V. Components of the Multi-Year Plan
B. Expenditures
(1) Major
Initiatives $7.0 M
(b):
Teaching, Learning and Curriculum Reform $ 1.0M
The reorganization
of areas of knowledge will ultimately impact the curriculum and associated
teaching and learning. Indeed the origins of the Land Grant model called
for new approaches to the curriculum and to the applications of scholarship
to societal issues. For example, the Land Grant ideal served to remove
the barriers between liberal and professional learning. Such integration
was considered crucial at a time when society was changing from an agrarian
to an industrial base. Today, as society becomes increasingly more information
driven, another transformation is underway. Never was the need for an
integrative approach greater than now. We need to find the best ways
of achieving this approach in research, outreach and in teaching and
learning.
Many relevant ideas
are developed in the Task Force Reports but we believe some overarching
elements are crucial. The current General Education requirements on
the Amherst campus were implemented in the fall semester, 1986. At the
time, they were pioneering in several respects, including the implementation
of a two-course requirement in Social and Cultural Diversity-- designed
to:
1) emphasize the
need for educated citizens to understand that different cultures and
societies provide unique contexts for human experience;
2) analyze
and appreciate the ways in which norms and values differ across cultures
and societies;
3) encourage
pluralistic perspectives. In addition, the requirements provided for
the development of writing skills both through a freshman writing course
and a junior year writing course taught within the students major, and
for the mastery of appropriate math skills through the analytic reasoning
requirements. Finally, breadth of knowledge was encouraged by requiring
students to take courses in a wide variety of disciplines. The world
has changed dramatically since these general education requirements
were implemented, including major social and political reorientations,
monumental advances in technology, and the advent of the Information
Age. It is time for the campus to reevaluate and re-shape its general
education program in order to meet the needs of today's students. It
will be important to design a new set of Ow General Education Requirements
which will include computer literacy, community service learning, and
the broadening of the diversity requirement to include internationalism
and the ability to speak a language other than ones own, as well as
a more integrative structure to support general education.
Computer
Literacy
must be integrated in the curriculum as we prepare students for life
in an information age. Our society will need to be able to gather information
as and when needed, applying wisdom and critical thinking skills to
interpreting, integrating and applying the information. Increasingly
we shall also need to provide development and support for computer-
aided instruction. In Part 2 of this section we set out a 5-year plan
for building a new learning environment through creative uses of technology.
We shall draw on the excellent faculty and staff of the Computer Science
Department and elsewhere in the University through a new Center
for Information Technology and Instruction. It will also be important
to enhance the capacity of the Center for Teaching to help faculty better
use technology for teaching and learning.
The curriculum
should include Community Service Learning
as an important component, following on the pilot models underway in
several of our Schools and Colleges. Such expanded approaches within
curricula will serve to make an education at this modern Land Grant-Research
University distinctive. Traditional barriers between the world and its
needs and academe will be lowered. By linking learning and discovery
to outreach we accelerate the creation of a better and a wiser world.
A distinctive education at a modern Land-Grant University must not only
prepare students for their first job but also for their last job. There
will also be a need for expanded Lifelong Education
courses, providing just-in-time education for an increasing number
of people already in the work force.
Our students must
be prepared to live in a global, interconnected world. A greater emphasis
must be placed on Issues of Diversity and Internationalism--a transcultural
perspective in which different cultures are valued, but where the connections
and the common bonds of our humanity are also emphasized. The diversity
courses are gateways to developing a global perspective, but this approach
must also be integrated into the curriculum vertically. Diversity courses
need to provide perspectives on national and international issues.
The ability to
speak a Language Other than One's Own is
also a gateway to understanding and appreciating other cultures, as
well as being a truly liberating experience. The Education Reform Act
for the Commonwealth recognized the importance of language instruction
and called for an expanded curriculum in languages, but these provisions
have not yet been fully implemented. By the year 2001, proficiency in
another language should become an expectation for entering students,
and the campus should provide diagnostic testing and remediation for
otherwise admissible students with a deficiency in this area just as
we do now for students who are admitted, but need additional help with
writing or mathematics.
