• Introduction
• Definitions and Models
• The Five Models
• Currents and Causes
• Creating Learning Communities at GMU: Institutional Climate
• The Precursors
• Two Early LC Versions: BA/SIC and Core
• The Mason Topics Program
• New Century College: Coordinated Studies Model
• The Upper Levels
• Faculty Challenges: The Need for Faculty Development
• Outcomes and Benefits: Students
• Outcomes and Benefits: Faculty and the Scholarship of Pedagogy
• Conclusion
• Endnotes and References
• Printable Text of Article

© Copyright 2000 by Ashley Williams. The right to make additional exact copies, including this notice, for personal and classroom use, is hereby granted. All other forms of distribution and copying require permission of the author.

The Mason Topics Program

The Mason Topics Program (formerly the Linked Courses Program) began in 1992 when the Core curriculum pilot ended. A small group of faculty who had been involved in the Core link between composition and a Western Culture course valued the connected learning they believed was taking place and, with support from the dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, launched a new learning community initiative. For the first several years of the new program, 8-10 links, each of which included English 101, were offered to new students. George Mason's Linked Courses thus mirrored what has become the major pattern of linked courses. Because first-year composition courses are often the smallest classes freshmen take, especially in public universities and research institutions, administrators and faculty have sought to connect writing courses to large lecture classes in order to promote a sense of community among students enrolled in both courses.

By 1995, Linked Courses had expanded to include some 3-course linkages, such as an English-philosophy-government link and the FYC-sociology-UNIV 100 community service link described by Ruth Fischer (English) in "The Community Service Link: A Response to the Ten Principles of Learning" in this publication, October 1999. In a different kind of linkage, students enrolled an FYC — introductory psychology link were mentored via email by third and fourth year psychology majors. Like the cluster courses (BA/SIC) in the late 80s, the Linked Course program began at a time when there was limited awareness at George Mason of the learning community paradigm nationally. Terry Zawacki (English), former director of Links, reports that becoming aware of the LC movement nationally helped her conceptualize the kind of faculty development needed in order for connections between courses to be more fully realized (personal communication). For a fuller discussion of how some linked courses relate as well as a description of the writing environment of those links, see Zawacki and Williams, forthcoming.

By fall semester 2000, the program had grown to include 28 links, involving 532 students and 33 faculty. The newest additions to linked offerings are four sequences of thematically linked courses — "The American Experience," "Ancient Studies/Modern Frames," "Global Village," and "The Information Society" — which bring interested students together throughout their freshman and sophomore courses.

Students in a sequence usually take two classes together each semester for two years and may elect to live on special Living/Learning Floors in the residence halls. The genesis of this new development, according to Teresa Michals, was student and faculty desire to extend the learning community formed in one-semester links and frustration with the stop-and-go nature of much general education, "which often results in students feeling intellectually fragmented." She also notes that the College Park Scholars Program at the University of Maryland has served as a model for the new Linked sequences (personal communication).

Two Early LC Versions: BA/SIC and CORE

New Centiry College: Coordinated Studies Model