DeCal Retrospective
The DeCal board has been making an effort to understand the educational issues behind the organization, strengthen them and work for a positive educational change. This report analyzes DeCal’s benefits to students and facilitators and contribution to the community and explores some of the challenges facing the program. DeCal is relevant to today’s culture because it encourages discourses by creating forums for individuals to share their knowledge and exchange ideas.
The Benefits of DeCal
In the years following the Free Speech Movement, students were first allowed to start and run their own classes. There was much contentiousness during this time, whether students should be able to start their own classes. Now, almost forty years later, over 3,000 Berkeley students take DeCal courses every semester. Among student leadership, the program is widely esteemed. Forty years ago, the University faced two main questions: are the classes beneficial? And even if they are beneficial, are they in line with the goals of a university education to a sufficient degree to allow accreditation?
Although the program is more broadly accepted now than it was then, these two questions are still relevant and have yet to be answered fully by the students themselves. This section is a preliminary version of a report detailing student perceptions of the benefits of almost forty years of student-initiated education at Berkeley.
Benefits to Students
The benefits to students from DeCal classes may be classified into roughly three areas:
- Supportive of diversity: Diversity of both the groups of both topics covered and students reached allows for exposure to new ideas and perspectives. These qualities foster a growing curiosity and interest in the world.
- Supportive classes: Different classroom environments that are smaller, more supportive, and cultivate tolerance to new ideas and perspectives.
- Role models: The student facilitators are role models to the students in their class. The fact that students have designed and are running a class provides an example that can inspire their students to overcome negative conceptions of the limited role that they may play in engaging in and being pro-active in their education.
Diverse groups of students
The usual DeCal class contains virtually a random sampling of students from the university. Different majors, ethnicities, and social groups mix, an experience that allows students to gain the insights of different perspectives and the strengths of different students. These diverse classes bring the university together, cultivating an awareness and appreciation for the larger Berkeley community.
Diverse, innovative, relevant class topics: The DeCal classes themselves are very diverse and relevant to the students’ lives. A large portion of the classes are related to problems in society. Another large portion are on ethnic or cultural issues. These classes become particularly poignant for students as they address questions of their cultural and personal identity throughout their college years.
Whether on a very current topic of conversation or on a subject which doesn’t have any professors specializing in that area, the vast majority of DeCal classes are innovative in one way or another, and are responsive to student’s needs. Almost all are interdisciplinary. Some are in cutting-edge areas that cover developments too recent for most classes. Others expose students to guest speakers whom they would never see in regular lecture classes.
The diversity in classes helps students gain the perspective to better understand the world around them. Through their DeCal experience, students feel more comfortable in better understanding their individual identity and having their unique interests.
Supportive classes
A classroom model that is respectful of students. The idea of “democratic education,” in which the facilitator leads the learning of students, treats all members of the classroom as equals and thus is more encouraging of participation. The underlying ideology of this model strongly supports the development of individual responsibility, initiative taking, leadership skills, creativity, and discovery, all of which empower to the student.
No grade pressure allows exploration outside areas in which the student is confident of success. As one student said:
Personally, I have the opportunity to pursue things that I am interested in without worrying about by my GPA. For example, I am interested in medicine and biology, but not good at math. I took a DeCal in the MCB department on integrative medicine, ethnobotany, and indigenous medicines of the Amazon. It was fascinating and I learned a lot without lowering my grades because of math-based tests.
In this low-pressure exploration of new topics, students experience learning for its own sake and relief from an over-burdened schedule.
Classes naturally emphasize process and discovery over content. Students see, and ideally are very much a part of, the process of discovery in the DeCal classroom.
Small classes and other alternative formats should be explored. Discovery, community-building and fostering curiosity are all better done through these formats. Some classes are very small and the intimacy creates an engaging class atmosphere. The small classes create a learning environment that is more personal and that demands active participation on the part of all students. As a result, the SmallCals are also more manageable for inexperienced facilitators.
Role models: the inspirational role of the facilitator
The interest that DeCal facilitators take in their classes is typified by Ruby Ho, facilitator of “Immigration and Identity,” who said of her DeCal experience:
… you get to devise something out of nothing and see it through to the end. I am always trying to improve my DeCal because it is my creative project and I want to make it as good as possible. It is fulfilling to me to share my passion with other students who are interested in the subject. This is such a special experience that you cannot get in any other program.
