• The general philosophy of above-named discipline regarding Assessment of Prior Experiential Learning essays may be summarized as follows:
A. The student should be able to demonstrate an understanding of gender as a category of analysis in approaching other disciplines, including but not limited to social science, literature, art, education, psychology, etc. Gender Studies is by definition multidisciplinary and a disciplined gender approach to all aspects of social life-is its essence. Actual life experience and performance in various professional roles are not in themselves any basis for college credit. Students must demonstrate that they can think carefully, analytically, and objectively about how gender operates. In addition, having ideas about what should be done to "fix" things that may cause gender inequality may provide useful hypotheses for research, but are not in themselves evidence of the type of critical thinking necessary for gender analysis.
B. Critical thinking about gender must also be academic in the sense that it bears some recognizable relationship to standard gender theories. This means that the student will have read and grasped some gender concepts. Students will be required to submit direct evidence of such reading and comprehension, both through providing an annotated bibliography and through appropriate citations to literature on gender in the portfolio essays.
C. Students will be discouraged from seeking any gender credit if the basis for the requested credit is experience alone as opposed to well supported and documented reflection on that experience.
• Describe the nature of any dialogue expected between faculty in above-named discipline and students preparing portfolio essays in the discipline.
Since it is likely that students will encounter practical difficulties with the above requirements, gender faculty expect that students will contact us directly at the very earliest stage of portfolio preparation. Tonia St.Germain will be the initial contact, and can be reached at tstgerma@eou.edu, or by phone at (541) 962.3003. The preferred method of communication is by e-mail, as this provides us with an ongoing record of our conversations and agreements. It is a good idea to make appointments for phone conversations, as professors will want to prepare ahead of time for effective conversations with students. Before submitting any portfolio proposal, students should peruse the EOU college catalog and the Gender Studies home page http://www.eou.edu/gender/ for courses that seem to describe their area of proposed APEL writing, and may request course syllabi to help them in assessing the potential for receiving credit.
Students should submit a rough draft initially so that exact expectations can be communicated before they expend extensive effort on the portfolio essay. This initial draft should include a beginning list of bibliographic sources --including books and journal articles.
• Describe the nature of any specific requirements the above-name discipline will have regarding contents of the portfolio materials i.e., documentation, essay, bibliography were applicable, etc.
Portfolios will vary in depth and breadth of content based on the level of credit requested and the specific contract worked out with the professor. In general, lower division courses will require a briefer annotated bibliography and expect less familiarity with gender theory. Upper division courses will require an extensive annotated bibliography, and the essays will be expected to meet the same standards for engagement with the core concepts in gender studies that we require from our regular upper-division courses on -campus and through the division of distance education
• Describe issues regarding the general turnaround time for review of portfolio materials in the above-named discipline.
At the earliest stage of planning, the turnaround time should be within a few days (unless the contact is made during a university break). Earliest written work should be short, rough draft portions of portfolio essays. The professor will assess the appropriateness of the student's initial efforts and the adequacy of the bibliographic list and will return these with comments within two weeks. Later, longer draft versions of the portfolio may take up to one month for written comments to be returned. Professors will need to check bibliographic materials, and this can be quite time consuming. Our goal is to return these materials as soon as we possibly can. Students may e-mail us within two weeks to check on the status of our assessment.
• Provide any additional information that will help portfolio students in developing materials for faculty review in the above-named discipline.
A very useful starting point for considering a portfolio assessment in gender studies would be to begin a library search for feminist writing on the topic of your area of experience. With the proliferation of material available on the Internet, students can discover a rich array of articles, syllabi, student reflections, and on-line discussions. If a student would like suggestions of ways to access this material, we will be happy to provide some ideas.
In their first communication with us, students should make a convincing argument regarding the value of undertaking a gender analysis of their particular experience. Reflecting on the philosophy in # 1 above, they should be able to tell us why this experience is "gender studies." If the student's focus is multidisciplinary then the student should be able to show the intersection between gender studies and the other discipline such as psychology, criminology, literature, history, business, or education. We do not expect this understanding of gender studies to be well developed. Rather, we expect that students will have conducted some initial research on the concepts and concerns of gender studies and that as a result of this initial research can convince us that they could effectively conduct a "gender" analysis of their life and work.
Tonia St.Germain, J.D.
Faculty Submitting Information
April 2007