Jan. 27, 2005 Purely Academic

Against Syllabi

Tyler Stone

Another semester, more syllabi. Is it possible there was ever a semester where I really just strolled in on the first day, scribbled the texts on the blackboard, mentioned the number of tests, asked if there were any other questions, and then proceeded to take up most of the hour discoursing on the nature of the subject of the course. This is how I began semesters over 30 years ago.

No more. Now it is as conceivable to begin a course without a syllabus as it would be to begin by telling a racial joke. The syllabus demonstrates that departmental guidelines will be followed. The syllabus assures that the catalogue description will be conformed to. A course description? On the syllabus. Course outcomes? Listed. What about attendance policies? Allowance for students with “special needs"? Methods of assessment? All on the syllabus, along with bonuses such as, for example, a statement about fostering student growth if the course is part of a core curriculum or a statement about academic integrity. Some syllabi even include a description of material and tasks for every single day of the ensuing semester.

How can we explain why such excruciatingly detailed syllabi are now mandatory for each course? Simple: to defend against legal challenges by students — most obviously concerning grades but finally encompassing any conceivable matter having to do with evaluation. Consequently, a professor faces opening day before students like a defense attorney preparing an opening statement to the jury.

But why have so many syllabi swelled to such length? The existence of syllabi as legal documents might explain why they have come into requisite being in the first place. It does not wholly explain why they have becomes encrusted with such details as the instructor’s cell, the new assistant dean’s office number, or links to all manner of Web
sites.

It seems to me that we have become unsure about what not to put on syllabi because we have become unsure what a course is. It is no longer self-contained. My behavior decades ago on opening day was so carefree as to seem irresponsible today. It is as if the course was mine and mine alone. Of course it was not. For starters, it was the department’s. But I felt as if the course was mine, if only because there were no assistant deans to which any students had recourse if they flunked the mid-term, and there were no e-mails to remind me to turn in two copies of each of my syllabi to the department secretary.

Today the more syllabus-heavy a course, I would argue, the more context-dependent. The course is now viewed as part of a department, the department is part of a program, the program is part of a division, the division is part of an institution, and so on. So when a syllabus details criteria for grading, or methods of instruction today, it is not merely about the course anymore. The syllabus is burdened with a definition of a course so expanded that the very existence of an individual instructor threatens to become effaced.

The various imperatives that govern the disposition of any one course are far more decisive. Indeed, part of the consequence of these imperatives is to act, in turn, to characterize the teacher as an “instructor” rather than as a “professor.” In fact, the instructor of any one course is likely to be an adjunct, since upwards of half of the college-level courses taught throughout the United States at the present time are taught by adjuncts. This fact alone provides much of the reason why syllabi have become so important.

Adjuncts are marginal to departments, by definition. No wonder they are expected to produce handsome syllabi, through which they publicly demonstrate — to themselves, as well as to their departments, their institutions, their professions or even their states— their fealty to the sovereign wholes that authorize them to appear before students in the first place.

No wonder also, though, that many make use of what space they have on the syllabus to embellish it further, with everything from idiosyncratic stylistic riffs on the course description or more minute calibrations of the grading scale to explorations of nuances concerning class attendance. Some measure of authority, not to say self-respect, is thereby gained. How much depends upon the individual instructor, through whom, like the director of a play, the directives of the syllabus still remain to be performed.

But the result may nonetheless emerge ill-timed or poorly acted. I recently heard the following story. A young adjunct was teaching his first course. If he was not sure of himself, he was sure of his syllabus, until one day a student missed a test. When she appeared at the next scheduled class, he confidently declared thus: “You missed the test. You can’t retake it. See the syllabus.” “I did,” the student replied, “and it says that I can take the test if I have a written explanation. Here’s the explanation.”

She presented a piece of paper, with a flimsy excuse she had written by herself. “I meant a doctor’s excuse,” protested the young adjunct. “Well,” countered the student, “that’s not clear from the syllabus.”