Facilitators, as captains of their learning adventure, want to be there. Therefore, it is only natural that they are more inspirational to their students and treat them with more respect.
Leaders who can relate to their students can better tailor the class to their needs. In DeCals, the distance between teacher and learner is not only greatly narrowed, the direction of learning goes both ways.
Student facilitators as positive examples. Usually, the student facilitators are already leaders in one capacity or another and include the heads of student groups, the current ASUC President, and several ASUC senators. These facilitators serve as positive examples for the students. Said one student:
…it was inspiring to have student facilitators as leaders, people my age, who were impressively knowledgeable about the class topic. It was empowering; you don’t need a degree to be a purveyor of knowledge and insight; you simply have to have a passion for something and share it willingly with others.”
Students need to feel comfortable taking initiative in order to feel confident enough to pursue their own ideas. DeCal serves as an example to 3,000 students that is not only possible but also enjoyable and beneficial.
Benefits to Facilitators
The benefits of the DeCal Program are most direct and significant for facilitators. For those who have done it, there is usually little question that initiating, facilitating, and seeing through one’s vision for a DeCal class is an unparalleled leadership experience at Berkeley. Voluntarily putting themselves in a different relationship with their colleagues, the experience is a major self-imposed challenge motivated by the need to create a community of peers in which they may study the subject of interest. There are four main areas of benefit to the facilitators:
Allows student to become active participants in their education
DeCal facilitators change their role from being “consumers” of an education to contributors to an educational community. They are supported in taking the initiative for their own learning. In making this decision, they get to choose their own path and face their own hurdles. By being the leader in a classroom environment, students better understand the nature of learning and have a much higher chance for academic success in the future. As one facilitator put it:
I could not stand to be passive for four-five years. The opportunity to influence my education makes me a partner in the process. It keeps me sane.
DeCal is a cry for more responsibility and freedom by the students. It fills the need to apply and test their knowledge so as to make their studies more relevant.
Ability to share their passions and build a learning community
It is the natural desire of most interested people to find others with a similarly strong interest in the subject. Students, as well as professors, have a desire to be in this community. Through facilitating a DeCal, they can meet those with a similar interest and build a community. Together they can provide themselves with the support to learn about the subject more productively. Through running their DeCal, facilitators actively gain the experience of community building.
Facilitators can formulate and further elaborate their ideas
The authors of this report started their DeCal classes because they needed to bounce their ideas off their fellow students to develop these ideas further. Each week, their small group of students acted as a sounding board while inspiring new ideas. In return, the students were involved in the process of discovery in topics where they were able to contribute without having lots of background knowledge. Through such an open research forum, all members of the classroom learned how to learn on their own. In Holly’s words:Facilitating a class on interdisciplinary education and development issues gave me an excuse to research what I am interested in and get credit for it, rather than having to either fill my schedule with a class which covered one area of what I am interested in but not all, and over extending myself, or padding my schedule with something ‘soft’.
In Nate’s words:
In my experience, I wanted to discover why there is no educational television for middle school students, and so I ran a DeCal class to work with other students in order to learn why this was the case. The results of this class caused many students (myself included) to gain a strong understanding of the importance of education and how it could be done better. In addition, I was able to contact and converse with top professionals in this area. One of my students changed his major to study education. He and another one of my students, along with myself, are now on the Board of DeCal.
DeCal is the only format within UC Berkeley’s structure for student-led research teams like these to exist. Due to the demands of University requirements, if they did not receive academic credit neither the facilitators nor the students would be likely to involve themselves in such an undertaking.
Development of leadership traits
The responsibility of running a class is a significant challenge. In addition, DeCal facilitators must learn to lead others without coercion. The ability to motivate others with out bribes or threats (in this case positive or negative grades) is key to the success of any group situation. In no other academic situation must students seriously face this challenge.
Top students have received external funding in the form of grants and scholarship to make their projects happen through running DeCal classes. This clearly becomes a major event in their undergraduate experience and allows them to identify themselves as leaders.
DeCal directly benefits its course facilitators because in most cases there is no other forum for gaining these experiences. Without DeCal many of these “capstone” leadership experiences simply would not happen.
Benefits to the University and Surrounding Community
Creation of community
Community is build through give and take, not consumption. By serving as unpaid volunteers, Facilitators are helping to build a Cal community. Community is similarly built by allowing students to form learning communities together and engage in their education. All this makes Berkeley less impersonal and more inclusive for all students.
