Having never visited any of the universities I applied to and being completely unaware of the stereotypes, idiosyncrasies and characters of each university, I made my decision quite blindly and rather randomly based on a thorough yet helpless rereading of the short Fiske Guide summaries. I relied on the endless promotional materials I was sent as well and tried in vain to sift embellishments from fact. One typically orange and white handout was titled quite pompously, “Inspired Conversations: The Princeton Precept.” The first sentence of the “What is a Precept?” section claimed that a Princeton precept is modeled after the Oxford tutorial system.
In the tutorial system, students typically meet with one other classmate and an academic tutor, both of whom are pursuing the same course of study. Students submit shorter papers regularly and are called upon to defend their own work and critique the work of their peers. It puts students in close, and often more personal, contact with their professors and forces them to approach their ideas and learning with greater rigor.
This is what I expected when coming to Princeton. I am not sure whether Princeton’s promoters are confident that most American prospective undergraduates are so unfamiliar with the tutorial system that this assertion could be plausible or that they are just simply unaware. A precept is nothing more than a branded label for “sections,” which all liberal arts colleges and many other colleges have anyway.
At Princeton, a precept is ideally a discussion, but it never feels that way. With its emphasis on participation as a distinct marking criterion, precepts often become summaries of the readings. In livelier precepts, students simply vie to show how much they know or have read.
How do we fix precept?
Moving — or returning — to the tutorial system is not an answer. Most things we’ve borrowed from the British system to adapt and make uniquely our own has mostly proved ill-fitted. We have a residential college system, but we don’t take classes in them or apply directly to them, so we feel no strong connection. We have exams after winter break, but we have two terms instead of three, so we stretch out fall and cram spring. The tutorial system would be equally problematic here. As tutorials are understandably time-intensive, they are only related to a narrowly defined course of study chosen during application to the University. In our liberal arts system, we would be unable to maintain a long-lasting relationship with a tutor as we switch from class to class, and it would be impossible to have enough teaching staff to tutor so many students in so many different classes.
Precepts could be improved by having professors teach all of their precepts. A professor of a class I took last semester opted for fewer lecture hours and covered all of his precepts. It was one of my best academic experiences at Princeton. Unlike a seminar, there was no rush to cover material, but unlike a typical precept, the conversation went places. Graduate students bring a new perspective to the class, but professors often have a better idea of the direction they want the course to take and therefore seem more comfortable in taking a proactive role in pushing discussions beyond the reading. Sometimes preceptors are ill-matched for the course and feel uncomfortable outside of their area of expertise.
The crux, however, is that Princeton students primarily respond to grading. Brandon Davis ’13 reflected this concern in his 2011 column “Re-evaluating precept participation credit.” He writes that he’s “that kid” in precept because he does not know how to fulfill the participation requirements, so he just ensures he talks as much as possible. However, his calls for more rules and standardization in order to make participation grading fairer is the wrong approach. The system shouldn’t be easier to game for grades, but should encourage students to engage in discussion. In her 2011 column “Improving conversation,” Sarah Schwartz suggested that grading should be based on quality rather than quantity. But the existing set up, on the whole, makes competing rather than collaborating in precept inevitable as students clamor for points.
If the spirit of Princeton’s revised grading policy is to concentrate on product, rather than effort, grading based on participation should be de-emphasized. Group work, presentations and projects that are conducted in the framework of a precept are all products that could easily replace the already small percentage dedicated to participation. Precepts could just do with some more creativity. Presentations are a common addition to the precept, which allow students to specialize their knowledge, but they still do little to further the “discussion” mantra of the Princeton precept. Collaborative works that are completed as part of precept and graded simply for completion could help bring students together in learning.
Our pride in precepts may be a little misplaced, but with a little bit of care and attention to crafting a precept as creative as the course itself, we should be able to transform banal discussions into a true realization of the intellectual diversity and potential on campus.
William Beacom is a sophomore from Calgary, Canada. He can be reached at wbeacom@princeton.edu.
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