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Upon entering DePaul in the Autumn Quarter, each first-year student is required to take either a Discover Chicago or Explore Chicago course. These courses make up what is termed the Chicago Quarter. The Chicago Quarter offers a unique opportunity for faculty to take an already existing area of scholarly expertise (e.g., in music, murals, unions, stock markets, AIDS, Latino writers), or to develop an entirely new area of interest (e.g., in film, baseball, plant science, adventure sports, photography), and turn it into an academic course of study. Alternatively, faculty can clone or modify an already existing Chicago Quarter course pending approval from the First-Year Program. Chicago Quarter courses can address historical or contemporary issues, and can be taught from either a disciplinary or interdisciplinary perspective. While Discover and Explore Chicago classes similarly investigate topics related to Chicago, there are differences in the two sets of courses. Discover Chicago courses begin one week prior to the beginning of Autumn Quarter (usually the weekend before Labor Day), with an Immersion Week and are primarily experiential in nature. The City of Chicago is used as a site of active learning, and its many leaders, activists, and artists as primary resources. During Immersion Week, students utilize (and learn how to use) public transportation, as they visit various neighborhoods and institutions in the larger Chicagoland area. Most classes combine assigned readings, class discussions, videos, journal assignments, and projects to complement the course's experiential nature. When Immersion Week concludes, the following Tuesday (usually the day after Labor Day), classes reconvene for New Student Service Day and Convocation. During Autumn Quarter, Discover Chicago courses continue to meet but for a reduced number of hours: 15 for instruction (as opposed to the regular 30), and an additional 10 hours for a co-curricular component called the Common Hour. Some classes continue to take excursions, but this is not a requirement. Faculty members are expected to engage in some informal advising with all their students, and have some knowledge about how to refer them to various campus resources. Advising for students who are undeclared is handled by the Office of Academic Advising Support. An important feature of all Discover Chicago courses is that they are taught by a team, consisting of the faculty member, a staff professional, and a student mentor, the latter of whom has taken (and continues to take) a special mentoring course designed to help in the preparation of teaching certain aspects of the course. Instructors should anticipate working closely with team members to design and implement the Immersion Week and Common Hour. In particular, the student mentor and staff professional are expected to teach and grade the co-curricular component of the course. During Immersion Week and for one hour every week, the student mentor and/or staff professional is expected to assume responsibility for teaching first year students how to build community, manage time and stress levels, raise awareness of diversity concerns, and in general, deal with issues of transitioning into university life. For the remaining 15 hours (seven weeks) of instructional class time, instructors usually assign additional readings, journals, and short research papers. Since one of the goals of Discover Chicago courses is to promote group-based learning, many instructors also ask students to complete some sort of final group project (e.g., a zine, a photography exhibit, poster presentations). Meeting Liberal Studies Program Goal As an introduction to the First-Year Program, Discover Chicago courses should reflect central goals of the larger Liberal Studies Program at DePaul. Its objectives include developing reflectiveness and value consciousness, fostering critical and creative thinking, and incorporating a multicultural perspective. Criteria for Inclusion Although the Discover Chicago program is designed with a great deal of flexibility, all courses must also:
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