Through DeCal, students get an educational student-run organization. It is the only major educational student group of campus, and is one of the most remarkable student-run organizations in the nation.
Past DeCal classes have become absorbed into the normal curriculum
Tagalog as a regular course offering at the University was born out of a DeCal class. This is a clear demonstration of DeCal responding to students needs and taking advantage of its flexibility. Documentation of Tagalog DeCal courses offered in the past can be found in Archive Syllabus at the DeCal Office in 320 Eshleman.
Social responsibility, social entrepreneurism, and the positive impacts on the surrounding community
Historically a large number of DeCal classes have been centered around student-initiated community service projects. The effects of the community service projects that operate through DeCal are wide reaching and significant. These courses include: ACLU:Civil Liberties Today, Affects of Media Bias/Perspective Magazine, Affordable Housing Issues, Alternative Breaks for Public Service, American Red Cross at Cal, Asian American Issues and Community Work (note, this list sampled only courses starting with the letter ‘A’). All of these require training and discussion. Students learn that they can create such programs and that they can make a difference in people’s lives. These sorts of programs are especially important because they develop a very important trait: social responsibility.
Misconceptions and Limits of DeCal
In each course, at whatever level, I mark my success by the extent to which I can imagine myself as having vanished into thin air at the end, leaving each student fully able to carry on teaching him/herself.
-Janet Adelman, 1986 Distinguished Teaching Award Recipient
In some views towards the goals of education, DeCal is the demonstration of full success in a university education: students showing the initiative, learning amongst themselves without needing much guidance, not needing grades for motivation. The students have learned through their teacher’s example about the necessity for rigorous thinking and have set about to mimic this example by creating their own research and creative projects and doing it themselves. They learn what it means to learn, do research in teams and on their own, and experience the associated sense of purpose and discovery. Their studies gain a new level of seriousness and relevance to their lives as they seek to apply their knowledge to conquer self-imposed challenges. In some views of education, DeCal marks the successful transition from a die-hard sink-or-swim educational program to full fledged, socially responsible learning community.
DeCal, however, does not yet fully live up to this ideal.
Perceived Structural Problems for DeCal
The general perception among students and faculty of DeCal classes is that they are not on the same level as traditional classes. It is true that DeCals neither communicate as much content. Nor are they usually as academically rigorous as standard 3-4 unit letter-graded classes. But to think that DeCals are not effective classes because they are not strong in communicating content is mistaken; that is not their claimed role in education.
Students must have strong motivation and understanding of purpose in order to absorb large amounts of content. Grades serve as an artificial motivator for learning content. But grades are neither especially healthy nor effective and surely do not inspire students to learn on their own or after the semester ends. The truer and more sought-after motivators are interest and a strong sense of curiosity. In order to develop these, exposure is needed to many broad areas to foster a sense of curiosity in the world.
Structurally, as low-unit P/NP discussion-based elective classes, DeCals are meant more to broaden students’ horizons rather than make them pseudo-experts in a field. DeCals present the world as an interesting and diverse place and encourage students to ask questions of the world around them. In this they feed the student’s desire for knowledge.
DeCals recognize that their structural role is to expose students to new ideas. The classes are run in response to this. As a result new programs and formats for classes have been developed that can serve this role most effectively.
Take IntensiveCal for example, a new program for one-unit classes which meet at least three hours per week but are only four weeks long. Through IntensiveCal classes, students may experiment and mix and match different experiences. Students are not required to commit sixteen weeks of their life to this introduction, but still may meet frequently enough to gain an understanding of the structure of thought in that topic.
DeCals are not about factual content. They are about sharing diverse knowledge and perspectives with one another. IntensiveCal is one of the innovative class formats that comes from this realization.
The Possibility of Abuses
Male Sexuality Controversy
The Male Sexuality scandal is something that haunts our past as an organization, but at the same time was an impetus for major changes and imporvements in the DeCal Program.
-Holly Anne Wagenet, DeCal director Spring 2005.
In 2002, the controversy surrounding Daily Cal article on male sexuality DeCal triggers the formation of the Special Studies Task Force to investigate and assess DeCal courses extensively. Even though findings ultimately supported the integrity of student-initiated courses, the controversy had inflicted a severe blow to the program. The Associated Students of University California, ASUC, slashed a substantial amount of funding in Spring 2003-Fall 2003 DeCal budget. According to Polly Pagenhart, ”[the budget cut] was not a result of the Male Sexuality scandal, since DeCal’s budget, as you find when you look at archival info, remained more or less the same through & after the scandal.” She suspected that the ASUC Senate used the controversy as an excuse to eliminate the stipends given to official, public DeCal directors, who were suspected of misappropriating them. Since there was no official inquiry, the truth remains unclear.
