I have been accompanying Hampshire students on all sorts of Division III projects, going on 17 years now. One thing I like to tell students when they are struggling is that, while this may be the only Div III they have experienced, I have experienced scores of Div III projects. Each has its own rhythm, but there are elements they have in common:

1. The initial excitement!

2. The moment of truth: what is this project all about??

3. Inevitable panic and despair… 

4. Getting support, finding your stride--

5. Finishing the project that only YOU could have done!

6. Reflection. Moving forward.

These elements don’t always occur in this order, as an arc, and sometimes they overlap. But when you are going through “inevitable panic and despair,” you may not feel like you will get to “finding your stride.” And when you’re in those glorious first weeks or months of “the initial excitement,” it may be hard to imagine you will soon be looking back on this project, reflecting on how you’ve grown, and applying those reflections to your next steps. That’s the benefit of having a faculty committee to accompany you—we can help nudge you along this arc, challenging you and reassuring you when you need it, and keeping the bigger picture in view. 

I asked alums if they had any words of wisdom to give you. One important reply was this: “During my Div. 3 I was really worried about ‘revealing’ to my committee where I struggled, where I felt lost, and where I felt without a clear path forward. That really impeded my progress. It’s so important that students feel like they can be transparent with their committee, even if they feel like they are ‘supposed’ to be in a certain plan or are ‘supposed’ to know what next steps they should be taking. Transparency up front will lead to a lot less pain in the end.”

This advice is so important! No one goes into Div III knowing how to do it! And part of what you will learn—a huge part—is simply how to propose, plan, and execute a major project. That itself is challenging! So, just remember: when you struggle, your committee wants to help. Your professors may even be in the “inevitable panic and despair” stage with their own projects, and they will empathize!

One more note before I get into the logistics: remember: this is, at most, an eight-month project during one year of your life. You should work on something you care about, that you know is worth an eight-month commitment, and that leverages the resources you have at Hampshire and the knowledge and skill you have built in Div II. However, your Div III does not need to define you, and it will not determine the course of your life. It is important to keep that sense of proportionality in mind. 

With that, on to the details!

Even before you get your contract filed and while you may still be putting together your Div II portfolio, you should schedule an initial meeting with your committee to talk about your project and plans for the year. At that meeting (or possibly before over email) we will probably decide on a set meeting time for the entire semester. 

If I am your chair, we will most likely meet biweekly in the fall; if I am your member, depending on the project, I will meet with you biweekly or once a month in the fall. However, I recommend we schedule a full committee meeting at the beginning of the semester so that everyone can get on the same page. 

If you have not set up an initial meeting during these weeks, please do so as soon as possible by emailing me and the other committee member. 

Committee roles what you can expect of me

As the chair of your Div III committee, I will be paying special attention to your work. If you miss sending me updates as agreed upon, I will notice, get worried, and make an effort to contact you. I will carefully read each of your weekly updates and send you brief responses. I will respond as promptly as possible to any questions you have. I will schedule biweekly in-person meetings with you in the first semester and weekly meetings in the second semester. I will actively offer suggestions, critiques; when you request it, I will offer advice about professional networking and applying to graduate school. While I expect you to keep up with them, I will also look out for bureaucratic Hampshire deadlines and strive to help you meet them. I will be favorably inclined to help you however I can, though I ask that you tell me what you need. I will help you navigate any crises from my position as your academic advisor, possibly in conjunction with CASA. I will facilitate our final meeting, and I will be chiefly responsible for writing the final evaluation of your Division III project. 

As a member of your Div III committee, I will do much of what is named above: I will share resources and feedback as you put together your project, I will give you feedback on your work-in-progress, and I will offer networking and grad school advice. Like the chair, I will be favorably inclined to help you however I can, though I ask that you tell me what you need. There will be some key differences: I will expect to join you and your chair for an initial committee meeting, and after that I will plan to join for full committee meetings once or twice a month. Please do not rely on me for bureaucratic Hampshire deadlines, since I expect you and your chair to be responsible for those matters. Also, my role with Div III final evaluation, typically, will be to add comments that relate to my areas of expertise, and to help the chair with editing.

My expectations for you

Whether I’m the chair or a member on your committee, I expect you will:

1. Post weekly updates without the need for reminders.  See page on weekly updates for details.

2. Come to our scheduled meetings on time with work/questions/progress reports ready.

3. Contact the entire committee at least 24 hours in advance if you need to reschedule or cancel a meeting.

4. Stay on top of your email (check it daily!) and keep up with messages from CASA, Student Life, Financial Aid, and reach out if you ever need support with Hampshire bureaucracy (remember, I don’t get copied on all the messages you get!)

5. Participate in one of the showcases or symposia at the end of the year, or otherwise seek out ways to share your work.

In order to file for Division III, you will turn your project description from the Committee Request Form (now located in "draft contract" in your Division III tab) into a full contract. You should start drafting your contract right away; make a document in the shared Google Drive folder I have made for you (if I am your chair) and address each of the items below. Your committee will give you feedback before the filing deadline.

1) The first paragraph or two should describe your project. Here is where I want to see the beating intellectual heart of your project: the research problem, the big questions, the stakes, the interdisciplinary sparks, the methodological approach. Please focus on the project itself here, and not the personal journey that brought you to the project. That journey is important, but the contract should speak from a standpoint that has completed the journey needed to begin Div III. 

2) A list or description of what will you create or produce during your Div III year, and what final work you will submit at the end of the year. Will you be writing a thesis, and be producing and revising chapter drafts throughout the year? Will you be making an installation project, starting with sketches and research, then mockups, before producing final pieces and installing them? What you will create/produce during your project, and what the end product will be depends on your project, but it is important to be specific and concrete so that you can make a good plan.  