The adjunct had to admit it was not. So he relented when the student threatened to “go straight to the dean,” and agreed to give the test to the student that day. But she refused, insisting that she could only take the test the next day, at 7 a.m. Then the adjunct refused. The two compromised: 8 a.m. He should not have been surprised when the student failed to show up. I never learned the rest of the story.

Among many possible morals, let me emphasize one: a syllabus is not a script. As a legal document, it may backfire. As a pedagogic statement, it will be incomplete. The forces that surround syllabi — ranging from deans down the hall to mandates from the state capitol — are now too powerful. Not only can they not be resisted, but in many cases, they cannot even be determined, until the semester begins. There is a distinct sense in which the most detailed syllabi, whether by design or not, act to defer the beginning of the semester to a timeless moment, when all is fresh and new, the curtain is ever about to rise, and everybody is on the same page.

Who has not dreamt of such a moment? Sad to have to admit that the dream is vain. Any syllabus is fated to yield to the messy circumstances of its course, with results that cannot be predicted. This is reason enough to be against syllabi; their presentation of a course as a fully reasoned, systematically organized thing is spurious. A course that is only its syllabus, day after day, is a course where spontaneity, improvisation, and risk have been banished. The loss is too great.

Syllabi always put me in mind of that celebrated notion of Jorge Luis Borges, about the map that has grown so ambitious and comprehensive that it is finally stretched to cover the earth completely. The map and its land are one. No matter, in contrast, that the syllabus and its course can never quite be one. We — students and instructors both — ought to oppose syllabi because of the presumption they express as well as the legalism they confirm. A map is not necessary for every destination. Some of the most memorable ones result from just getting lost.

Terry Caesar is an adjunct professor at San Antonio College. He is the author or co-editor of seven books, including three on academic life, the most recent being Traveling though the Boondocks.

Want it on paper? Print this page.
Know someone who’d be interested? Forward this story.
Want to stay informed? Sign up for free daily news e-mail.

Comments

Syllabi

At my institution, the idea/analogy of the syllabus as a legal document is overshadowed by another use for syllabi: as a audit trail for the teaching quality auditors. Many a syllabus seems to be written using lots of educational jargon, which may well make a lot of sense to quality auditors, but I can’t help thinking is gobbledygook to the poor students.

Sharon Curtis, at 7:34 am EST on January 28, 2005

In defense of Syllabi

I use detailed syllabi in my classes, but not because of any legal or institutional concerns. I’ve found that detailed expections increase the chances that students will come to class prepared. If I’ve given students details about upcoming activities, they’re more likely to plan for them and I don’t have to use class them their first exposure to the material.

Paul Bohan Broderick, Assistant Professor, at 4:17 pm EST on February 2, 2005

Syllabi

Brenda Fincher, MIS Assistant Professor at Dyersburg State Community College, at 2:55 pm EST on February 3, 2005

Our institution uses an online course outline system that gives both students and faculty access up-to-date syllabi on every course we offer. We do not do this for fear of litigation; we do this because to give students information on grading procedures, assignments, course goals, instructor expectations,office hours, pre and co requisites, transfer agreements, and institutional policies is the right thing to do.

Sheila Whitmore, at 4:53 pm EST on February 4, 2005

The Road to Hell is Paved with Good Ideas

In the UK this syllabi mania started about ten years ago. At first it was great: set out clear expecations so the students know what’s required. Then the Government decided to take a hand, followed—naturally—by the central planning of the University who often had a bias towards the need of subject a) which would then be applied to subject b) irrespective of relevance.

We’ve moved from a very useful four page document which students read, to a 30 page document which contains so much repetition of the documents used for every other course that—as far as I can tell—the students read them in their first year and regard them as coffee mats ever after. My favourite bits are the graphs which tell them which skills they will acquire in each module. I know from bitter experience that if the graph doesn’t “look” right, the professor is sent back to redraw it, irrespective of what is taught or needs to be taught in a given course.