More damaging was the negative press that spread nationwide and tainted the perception of DeCal courses. Inspite of a gradual expansion of the DeCal program in other UC campuses in recent years, a full restoration of DeCal’s public image will still take some time to come. Showing the degree of the incident’s notoriety, a quick search of male sexuality DeCal on the internet will return hundreds of results. Many major news outlets picked up the story and rapidly sensationalized the alleged sexual misconduct. To many people at the time, the University, a public-funded entity, appeared to be endorsing sexual perversity and championing moral decadence. The administration was under intense pressure, especially from donors, alumni and the state, to investigate and diffuse the crisis. However, the DeCal board members, male sexuality’s facilitators and the University were untrained and thus unprepared to deal with the onslaught of press coverage, which added to the worsening of public relations. After all, it had been decades since the Free Speech Movement.
Another interesting dimension to the controversy was that the conservative press used it to undermine campus policy since Berkeley professors have a reputation for their activism and progressivism. With the benefit of hindsight, the politicization of the controversy revealed an ongoing division within the American society. A year later with President George Bush’s decision to invade Iraq and the subsequent public responses to it further reflected that polarization.
Co-chaired by David Dowall, Chair of the Berkeley Division Academic Senate and Professor in the Department of City and Regional Planning, and Christina Maslach, Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education and Professor in the Department of Psychology, the Special Studies Task Force backed the DeCal Program and male sexuality. During part of the investigation, the Male Sexuality course was suspended but was reinstated before the end of the term. The Task Force found that departments need to provide better support to their Special Studies courses. Its recommendations elicited mixed responses from the department, which will be discussed in the next section. Released on June 2, 2002, the task force’s final report officially cleared DeCal’s name and approved the work of its eponymous student group. However, an undercurrent of suspicion towards DeCal remains in the administration. The shock from the negative press coverage will take some time to overcome. One of the main tasks for future DeCal board members is to regain the administration’s confidence by positive publicity and a show of efficiency and competence.
The controversy also brought about an end to the disputed stipend. Nick Short was the last official, public DeCal Director to receive a stipend. For a year, his successor, Sarah Haufret managed DeCal in Spring and Fall of 2003 with no funding. During that time, she, and later joined by Nate Singer, lobbied the ASUC to restore the funds but could not explain whence went the funds awarded through the stipends (since that was the business of earlier DeCal leadership). Gradually, their efforts inspired the formation of the volunteered-based DeCal student leadership, who formed the DeCal Board, bringing about a dramatic expansion of DeCal support and advocacy. Many student-facilitators recognized the needs to have a student group to represent their interests and provide support. In Spring 04, the ASUC leadership softened its position and restored the funds but regulated their use in accordance to standard protocols.
The male sexuality course is still recovering from the effects of the controversy. Although the DeCal received an outpour of student support, which contributed to the many indignant opinion pieces sent to the Daily Californian, facilitators faced tremendous obstacles in their efforts to revive the course in subsequent semesters. For one semester in the four years since the controversy, male sexuality was offered but with a highly uncharacteristic stipulation. The faculty sponsor attended every class section to monitor the discussion. The male sexuality course was the biggest victim in the entire controversy. More information on this can be found in the Archive Syllabus at the DeCal Office in 320 Eshleman, Berkeley, CA 94720.
I have been involved in the Male Sexuality Decal since Spring 2003 (After the “scandal”) so I cannot speak for the way things were before or during the time of the scandal. I can only represent the Male Sexuality Decal in the way that I have experienced it and understand it. I am in my final semester at UC Berkeley and intend to graduate this spring. In my four years at UC Berkeley my involvement in the Male Sexuality Decal has been one of the most important experiences I have had at this university. The decal is something that I truly believe in and stand behind 100% because I feel that it provides the student body with a unique opportunity to explore issues that are particularly important to both men and women in a “safe space” environment. The Male Sexuality Decal is important because it creates a positive atmosphere for discussion about sexuality and sexual health issues on a much more personal level than most other sexuality courses.