3) A list and/or explanation of skills that you will practice and improve during your Div III. This item is more about process/craft, where #2 is more focused on benchmarks and final product. 

4) A list of challenges. What do you expect to be the biggest obstacles to completing the project? These may be logistical challenges, challenges related to a lack of skill- or area-based preparation, or challenges related to past struggles you have faced when completing writing and research projects. Be concise, but be honest—if they are on the table, we can account for them in the plan!

5) A schedule.  At the contract stage, I'd at least like to see you have a rough sense of what your benchmarks will be for the end of this semester, the end of Jan term, and the final product. Include that in the contract. 

Once you are filed, you will start refining that schedule. I will address that more in the next section.

 6) A change-management/contingency plan. When (not if!) your Div III changes, when you lose files, etc., what process will you use to manage those changes smoothly? (And while we are on the topic, what is your method to keep your important files backed up on a daily basis?)

 7) A bibliography—could also extend to a TV/filmography, list of archival collections, and/or image reference list, depending on your project. This item can wait until after the filing deadline, but do consider including an abbreviated bibliography at the contract stage, and early in the project, I'd like to see a list of what works you intend to read/view/research to inform your project. 

 8) Advanced Educational Activities—you must complete two AEAs during Div III, and in general this means advanced courses related to your project (300-range, or upper 200-range with committee approval), a TAship, and/or membership in Div III concentrator seminars. You will not be able to make the contract ready for faculty signatures without filling this part of the contract out. You may not know exactly what you will do in the second semester, but you should try to fill out what you think you will do, and fill every other blank with “TBD.”

Once you and your committee are satisfied, make the contract ready for faculty signatures. Once both members sign, you will be filed!

Keep a copy of your contract in the Google Drive folder so you can expand/refine it. You will revise your contract on the Hub at least once during the year.

After you have filed the contract and it is signed by your committee, you will want to have it around for reference without logging into the Hub, and you will want to keep a couple elements as living documents: the schedule, and the bibliography. I recommend that you use the Google Drive folder (which I have made, or that you make and share with all committee members) and keep it organized with as many internal folders as you need. (Please include your last name and “Div III” in the folder name—a folder simply named “Div III” may be unique on your computer, but it won’t be on mine!)

At this point, you will likely want to do flesh out your initial schedule so that you have a benchmark every two weeks for the first two months, and monthly goals for the rest of the academic year. You really want to spend some time on the schedule—it will help everyone involved know if you're on track or not, and it will allow you to break up the project into manageable chunks.

Two things to keep in mind:

• You will be sharing all work in draft form with your committee, and most of our meetings will be spent discussing your work-in-progress. This means that for any work that requires reading and comment, you will need to send it to us ahead of time—usually the week before our meeting, unless the work is very short. Some visual work can be viewed in meetings themselves, but anything that would take longer than 5-10 minutes to absorb in detail should be sent ahead of time. 

• For now, expect to be turning in your final, revised project by around April 1 if you are starting Div III in the fall, and by around November 15 if you are starting Div III in the spring. Plan backwards from that date, and remember to factor in family vacations, etc.

In the second semester, you will revise the contract and also make sure you have the final name you want listed in the Commencement brochure and on your transcript!

An important way to stay accountable to your project, and to keep your committee informed of your work, is to set goals for the week, and at the end of the week, send a weekly check-in.

A process for you: When you are getting ready to start a new week, either on Sunday afternoon/evening or Monday morning, consider sitting down and reflecting on the past week, and then set some intentions and priorities for the week to come. 

When you sit down to reflect and look forward, you have the opportunity to check in with the bigger picture of your project and check your progress. You also have the opportunity to check in with yourself: what discoveries did you make in the past week? What challenges did you face? How was your sleep? How were you able to take care of yourself, or were there obstacles to that kind of care? How can you set yourself up for success in the week to come? Can you take it easy in the week to come, or do you have benchmarks ahead that will require more energy than usual?

This practice of reflection and looking forward relies on 3 additional elements:

1. Setting concrete, achievable goals

2. Tracking your progress

3. Identifying and checking in with accountability partners

As your chair or member, I am one of your accountability partners, though you may identify others as well who will help you stay on track with your work. 

Every Sunday evening or Monday morning—after we have gotten underway with meetings—I will ask you to send a check-in structured around these questions:

1. What were your goals/priorities for the previous week?

2. What went well, what was successful? Could relate to work itself and/or to process.

3. What challenges/obstacles, if any, did you face? Could relate to work itself and/or to process.

4. What are your top priorities for this week? Did you need to make any readjustments to your schedule in light of last week’s successes/challenges?

5. What is the next work-in-progress I will be seeing, and when will it be ready?

6. Anything else you want me to know?

I encourage you, too, to use a calendar and/or planner to build momentum from day to day, but you don't need to share it with me. 

To help you log your work, I have made a Daily and Weekly Log template on Google Sheets; you can find it bookmarked here. Make a copy or download, and save to your own folder. You can modify your sheet to meet your needs. 

However, it is important to find the kind of planner that speaks to you. If you work best with paper, use paper. If you like Notion, use Notion. However, make sure that whatever system you use supports your work rather than overwhelming it.

Many thanks to Profs Jennifer Gutterman and Ira Fay for sharing their brilliant Div III guides, which I adapted here, and for Cathy Luna's and NCFDD's faculty writing accountability programs, which were an early  source for the weekly update log.