Student portfolios:
When a student has completed any contract, course, or program, the quality of the performance will be evaluated in documents to be added to her/his official transcript. Registration and Records will keep this official transcript, adding to it the three basic documents for each program: 1) the program description; 2) an evaluation of performance by the seminar leader or sponsor; and 3) a statement by the student commenting on what s/he thinks s/he has learned (i.e., student self-evaluation).
The student is strongly advised to maintain a portfolio. In addition to copies of the above-mentioned documents, it will include copies of the student's evaluations of faculty and, ideally, samples of the student's work (e.g., written, photographed, drawn or taped). The portfolio can be shared with future sponsors, always growing in size and in specific detail. It will give the student and prospective sponsors an ever-clearer picture of where the student has been, where s/he is and the direction in which s/he is moving. Thus, in lieu of departmental majors or required tracks, the portfolio makes possible a continuity of planning for the student and her/his advisors. Whenever a student wishes to negotiate a contract with a new sponsor or to join a program, the faculty member should examine the student's portfolio as a counseling instrument. And the student's previous sponsor or seminar leader should, in turn, make sure that any student moving on will have a full and up-to-date portfolio to take along. And should the student transfer to another institution, the portfolio (or "academic biography") will give a clearer meaning of what the Evergreen credit represents.