Anon, at 7:57 pm EST on February 13, 2005

On the evolution of syllabi

When I first began teaching some 37 years ago, I tried to create a fairly detailed syllabus with lecture topics and readings linked to specific class meetings simply as an attempt to give students an additional tool for investing in the course and, I hoped, for taking something away. I believe syllabi can still fulfill that purpose, but about ten or fifteen years ago, my institution began suggesting, and later requiring, that various bits of boilerplate be included on each syllabus. My sense was that it was intended as an element of the university’s defense against litigation—rather like a manufacturer’s label I saw on an iron that stated “caution, surfaces of this iron may become hot and cause burns.”

At any rate, by the time I hung up my spurs, I had come to the conclusion that some students in my classes were not bothering to read the materials that I had put in the syllabi since they had become accustomed to syllabi being stuffed with the cautions and the exhortations sufficient to defend the Dean and the administration.

But then, I recalled, some students in 1968 didn’t bother to read my syllabus then either. Faculty probably can put up with the boilerplate just as they do the inadequate parking. Just keep trying to make your own part of the document something that will help any willing student.

And anyhow, hen, exactly, was the Golden Age?

FFC

Frank Conlon, Professor Emeritus at University of Washington, at 5:08 pm EST on February 14, 2005

The Good Old Days

I started as an adjunct exactly 30 years ago, teaching freshman composition. We never had syllabi. Fresh out of grad school, I don’t recall ever getting a syllabus from a professor in undergraduate school or either of the two graduate schools I got degrees from.

I’m still an adjunct teaching first-year comp, though I am an attorney now and am currently working as a full-time administrator at a law school.

I don’t recall exactly when syllabi became mandatory or began to take on the tremendous importance they now have, but I don’t see how the students are any better off for it.

Richard Grayson, at 5:08 pm EST on February 14, 2005

True, all too true! My syllabi are now twice as long as when I started teaching in the mid-70s. But although they take more time now, they save time during Term — and even better, they save mental energy. Here’s why....

Real fast you get a sense of what aspects of course mechanics the students get wrong. So get them straight...on the syllabus. Example. My advanced courses require both attendance *and* class participation. But the second time a student with lockjaw said “but I have perfect attendance” — time to add a line in the mechanics section “attendance does not equal participation; attendance 1. keeps you from being ejected from the course and 2. puts you at the starting gate for participation.”

Result? I have never heard *that* wheeze again. Of course, there are always new wheezes, answered by new lines from me. That’s why my syllabi keep growing — but from three to five pages in 25 years I can live with.

C. Robert Phillips, III, Professor, at 5:08 pm EST on February 14, 2005

I like syllabi, but I don’t create them for the students only (though that is the illusion). They help me to map out the course ahead of time, usually when I have a bit more leisure to actually reflect what I’d like to be doing with the semester as a whole. Then, when things get crazy, as they so often do, I have an outline to follow (or modify if need be), something I find useful. Later, I have a record of what I’ve done, and often notes scribbled in various places about what to change when I teach the course the next time.

Deborah Gussman, at 9:48 am EST on February 22, 2005

In Distance Ed, the syllabus IS the defacto instructor. It does not serve a “defensive” purpose, but rather one of guide post for students as they make their way through reading assignments. I went to UCLA, and think I only received 3-4 syllabi in the undergrad and grad years there...weren’t that helpful, and certainly weren’t strictly followed by the Profs who used them. Is sad to hear they are now tools for defending what an instructor teaches...tsk.

Michael Cronin, Dir. of Ed, at 9:38 pm EST on February 22, 2005

I notice that increasing number of students can’t remember many things and lack reading skills. (Perhaps we can see this in light of increasing remediation in higher education.) That’s probably why we end up with longer syllabi and even handouts.

Ralfy, at 2:00 pm EST on March 12, 2005

Education-adjunct

I have enjoyed reading the comments on the pro’s and con’s of the syllabus. Ours are 4 page double sided instructions.Like many of my fellow colleagues students are given a detailed weekly agenda to augment the syllabus.

jnajar@monmouth.com, at 11:20 am EDT on August 28, 2007

Paris Hilton, at 8:31 am EDT on April 6, 2007

Jobs Related to Against Syllabi

or search for jobs directly.

Assistant or Associate Professor of English
Gordon College

GORDON COLLEGE Department of English Position Announcement Victorian Literature Gordon College’s English Department seeks ... see job