David K. Scott was Chancellor of the University of Massachusetts Amherst, 1993-2001.
This is an archive of the Chancellor's Web site during his tenure.


UMass Office of the Chancellor
  


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.

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