesday for all sections.

2007-2008

Term	Section	Days	Period	Location	Instructor
Fall 2007	A	MWF	1		unknown
Fall 2007	B	MWF	1		unknown
Fall 2007	C	MWF	1		unknown
Fall 2007	D	MWF	2		unknown
Fall 2007	E	MWF	2		unknown
Fall 2007	F	MWF	2		unknown
Fall 2007	G	MWF	3		unknown
Fall 2007	H	MWF	3		unknown
Fall 2007	I	MWF	3		unknown
Fall 2007	J	MWF	3		unknown
Fall 2007	K	MWF	4		unknown
Fall 2007	L	MWF	4		unknown
Fall 2007	M	MWF	4		unknown
Fall 2007	N	MWF	5		unknown
Fall 2007	O	MWF	5		unknown
Fall 2007	P	MWF	5		unknown
Fall 2007	Q	MWF	5		unknown
Fall 2007	R	MWF	6		unknown
Fall 2007	S	MWF	6		unknown
Fall 2007	T	MWF	6		unknown
Fall 2007	Common	Tu	5s, 6	CFA 110

2006-2007

Term	Section	Days	Period	Location	Instructor
Fall 2006	A	MWF	1	SMC A207	unknown
Fall 2006	B	MWF	1	WILS 1	unknown
Fall 2006	C	MWF	1	SMC C203	unknown
Fall 2006	D	MWF	1	GDH 105	unknown
Fall 2006	E	MWF	2	GDH 101A	unknown
Fall 2006	F	MWF	2	CFA 208	unknown
Fall 2006	G	MWF	2	WILS 1	unknown
Fall 2006	H	MWF	3	CFA 208	unknown
Fall 2006	I	MWF	3	OM 211	unknown
Fall 2006	J	MWF	3	WILS 1	unknown
Fall 2006	K	MWF	4	WILS 1	unknown
Fall 2006	L	MWF	4	OM 311	unknown
Fall 2006	M	MWF	4	SMC A219	unknown
Fall 2006	N	MWF	4	GDH 101A	unknown
Fall 2006	O	MWF	4	OM 312	unknown
Fall 2006	P	MWF	4	251E E200	unknown
Fall 2006	Q	MWF	5	251E E200	unknown
Fall 2006	R	MWF	5	WILS 1	unknown
Fall 2006	S	MWF	5	SMC D213	unknown
Fall 2006	T	MWF	5	GDH 306	unknown
Fall 2006	U	MWF	5	OM 312	unknown
Fall 2006	V	MWF	6	SMC C203	unknown
Fall 2006	W	MWF	6	CFA 208	unknown
Fall 2006	X	MWF	6	WILS 1	unknown
Fall 2006	Y	MWF	6	OM 311	unknown
Fall 2006	Common	Tu	5s, 6	CFA 110

Reviews

Wikifire's take on FP prior to this article

"First-Year Preceptorial is a class designed to teach incoming first-year Knox Students how to think critically about any and everything. It is taught only fall term and is one of the highly elusive preceptorial courses.

The pieces (usually books or shorter written works) taught in this class are voted on by the faculty, theoretically ensuring a wide variety of topics are addressed. The actual teachers of the class come from all disciplines and students are randomly assigned to each teacher, ensuring that class construction is done in the style of Russian Roulette; often, with equally disastrous, brains on the wall-esque results. This is also the class where many first years suddenly realize they are philosophers.

This realization is very liberating for the first year, loosening their tongue and lips so that they are suddenly gifted with a direct thought-to-speech link that allows them to speak at length on any given topic. Strangely, many have reported this transformation also adds a muffled quality to the first year's voice, as if his/her head were up his/her ass.

In summation: FP sucks. An alternate meaning to the acronym FP is "fucking pointless". Seriously. And don't judge a professor by how they teach FP. Odds are, they don't like it any better than you do."