The opening semester of Bass Connections has been largely successful, though the program’s unique format has posed a few challenges for the its first participants.
The University-wide initiative, launched by a $50 million gift from Anne and Robert Bass, is designed to provide the Duke community with opportunities for interdisciplinary learning and research. Starting this semester, students and faculty—divided into problem-solving project teams—are researching specific societal challenges. Although early participation has been higher than expected, with 251 participants total, Bass Connections is looking to increase its campus presence moving forward.
“The program has gone as well or better than expected,” said Steve Nowicki, dean and vice provost for undergraduate education. “Dozens of teams have formed, even though it hasn’t fully penetrated the awareness of students yet.”
There are currently 37 project teams among the five themes—Brain and Society, Information Society and Culture, Global Health, Education and Human Development and Energy—said Susan Roth, vice provost for interdisciplinary studies. She noted that she had anticipated that they would start the semester with only a few teams.
“We’re amazed and excited,” Roth said. “We can’t anticipate what is going to happen, but when you have this kind of enthusiasm, you also have to be able to manage it.”
Roth said that aspects in the first semester of Bass Connections had been “anxiety-provoking.” She noted that one of the biggest challenges has been figuring out how to deal with problems that Duke has never had to address, due to the uniqueness of the program, such as how to grade the courses and how students might be able to represent the experience on their resumes.
“The program is moving very fast,” Roth said. “We have to keep our eye on everything that is going on and reflect on it so that we make things better where we can.”
Martin Zelder, director of undergraduate studies for the Initiative on Education and Human Development, said that one of the main challenges is the fact that the curriculum of Bass Connections classes and research “isn’t scribed.”
“Faculty have been trying to determine the precise direction for research efforts and that has maybe been a little unsettling in some ways for students,” Zelder said.
But because of this issue, students are getting a taste for the real-life uncertainties of a career in research and careers in general, Zelder noted.
Student feedback has been largely positive so far. At the beginning of October, Bass Connections surveyed students and faculty involved with research teams, Zelder said. The survey asked what problems research teams had encountered and whether they anticipated improvement.
On a 5-point scale, many responders to the survey gave a score above a four, Zelder added.
“I was heartened by the results and how well faculty are doing, how intellectually challenging the program is and how much learning is going on across the board,” Zelder said.
Junior Ray Li—undergraduate student representative on the faculty advisory council of Bass Connections and member of a project team in the Education and Human Development cluster—said the logistics of the program, such as the definition of participant roles, have improved over the course of the semester.
Li, who also serves as vice president of academic affairs for Duke Student Government, said the general feedback with most of the teams had been that students feel engaged with their projects and are building relationships with professors. He noted, however, that there has been variation among teams.
“Teams might have gone a little slower because they have had to help the undergraduates catch up and to formulate ideas of what they wanted to do,” Li said. “But some teams are really running with it.”
Sophomore Elle Gault—a member of the “Exploring the Intersection of Energy and Peace-building through Film” research team—said that her experience thus far has been “phenomenal.” Gault and her teammates are responsible for viewing documentary footage from all over the world and cataloguing it.
“One bump in the road is the sheer amount of footage we have to catalogue,” Gault said. “But we are definitely making progress and we have more direction than the beginning of the semester.”
Deborah Jenson—co-director of the “Brain and Society Theme” and co-leader of a project team on trauma and timing—said that the interdisciplinary nature of the program is a challenge in addition to being an asset.
“My colleagues and I have learned that interdisciplinary scheduling is a bear,” Jenson wrote in an email last Wednesday. “We are working on new logistics of scheduling from within Bass Connections.”
Jenson also noted that over the course of the semester, there have been unanticipated outcomes within projects.
“Projects may splinter off to individual faculty-student mentored research trajectories initially, but then re-coalesce around a group project as growing expertise yield new priorities,” Jenson said.
Zelder said that the Spring semester of Bass Connections would include refinement and continuation of the program of the Fall. The teams and student composition will stay more or less the same, though teams are currently taking applications for a limited number of students to join teams in January, he noted.
“The work will pick up and it will be more of a challenge, but students have impressed me,” Zelder said. “They’re really up to it.”
Jenson said that as students gain depth in their research, they become increasingly valuable colleagues in the field.
“I wouldn’t point to any weakness yet, because it is too early,” Nowicki said. “One challenge we see is to get students from the professional schools more involved.”
He noted that professional students enhance the research output and the educational environment that affects undergraduates, but it is difficult to attract graduate and medical students because they have less flexibility in their academic tracks.
“One of the goals is to have vertically integrated teams that do not just include faculty and undergraduate students, but also professional students,” Nowicki said.
Nowicki said that Bass Connections has had no trouble getting undergraduates involved in research teams and the various curricular offerings. He believes that it will be only a couple of years before Bass Connections gets to be as fully a part of the Duke undergraduate experience as DukeEngage has become.
Bass Connections is making an effort to reach out to the Duke community via social media—specifically through Facebook, Twitter and a YouTube channel.
“We revamped our social media using mostly Facebook and Twitter,” said Wendy Walker, assistant director of administration and communications.
Walker said that she and Hallie Knuffman—director of administration and program development of Bass Connections—have reached out to members and team leaders of projects to find out what they are doing and how they would like it to be presented to the public.
“The student advisory council and [Li] have been really helpful as well in terms of outreach for us,” Knuffman said. “They help inform the broader community.”
Knuffman noted that Bass Connections is still in “start-up mode” in terms of its administration and is looking to previous programs, such as DukeEngage, as a model for spreading the word.
“A lot of people are finding out from professors, which is definitely a very effective way of grabbing kids,” Li said.
He added that in future semesters, academic advisors would mention Bass Connections to advisees, which will cast a broader net across the student body.
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