The Robertson Scholars Program will implement a range of curricular and extracurricular changes.
Tony Brown, Robertson Scholars Program president, announced a series of new initiatives that will occur in the upcoming year in his weekly e-mail to scholars Friday.
The changes include the suspension of the Faculty Partners Program and modifications to both Second Summer: International and First-Year Colloquium.
"We want to never be satisfied with what we're doing so we're always looking for ways to make things better," Brown, a professor of the practice of public policy and sociology, told The Chronicle. "The best way to do that is to listen to our scholars."
Prior to its suspension, the Faculty Partners Program provided an opportunity for Robertson Scholars to develop close relationships with faculty members from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill or Duke through meetings and outings.
Scholars take classes at both UNC and Duke, primarily enrolling at one school and taking at least five courses at the other. The program focuses on service.
Brown-who took the program's helm in July-wrote in the Scholars' Weekly Newsletter Friday that he is developing a revised program plan for the 2008-2009 academic year that will focus on fostering more natural student-faculty relationships.
Stephen Weiss, professor of computer science at UNC, said having participated in the Faculty Partners Program he believes an evaluation will improve its effectiveness. "It was a good try," he said. "All of us tried to [schedule activities], but we didn't think it was appropriate to force activities down these students' throats because they were so busy."
Freshman Duke Robertson scholar Meryl Colton said the revisions to Second Summer: International-an opportunity for scholars to engage in an international summer program-will provide more options for participating students.
"I think [Brown's] intentions are really encouraging," she said. "He wants to give the scholars more freedom in planning where they spend their summers, and he also wants us to be more accessible to the rest of our peers and community."
Among the other changes, the First-Year Colloquium will be offered in Spring as a half-credit, pass-fail course. In previous years, the course was graded and merited a full credit. All freshman Robertson scholars are required to take the course, which alternates its meetings between UNC and Duke.
In the e-mail sent Friday, Brown also announced the establishment of the Robertson Fellows Program, a program that allows Robertson scholar alumni to continue conducting research after they graduate.
Junior Duke Robertson scholar Nick Anderson said the continued relationship among Robertson alumni and the program will assist graduates as they try to find careers.
"One thing that gets me excited is the idea of keeping the Robertson program active in scholars' lives until they are in their 30s through career counseling, workshops and more," he said. "It's smart to keep the Robertson program supportive of their initial careers relevant to their lives."
Brown said the impending changes will gradually improve the program.
"These are not earth-shaking changes," he said. "The program last year made three changes and next year we'll make three changes. We just want to make the program the best it can be [so we] have great Robertson scholars."
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