The Faculty Senate voted to approve a new core curriculum which will dramatically change general education at USM beginning in the fall of 2009. The approval process took most of last semester, and was marked by debate and tension as full and part-time faculty weighed the feasibility and practicality of changing the current curriculum.
Voting overwhelmingly in favor, the Faculty Senate-which gives faculty shared governance in the university-passed the motion 23-11 with no one abstaining.
The new curriculum calls for a series of related, interdisciplinary courses, beginning with an interdisciplinary “Entry-Year Experience” course as well as classes similar to the current college writing and quantitative reasoning requirements and culminating with a capstone experience.
The EYE courses have already begun to be implemented, and were piloted in the fall of 2006. The rest of the curriculum, now that it has passed, will take at least three more years to come fully into effect, proceeding alongside the class entering in 2009.
Beginning in 2009, only first-time matriculating students will be held to the new curriculum.
The following year, those now sophomores and entering freshman will be required to follow it, and all other students will be given the option of continuing along the old curriculum, or transferring into the new one.
Rather than the current system, which requires students to fulfill certain lettered requirements that often coincide with introductory courses across the university, it will include several introductory-level courses, a series of mid-level, mid-career courses that relate to a chosen theme or topic, and a final high-level phase which will, according to the newly passed guidelines and criteria, “result in a final product which represents a high level of accomplishment, whether written, performance-based, or practice oriented.”
Such a design requires that courses be completed throughout a student’s career at USM.
According to professors Michael Hillard of economics and Jane Kuenz of English who co-chaired the General Education Planning Committee (and are not members of the Senate), one problem with the current curriculum is that it places strains on departments by forcing students to take their introductory courses.
The English department, for example, is forced to teach a tremendous number of Intro to Literature courses, because it is one of the few courses that satisfies the current “H” requirement (literature and humanities).
Perhaps even worse off have been the science departments, which struggle under the burden of teaching several hundred students at a time in the “K” courses of introductory biology, chemistry, physics, and astronomy.
In their presentation to the Student Senate last semester, Kuenz and Hillard claimed that the new system would allow introduction-to-a-major courses to focus on helping students within that major, rather than catering to the general population.
One of the main reasons that the proposal for a new curriculum was accepted last Friday was that the opposing sides had come to compromise on some of the problems seen by those opposed to the proposal.
Senator Michael Hamilton, professor of political science, who was originally opposed to the proposal, was convinced to vote in favor of it after reaching resolutions with those who have been supportive of the curriculum since its inception.
The two primary issues that were resolved related to the feasibility of implementation and the academic freedom of faculty in designing their own courses.
“Academic freedom is big, big, big for the faculty,” he said following the meeting on Friday, “and the ability to graduate is big, big, big for the students.” He believes that these issues have been resolved.
Professor and Senator Eileen Eagan of the history department is not convinced. “Students will never graduate,” she says, matter-of-factly. While she admits to some level of hyperbole, Senator Eagan is serious in her claim that students will need to turn to the community college system to help them meet all of their requirements.
During the debate at the Friday meeting, another hotly debated point was the extent of inclusion of the part-time faculty. Senator Hamilton felt very strongly that full-time faculty had the greatest stake in the matter, since they have “careers on the line.”
Professor and Senator Dennis Gilbert of Communications and Media Studies-one of only two part-time faculty of 42 voting seats-felt that because part-time and adjunct faculty will be teaching a large number of the new curriculum’s courses, they must be allowed representation, and the opportunity to chair the Core Curriculum Committee, which will be compiling and approving courses for the new curriculum.
While the idea for a new curriculum originated in 2001, and faculty have been in arms about it ever since, the student body seems to have had little knowledge of the proposal.
Only five students were present at the meeting on Friday, one of whom was Student Body President AJ Chalifour, who is the student representative to the Senate, and two were Free Press staff.
The faculty present at the meeting filled the room beyond comfort-level. “There were more than 50 people here,” said Al Pinkam, who set up tables for the meeting, “the order said 50 people, so I was surprised to see standing-room only!”
Now that the curriculum has passed, a curriculum review body made up of the General Education Planning Committee and the Core Curriculum Committee will move forward.
But, says Susan McWilliams of the Office of Undergraduate Education, “the biggest obstacle was just overcome.”