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The Role
of the IAP Department Coordinator
Encouraging
Others to Offer IAP Activities
The Role
of the IAP Department Administrator
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IAP DEPARTMENT COORDINATORS AND ADMINISTRATORS
Every MIT department, laboratory, center, and group has an IAP
Department Coordinator and Administrator to oversee IAP matters
for their specific areas. This page contains details on their roles,
as well as advice for Coordinators on encouraging colleagues and
students to offer IAP activities.
The Role of the IAP Department Coordinator
Since IAP is "by, for, and about the MIT community,"
the role of the local IAP Department Coordinator is to encourage
colleagues in his or her department, laboratory, center, office,
or student group to offer and to attend IAP activities.
Subject and Activity planners should keep in mind the following
objectives:
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Create programs appealing to freshmen.
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Try new teaching methods and learning formats that may improve
the regular academic program.
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Offer short courses and seminars for credit, as well as publicize
opportunities for independent study.
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Develop more Institute-wide activities to create a sense of
community at MIT.
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Promote student-faculty interaction.
The IAP Coordinator serves as the source of information about IAP
resources, policies, and procedures for her/his department, group,
office, etc. Academic departments are encouraged to organize both
for-credit subjects as well as not-for-credit activities. To that
end, you should be familiar with IAP guidelines outlined on the
IAP Overview,
Organizing
Credit Subject and Non-Credit
Activities, and Registration
Information pages. The online MIT
Bulletin also contains IAP policy information.
As an IAP Coordinator, you are expected to:
- Advise activity leaders on the details of organizing, such as
the availability of rooms and funding.
- Help students seeking independent projects by identifying faculty
or other resource people who can advise them.
- Together with your IAP Department Administrator, review all
departmental offerings for appropriateness.
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Encourage Faculty,
Colleagues, Students, and Alumni to Offer IAP Activities
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Make announcements at meetings, create posters and flyers,
and send memos and e-mail messages to encourage people (especially
students!) to organize activities.
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Talk to students -- not just majors, but freshmen, upperclass
students and alums from your department and in other areas as
well.
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Look at the IAP
Offerings page, featuring activity descriptions
from IAP 2003.
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Meet with last year's Department Coordinator to find out what
activities were most popular.
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Suggest activities that give the MIT community an opportunity
to learn more about the work of your department and to meet
the people behind the scenes in one or more informal sessions.
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Suggest offerings related to hobbies, outside interests, musical
talents, travelogues.
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Ask your departmental student group or honorary society to
sponsor an activity.
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Suggest that faculty experiment with curriculum development.
Encourage them to use IAP to explore a section of one of their
regular courses in greater depth.
- Have a faculty member devise an independent project to be listed
in the Guide as a department activity for students.
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The Role of the IAP Department
Administrator
The IAP Department Administrator is the central person in an academic
department, laboratory, or center responsible for submitting all
IAP information to the Web for both departmentally-sponsored credit
subjects and non-credit activities. Only the IAP Department Administrator
is authorized to submit and update credit-bearing subjects for the
IAP website.
As an IAP Administrator, you are expected to:
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Submit your department's for-credit and non-credit offerings
via the IAP Posting Forms
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With your IAP Department Coordinator, review and approve all
offerings and on-line postings that list your Department, Lab,
or Center as a sponsor prior to being submitted to the IAP web
page. This ensures that all information is correct and appropriate
to the objectives and guidelines for IAP.
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Make sure that faculty and students involved in projects or
classes for academic credit know the policies regarding taking
subjects for credit. Be sure to submit grades by the deadline
to be announced.
For guidelines on determining units for undergraduate credit-bearing
subjects see the
Organizing For-Credit Subjects
page. For help with gaining access to IAP posting forms, write to
iap-www@mit.edu,
or call 617-253-1668.
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