Comments from the Curriculum Discussion

The following comments were written on the large sheets at our November 2 faculty meeting during our discussion on the proposed general education curriculum revision. The comments were in four sections:

Questions

  • Who will staff the 2-credit seminars? (Why not have two 4-credit seminars?)
  • Where are the Arts?
  • How will students understand this curriculum more clearly than the current one?
  • How do we avoid substituting enthusiasm for actual planning in the implementation
  • Are critical thinking skills somewhere (for sure?)
  • Would faculty workloads change because of 2-credit courses?
  • Which “staff” will participate in CiPs? How?
  • What does “intercultural” mean in the new curriculum?
  • What is “Design Thinking?” And why is it appropriate to our goals and values?
  • Could a student take a Nature Breadth course that was not a lab science?
  • Will students be permitted to delay 1st and 2nd year Gen Ed courses to final semester? (ex. Quantitative or Foreign Language)
  • What might be an appropriate place for courses that have an international and/or global component? How would “experiential learning” be implemented for courses whose focus is outside the U.S.?
  • If a semester is 12 weeks, would class sessions meet for longer?
  • Where do IDS courses fit – will there be IDS prefixes? How do they mesh with the “courses from different departments” stipulation?
  • Would “Last Course” be offered only in the spring? Seems restrictive; what if a student fails? Has to wait another year to retake?
  • How will we fund significant changes in teaching expectations?
  • Where is the budget process happening?
  • What does this make easier for me so I can have time to get involved in CiPs?

Concerns

  • Should all of our students have this much community engagement?
  • Use of the word “discrete” is confusing to many students when considering major/minor course selections. Please clarify with examples for students
  • Do we lose writing skills? Not clear new curriculum is as in-depth as 101, 102, HP…
  • Not clear how CiPs are distributed around campus (workload/responsibility)
  • Too much double-counting might leave us with CiPs that are too closely related to or linked to majors
  • No mention of transfer or CCE in implementation guide
  • We really need to see worked-through examples/models of CiPs before moving ahead, i.e. approving in-the-dark
  • CiPs sound potentially clique-ish and a site for territorial battles
  • Increases workload of faculty teaching Gen Ed course exponentially
  • Does not build on existing talent/interests/strengths of the faculty.
  • Need commitment from admin for appropriate funding/resources/course releases to do this right!
  • Do we know where GELO skills are being imparted/assessed?
  • *Draft 2: What happened to community seminars? Necessary curricular component for interdisciplinary programs.
  • How do we know whether students will understand or want this format
  • I haven’t seen any clear explanation for what makes this better rather than just different.
  • Too great a need for additional administration/increased workload
  • How would this affect advising? / Evaluation of advising?
  • If students get too focused on gen ed their 1st to 2nd years, it may be difficult for them to complete highly sequenced majors and programs (just like now – so advising)
  • It’s a very applied curriculum
  • What do we think about a new layer of administration and costs?
  • We lose part of who we are if we don’t include SJ, ER, DUS, ICUL–>Non-Western. HUGE LOSS.
  • We need HP skills built into curriculum
  • Not enough explicit, universal emphasis on what were Critical Perspectives or anti-oppression work
  • How to/if translate for adult and transfer students
  • Are benefits greater than costs?
  • The switch to 4 x 2-credit experiential seminars in the C.I.P.s eliminates studio arts courses from fulfilling these seminar requirements, which is where we thought studio ARTS could fit into C.I.Ps.

Roadblocks

  • How would this plan fit schedules of CCE students? Especially if 12-1-3
  • Teaching a 3-week night class seems like a big burden on faculty.
  • Not sure this is a roadblock, but I’m having a hard time getting excited about the gateway seminar, especially without the unifying place-based theme; seems like a little bit of a wasted 8-credit requirement
  • Can students and faculty accommodate the 12-1-3 model?
  • (connected to previous point by another writer) Yes! What do we gain from changing the calendar. Not clear.
  • The CiPs feel onerous for non-extroverted students or students w/ certain learning differences and mental illnesses.
  • Really need explicit requirement for a way to switch CiPs
  • What is the net revenue gain?
  • Clarity about explicit gen ed writing instruction above English 102
  • We need enough support to make these changes. Faculty and student development will be expensive.
  • Nowhere even close to approving this
  • Does this work with on-line course formats?
  • PLACE IS IMPORTANT
  • 2 semesters of Gateway Seminar sounds like too much of a not necessarily good thing
  • Want to assure anti-racism content/curriculum is EXPLICIT
  • Where do we ensure global (not European) studies?

Commendations

  • I appreciate the potential integacism and cultural competency into the general curriculum and TEAM TEACHING OPPORTUNITIES, including collaborating and inter-disciplinary pedagogy.
    • (one person added FSMM, which I now know is “Friend Speaks My Mind”)
  • CiP’s are a great idea
  • Like the creative, new parts – looking forward to working on them (CiP, Gateway …)
  • Love the idea of increasing the knowledge of second and/or third languages to the minimum of national standards to increase students’ intercultural competence.
  • Interdisciplinary and integrative collaboration between and among faculty, staff, and students will provide much deeper teaching AND learning opportunities for everyone! Hooray!
    • (one person added FSMM)
  • CiPs have a lot of potential
  • Minimum 2 semesters of foreign language! Yay!!!!! FINALLY!
    • (one person added ‘+1’)
  • I like the cohesive nature of the overall idea.
  • I love the possibilities of experiential opportunities with the new proposed schedule
  • I love the concepts!
  • Love the interdisciplinary emphasis

One Comment

  1. What would folks think about infusing the core SLOs from our current ICUL, SJ, ER, DUS into either theGateway courses or the CiPs? (i.e., I want to acknowledge that we are in an anti-multicultural / backlash political moment and I hope we can ensure that our curriculum will not backslide).

    And a question to LAGER (and forgive me if you’ve already answered this & I missed it !): why not propose that the final course for CiPs be interdisciplinary? OR is it that the seminars that include integrative reflection on curricular & co-curricular work in the CiP, also ensures opportunities for interdisciplinary/academic integrative work?
    THANK YOU ALL FOR YOUR EXCELLENT WORK
    Nancy