At the same time,
the campus must continue to provide language instruction, and we should
consider changing our requirement to include all students by making
it part of the general education requirement. This may necessitate reducing
the four semester requirement to three or even two courses in order
to make it financially feasible. It will also necessitate creative approaches
to language instruction. The new Center for Language Acquisition, proposed
by the Dean of Humanities and Fine Arts and being worked on by a committee
of faculty and department chairs, promises to enhance our capacity to
provide instruction in a variety of languages and our ability to respond
to shifts in demand for specific languages.
This campus is
in a position to provide exciting new models for other colleges and
universities because of our unique capacity to involve specialists on
the theory and practice of language acquisition from the Department
of Linguistics, several of our Language Departments, the Department
of Comparative Literature, the Department of Communication Disorders,
the ESL Program, and the Translation Center. We can also draw upon resources
from the Foreign Language Resource Center and the Five College Resource
Center and better use technology for language instruction. There are
many opportunities for using the study of languages, as well as literatures,
to open the doors of the mind to new cultures and experiences.
In addition to
being exposed to different disciplines, taught basic skills, and provided
with unique learning experiences, it will be important for students
to Integrate Knowledge which they acquire
through formal course work and experiential learning. The current model
of general education does not provide learning opportunities for students
to integrate the knowledge obtained from its various components. On
the contrary, it creates a mind set of getting general education out
of the way so that students might focus on the more serious business
of the major. Most students on this campus begin the study of their
major in the freshman or sophomore year, and hence continue to take
general education and major courses simultaneously, sometimes through
the senior year. Because general education courses are by and large
self-contained introductory courses, students are not provided with
an opportunity to integrate their general education experience with
the courses being take in the major. In addition, opportunities for
greater depth in general education courses are not encouraged, nor generally
provided. General education needs to be integrated not only horizontally,
but also vertically throughout the curriculum, with some courses in
the upper division.
These courses should
be transcollegiate and transdisciplinary, involving faculty from more
than one area in their design and delivery. There would be merit in
changing the model from General Education to Integrative
Studies, with a more coherent set of courses, to replace the
current array of 370 courses that make up the present inventory of general
education courses. Before the revision in 1986, there were 1,200 courses
which met the General Education requirement. Therefore the revision
did lead to a more coherent approach. Many institutions, including several
departments at this University, require a Capstone
Experience in the senior year as one means of bringing greater
synthesis and integration to the educational experience. This approach
merits further exploration.
The General Education
Council will be asked to evaluate the current general education requirements
and based upon their evaluation to propose a new model for the campus.
In undertaking this task, we shall ask the Council to work either with
the Task Force on Teaching and Learning or that a special task force
be created for the specific purpose of providing a new general education
curriculum. As a part of the process, the Council and the Task Force
might consider the merit of designing an interdisciplinary Center
for Integrative Studies for the design and delivery of integrative
study courses.
The changes described
above are very much part of the wind of change blowing in academe, as
well as on this Campus through the Strategic Planning Task Forces and
Working Groups. It will simply not be possible to add new areas to the
curriculum on top of the old. What is called for is a more fundamental
redesign. The change to a predominantly 4-credit curriculum, changing
the balance of 4- and 3-credit courses, should therefore proceed apace.
The 3-credit curriculum is the relic of a time when our faculty was
larger and disciplinary boundaries fostered specialization and proliferation,
not integration and efficiency. As we shall see later in this plan,
the restructuring of the University to meet the projected budgets will
result in replacing only half of the faculty retiring through the Retirement
Incentive plan, and only 35% of the staff retiring through the plan.
The objective, then, is to deliver a quality curriculum, redesigned
to achieve multidimensional excellence, and to do so with fewer people.
Toward that end, a 4-CreditCourse Structure is the most appropriate
vehicle. Some funds will be provided to support faculty who devote summers
and other free time for the purpose of undertaking major initiatives
to achieve the transformation.
For Fall 1996,
the pilot program for first year undeclared students will be tested
in Patterson Residence Hall in Southwest. This program is based on the
idea of Building Learning Communities,
and is an expansion of the successful TAP Programs. The pilot program
will be carefully assessed and evaluated during the year. If successful,
the model should be expanded to ensure that all incoming students have
access to programs and courses that focus on the meaning of higher education,
academic culture, social justice, and our campus expectations, traditions,
and values. Such programs, particularly when delivered in the Residence
Halls as a living- learning environment, can also impact the ability
to thrive and benefit from multicultural experiences.