Hi Winter Terroir students,

As we proceed through week 2, we can’t help but notice that some of you have been struggling with late attendance, or attendance altogther, and we just wanted to remind you of an important passage from the Terroir covenant (posted under Program Docs on our program wordpress site)

The following is directly from the covenant, and note that you have acknowledged the covenant by continuing in the Terroir program:

4.  Participate fully and faithfully in all program activities.  Attend – and arrive on time for – all scheduled program activities.  Students agree to notify faculty of expected absences from the program, but students must recognize that there are no “excused absences.” Please note that tests are program activities that are very difficult or impossible to reschedule and missing tests without contacting faculty can result in the loss of credit. There are times when one might not be able to attend program activities.  You should tell your seminar faculty when you can not attend (email or voicemail are available 24/7), but the faculty do not want to be forced to judge the adequacy or legitimacy of “excuses.” Two or more missed classes or assignments for any program component can result in the loss of credit.

We are trying to emphasize our goal of treating each other well, and recognize that arriving late is disruptive and disrespectful of others that are trying to learn. With this in mind, and given the requirement of timeliness for program activities that are very difficult or impossible to recreate, the attendance sheet will be circulated from the EXACT start of class until 10 minutes into class.  After that the attendance will be recorded.  Hopefully this will restate our commitment to participating in complete program activities, let alone being present for the crucial directions at the start of workshops.

Please note that the program components for this quarter are very compressed given the extended field trip and in-program field studies.  For example, after today, there will no longer be video workshops offered and a student missing both is unlikely to have earned the associated credit.

We hope you are healthy and doing well, and please notify all faculty if you are missing class for any reason.

Thank you,
Abir and Sarah and Steve

This week’s readings (focused on soils and climate) cover a range of topics. In general the Tuesday lecture will focus on tea growing within India within the Himalayas, Assam, and Nilgiris areas, as well as a general discussion of soils and soil development that you would expect in these regions.

Students new to the Terroir program may not have studied soils and soil development in the past– therefore the Chapin and Brady & Weil readings posted should provide some foundation.  For this Tuesday, we are only asking for you to read excerpts, but they are good resources and you are encouraged to read them over the next few weeks to support discussions of soil over the quarter.  Students continuing the terroir program, are asked to read the Chapin and Brady & Weil chapters last quarter– please review as needed.  The additional readings posted are designed to apply concepts you have seen in Earth Sciences.