Student Work Agreement

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Community Studies
FULL TIME FIELD STUDY WORK AGREEMENT
Summer/Fall 2009

Check-In Letter
By the end of your first week on field study, you should send a two page, single-spaced “check-in” letter to Mike or Florencia (depending on who is reading your fieldwork). In this letter, describe and assess your experiences thus far. Write about the kinds of work you are doing and expect to do. Are you doing what you expected? Also write about any problems that may have emerged, or any specific concerns you may have that perhaps need monitoring (“things to look out for”).

Senior Capstone Proposal
Email a copy of your Senior Capstone Proposal from CMMU 102 to your field coordinator (Mike or Flor) and a second copy to your faculty advisor.

Field Notes
Field notes are an important part of the field study. They offer you an opportunity to record information for critical reflection on the meaning of your fieldwork. The person reviewing your field notes will give you feedback on your notes and let you know if they are acceptable or if they need some kind of improvement.
Notes should generally be taken every day you work on the field study. They may vary in length depending upon what goes on. Some days you may only have a paragraph. Other days will require three or more pages to cover significant events. Good field notes contain both observations about your experience and internship environment, as well as your own reflections on these experiences. We recommend that your field notes include a focus on how you see your field study being related to social change as well as the linkage between the social issue you are concerned with and the organization you are placed with.
We would like you to put one asterisk (*) next to what you consider to be the five (5) best entries in each of your three submissions of field notes (one month after the placement begins and at the end of the first and second quarter of the field study). You should pick what you think are your best field notes – best because they include important observations about the placement, or a good analysis of what is going on, or insightful ideas about how you think things could be improved. In evaluating your field notes, Florencia or Mike will focus more energy on the five entries in your field notes that you select although they will skim through all of your notes. [Please avoid the use of asterisks for other purposes in your notes.]
In addition to writing daily field notes, we also recommend that you actively collect field materials in other forms, such as pamphlets, fliers, news articles, photographs, audio tapes, etc., (these do not need to be turned in). Remember, you are not writing these notes for external reward, but because they will help you make your field study a more meaningful educational experience. Good field notes are usually an essential ingredient for CMMU 194 and a quality senior project.

Analytical Papers
At the end of each quarter that you are on field study, there will be a 7-10 page paper due. Unlike the field notes, these are meant to be formal papers that are well organized, well supported and make their point(s) clearly, are proofread and spell checked. Your papers should be coherent pieces of writing and not simply answers to the suggested questions below.

The FIRST quarter paper is an organizational analysis of the group that you are working with. Who are they and what do they do? This paper should address questions such as the following: What is the target or client population of the organization (who is your group trying to serve, educate or organize)? Why is this population targeted? What larger social forces at the global, national, regional, or local level impact the need for your organization and its activities or affect how it can and cannot carry out its work effectively? What is the internal structure of the organization? What assumptions are widely shared or are the source of disagreement within the organization? Does the organization have an implicit or explicit strategy and clear short and long-range goals and what are they? Again, you may address some or all of these questions. They are to be used as a guideline.

The SECOND quarter paper should provide an update of the research issues and questions you raised in your Capstone Proposal for CMMU 102. Based on your experience in the field so far, this paper should address the following questions: How has your experience working with this organization changed the research issues and questions you set out to investigate? If your questions are different now, describe how and why they have changed. How would you state your research questions now? From your field study experience, how has your concept of the problem or issue changed? Your paper could also discuss the role of your organization as a social change agent, based on how you defined social change in the context of the issues on which your organization works. You might want to consider some of these aspects in your analysis: In what way has your field study been focused on social change? What are the actual strategies your organization is using to promote social change? How do those strategies speak to what scholars in the field are saying or recommending? How does your organization think about the process of social change? How does its work suggest that change comes about? How effective is your group in creating change in this area? What role does your organization play in broader movements for social justice or social change?

Faculty Update letter
At the beginning of your second quarter on field study you should send an update letter to your faculty advisor (The faculty member who approved your field study – NOT Mike or Florencia. This is a two-page, single-spaced informal update reflecting on what you are learning there about the social change process as it concerns the issue you are trying to address. Questions addressed might include: Is the organization turning out to be a good place to find answers to the kind of intellectual and social change questions you want to address on your field study? How does this placement help you to advance your understanding of the specific issues you dealt with in your 100 course? Are there organizational assumptions, approaches, or practices that seem to call out for a critical response (whether or not you would actually confront the group with it). Is your perspective on social change and the issue you are working on beginning to change in any way and if so, how?

Supervisor’s evaluation letters
At the end of each quarter that you are on field study, you will be responsible for making sure that your field study placement supervisor submits a letter of evaluation. Your supervisors are no doubt very busy people and so you may have to remind her or him a few times about the letter. The evaluation letter should address your goals and objectives and the quality of your work with the organization. These letters should be sent to us via email, if possible, so that they do not have to be retyped into your narrative evaluation. If they are in another language, you should translate them into English and send both the original and the translation.

Placement Evaluation Form
Placement evaluation forms are designed to help assess the quality of a placement and whether or not we should consider the placement and/or organization for future internships. This form will be emailed to you while you are in the field.