Albert Einstein argued that all Arts, Sciences, and Religions are branches of the same tree: they all aspire to ennoble life by lifting it out of the sphere of physical existence and directing it towards freedom. The first year at UVM is designed to be an exciting encounter with that ennobling world of ideas.
In their first year at UVM, students will experience the vast array of different learning communities that make up the College of Arts and Sciences. This is the time students will begin to establish lifelong relationships with their professors and peers and become active intellectual citizens.
Teacher-Advisor Program (TAP) seminars, yearlong interdisciplinary programs, and larger courses taught by outstanding faculty offer students a variety of course options for making the most of their first-year experience. During Orientation advisors will help direct students to appropriate classes.
TAP is a writing-intensive elective program for first-year students in the College of Arts and Sciences that combines an interactive course environment with careful academic advising. In TAP, students enroll in a small-group seminar on a topic of common interest. The seminar encourages students to approach major issues from a variety of points of view by developing creative projects and expressing what they learned through speech and writing, thus providing a central component in learning how to think and how to communicate that thinking persuasively. The professor, doubling as the academic advisor, helps further explore a student's interests and academic goals.
The Fall Semester Seminars web pages describe each TAP seminar offered during the 2009-2010 academic year, including meeting time, requirements satisfied, and some biographical and contact information for the faculty member who will teach the course.
Many students find that living with peers who share the same interests is an ideal way to begin college. Several TAP offerings give students the chance to live together in a special residential community: the Integrated Humanities Program (IHP), the Integrated Social Sciences Program (ISSP), the Integrated Study of Earth and the Environment (ISEE) program, and the new Integrated Fine Arts (IFA) Program.
Students can enroll in Fall Teacher-Advisor Program seminars simply by registering in a TAP course during UVM's June Orientation sessions. They can be admitted to Interdisciplinary Programs earlier, and we encourage applying before coming to Orientation. For more detailed information and application forms, contact the professors listed under their respective program. Students should also feel free to contact Lise Larose in the Dean's Office (802-656-3344 or lise.larose@uvm.edu) with any questions they may have about TAP courses.
Enrolling in a larger class (100-plus seats) in the College of Arts and Sciences is also an important part of the first-year experience at UVM. Internationally recognized scholar-teachers, not teaching assistants, provide broad surveys of fields like Sociology, Jazz, and Theatre, for example. Large lectures are forums where students learn to engage in debate and exchange ideas with experts and their peers about some of the most pressing issues in our collective past, present, and future: "The Legacy of the Holocaust," "Crime and Inequality," "Race Relations and Ethnicity in the U.S.," and "Earth Hazards," are just a few examples. Many of these larger classes will also have smaller break-out discussion groups, laboratories or tutorials, and all of these courses fulfill a college distribution requirement.
This year's TAP Booklet in PDF format
Last modified November 12 2009 10:41 AM
