Greek in Greece

Thanks for taking the time to help the students at your university figure out how they can participate in the Greek-in-Greece program. You (or someone in your department) will need to consider two or three questions in order to clarify for your students just how their participation in Greek-in-Greece is going to contribute to their degree program at your university.

• If your students transfer to Ohio University for the spring term and take our courses for Ohio University credit,
  you will need to decide on answers to the first two questions below so that you can accurately advise your students as to how your university will transfer their Ohio U. credit.
• If your students opt to remain registered at your university while they participate in Greek-in-Greece, you will need to consider all three questions below so that you can make a clear agreement with your students as to how your department will assign credits and grades for your students’ participation.

For which courses in your departmental curriculum should your students receive either direct or transfer credit?

Immediately below you will find links to course descriptions/syllabi for each of the four courses that your students will be studying with us. You will need to read those descriptions and determine which courses among your own departmental offerings most closely approximate the content of our courses. In some cases you may need to fall back on independent study listings. (I suspect that most smaller departments lack a Demotic Greek course, for example.)

How many hours of credit should your students legitimately earn (either directly or via transfer) for the coursework they do in our program?

Ohio University is on the quarter system. We award our students 4 quarter-hours’ credit for each of the four Greek-in-Greece courses. Ohio University’s on-campus expectation is that a 4 quarter-hour course involves 40 classroom hours. As you will see from the course descriptions, the courses in the Greek-in-Greece program tend more toward 80 contact hours than 40. Each course description gives an estimate of contact hours to help you think through the matter of course credits in view of your own institution’s expectations of contact hours per credit hour.

Who on your faculty will serve as instructor(s) of record for the work your students are doing in Greece?

If your students have chosen to remain registered in your department while they participate in the Greece-in Greece program, they must register for specific courses in your department. Consequently, either you or some other faculty member must necessarily serve as instructor of record for all four of the courses your students study with us.
I will presume to make the following suggestions as to the responsibilities of the instructor of record.

• The instructor of record should make a clear (I would suggest written) agreement with the student concerning each course. The agreement should specify which of your courses the student will receive credit for and how many credits the student will receive. The agreement should also specify any additional requirements that your department sees fit to impose. (Remember, under the no-Ohio U.-credit option, the students are taking your courses.)
  • The instructor of record may choose to supplement our courses in any way s/he thinks appropriate. S/he may require additional readings or papers from the student, but it must be clear that your faculty (not the Greek-in-Greece faculty) are responsible for supervising and grading any special work that your department decides to assign.
• The instructor of record must take responsibility for assigning a grade. At the conclusion of the program, the Greek-in-Greece faculty will inform each student’s home department of the grades we would assign your students if they were registered for our courses. The instructor of record may assign that recommendation any weight s/he chooses.
• My personal opinion is that all your faculty really need to do is help your students register for the appropriate courses and assign them the grades we suggest. I think, that is, that your department can conscientiously treat the Greek-in-Greece faculty as unpaid adjuncts. You may, however, have some reason for setting additional expectations for your students, and you are certainly welcome to do so.