69传媒

SCENT (Senate Committee on the Enhancement of Teaching) is back and ready for the Fall semester with a new theme 鈥淲hat is university for?鈥� To explore this question our articles for the semester focus on four interrelated themes: the relationship between professors and students; learning and/or/vs assessment, grading, and credentialing; the role of the syllabus; and the changing university.

While an apparently simple question, considering 鈥渨hat is university for?鈥� raises a number of complex issues and points to a range of tensions that currently affect our work as academic staff at this, or any, university. Clearly this question will be answered very differently by different audiences for it: faculty, students, administrators, parents, politicians, the broader community. Contemplating this question focuses our attention on both micro-moments of our academic lives (the syllabus, grading) and larger contexts within which we operate (university policies, life after graduation)--all of which force us to (re)consider what teaching is and does. This semester鈥檚 SCENT blog offers up a number of previously published short articles that range across these and other issues, raising provocative questions, challenging some of our taken-for-granted or simply unquestioned notions of what we do everyday, and always asking us to think more complexly about 鈥渨hat university is for鈥�--and the consequences of how any of us answer that question. 

SCENT鈥檚 first blog post is titled 鈥淟et鈥檚 ban PowerPoint in lectures 鈥� it makes students more stupid and professors more boring鈥�. This article is as provocative as the title suggests. It focuses on learning vs satisfaction and circles around SCENT鈥檚 theme for Fall semester 鈥淲hat is university for?鈥� Find this short article and a new blog post each week at . We are looking forward to lots of comments and discussion! 

For more information please contact Ann Braithwaite, Chair of SCENT, at abraithwaite@upei.ca or Gerald Wandio, Coordinator of the FDO, at gwandio@upei.ca.