Cultural Currents of the University

An Assignment for HIST 104 (Dr. Isern's section)

This assignment addresses two of the goals of the course: the study of Tocqueville (in this case by applying his ideas), and proficiency in discursive prose.

Requirements

You must do two things to complete the assignment.

1. Attend a cultural event sponsored by the university—a lecture, concert, play, exhibit, film, or other such public event (in which you are not a principal participant). Events approved for fulfilling this requirement will be announced in class or via the weblog. Ask the graduate assistant (best via e-mail message) about approving other events. You may know of good events going on around campus that we haven't heard about.

2. Write a paragraph (about 100 words) reporting on the event you attended. This paragraph should be sound in composition and should relate the event you attended to the Tocqueville text, Democracy in America. When you have completed your paragraph, send it to the graduate assistant by e-mail, with the subject heading, "Cultural Currents." (Be sure to put in the subject heading, because your instructor gets a lot of mail.) You have to submit the assignment by e-mail; no written reports will be accepted.

Deadlines: Your report must be posted within one week of the date of the event. Also, no reports will be accepted after the final deadline posted in the calendar.

This assignment carries a weight of 20 points toward your participation score.

Example

Want to see an example? OK, here is a report on a fictitious event, done in appropriate format. Notice that the content of the event is summarized, and the connection to Tocqueville is made explicit.

Event attended: Lecture by Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman, "The Challenge of America's Land-Grant Universities"

Date: 10 October 1999

United States Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman, in a public lecture sponsored by the NDSU College of Agriculture, spoke on the topic, "The Challenge of America's Land-Grant Universities." He began by talking about how universities such as NDSU have their origins in an act of Congress in 1862, the Morrill Land Grant College Act, sponsored by Congressman Justin Morrill. The land-grant colleges were supposed to offer education that was "practical" as well as "liberal," and they were supposed to be open to all. In line with the "practical" aspect, the land-grant universities were given responsibility for research to improve agriculture and rural life and for extension to provide useful information to rural people. Secretary Glickman believes that land-grant universities today have to change in two ways: they need to recognize broader interests (because consumers and environmentalists are interested in agriculture), and they need to use technology to reach out to more people. Listening to Secretary Glickman talk about the "practical" mission of land-grant universities reminded me of Tocqueville's essay, "Why the Americans Are More Addicted to Practical than to Theoretical Science." I think Tocqueville would say that universities like NDSU are typically American, because they are so concerned with "the applications of science" and not so much with philosophy or theory.

Evaluation

You will receive a score for the assignment as an e-mail reply from your instructor. Here is the rubric by which your work on this assignment will be evaluated.

Element	Points
Is the event clearly identified—who, what, when, and where?	4
Is the event described clearly, the content summarized concisely?	8
Does the report make a sensible and credible tie to Tocqueville?	6
Is the report sound as to rhetoric and style?	2
Total Points Possible	20

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