Each person who enrolls in the Male Sexuality Decal will hopefully learn something important about their own experiences and their own sexuality and take from the class information and knowledge that will help make a lasting positive impact in their own lives. I am proud to say that I have been so intimately involved in the Male Sexuality Decal for the past two years. I invite anyone who would like to learn more about the decal to contact me personally if the legitimacy or importance of the class is in question.
Allan R. Viscarra
Male Sexuality DeCal Facilitator
(written in an e-mail to the DeCal Board in February 2005)
DeCal’s Relationship with Departments
The brouhaha and the subsequent effects of the male sexuality controversy demonstrate the program’s dependence on their sponsoring departments. The Special Studies Task Force reveals DeCal’s indisputable demand of solid faculty and departmental support:
It is critical to clarify with students, faculty, and staff that the DeCal Program is a student group that provides outreach and publicity services to, but does not authorize or oversee, student-initiated group study courses… the oversight for course content would continue to reside with faculty sponsors and department chairs.
An important challenge facing the program is to find the right balance between the degree of departmental control and the observance of DeCal’s vision of learning. Some departments took up the task force’s recommendation and significantly reinforced their support of DeCal. For example, the Political Science Department delegates a specially-trained professor to meticulously walk through the departmental requirements and academic expectations for Special Studies courses. Normally, the tasks are allocated to a staff person. Therefore, in these departments, deadlines are strictly enforced to ensure the quality of the courses. Most departments do not post information about DeCal on their websites even if they sponsor the courses. In some cases, courses can be spontaneously proposed and approved in days before they commence. In an effort to bring consistency to the course proposal process, the administration is exploring options that can meet the administrative demands of the departments and provide the best possible protection to the students.
DeCal’s structure within the University framework is inherently fragile. The administration does not work independent of external forces and influences. Unlike major, established departments, the DeCal Program is a student group and will not be able to withstand another barrage of attacks similar to the one it faced in the male sexuality controversy. Although DeCal carries a considerable cultural clout within and outside the campus community, its significance cannot be effectively measured since its most-prized accomplishments are the invisible forces that shape and challenge the minds of the students. Therefore, the program’s existence will always depend on the administration and the departments’ trust in their students. If facilitators behave responsibly and observe university policies, the program should continue to enjoy both its relative independence and highly-cherished facilitating model. Nonetheless, if facilitators betray that trust and derail from their academic goals, they would definitely put the program in jeopardy.
Conclusion with Thoughts on Higher Education
At its core, DeCal represents a question: Is the academic education about allowing development of the independent questioning community-driven individual or the imparting of cultural knowledge upon our youth? One can make a strong argument for the failure of public schools being that it concentrates on the latter while not responding to former –the innate human quality of being driven by a sense of purpose. Students need to feel comfortable in taking initiative and challenging themselves. They need to gain confidence in their own ideas. Students must learn for themselves the necessities of the rigors demanded by them through our classes and the culture of academia. Exploration of new topics amongst themselves is the strongest way for students to achieve this understanding.
A Berkeley professor has perhaps best summarized the point we have been trying to communicate in this report in a talk at the celebration of the 200 th anniversary of Princeton University :
One of the major functions of higher education, which evades all measurement, is our ability to raise the horizons of our students, to encourage them to set their ambitions higher than if they had not come under our influence. Colleges and universities at their best teach students that they can actually have new ideas, ideas of their own rather than mere collections of ideas produced by others. That is not a conception of self very often gained in secondary school, and yet it lies at the heart of most of what people who gain a postsecondary education achieve in their lives. No formal assessment measures this increased self-confidence and belief in one’s capacity to think originally and effectively, yet can we doubt that it is one of the great goods that attaches to a university education? And it is wrong and snobbish of us to think that it is only people like ourselves, professional academics and intellectuals, who possess this capacity. More and more we see the importance of initiative, originality, and the capacity to think in bold and fresh ways as a central element in success in the professions and in business enterprise. We do, at our best, teach people how to think and how to think more effectively, but whether they do so is a function of how well we communicate the novel idea that they can have novel ideas.
-Martin Trow, Professor of Public Policy at Berkeley
Over the coming years, DeCal will be improving. In the meantime, DeCal will continue to serve as a conduit for student leaders to learn and share their passions with their peers.
[Martin Trow: From On the Accountability of Higher Education in the United States, edited by William G. Bowen and Harold Shapiro, from “Universities and Their Leadership”, Princeton University Press, 1998.]
Originally written by Nathaniel Singer and Holly Wagenet, former DeCal directors, revised by Patrick Yeung in June, 2006
Updated October 25, 2006.