Saint Mary's College General Education

The Committee met in the parlor of Holy Cross Hall with faculty from Education, English, Mathematics, and Modern Languages. The three different models for SMC General Education (2.0) were discussed. A summary of that conversation appears below. Afterwards, the committee met among itself to talk about how further refinements of the models would proceed.

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Those at the meeting were first asked to provide feedback to the three recently revised models previously distributed.

A faculty member began by suggesting that page numbers be added to the text of the three models. This would make it easier to refer to specific passages or sections of the models.

The discussion next turned to how these three models could accommodate highly sequenced majors such as Art, Modern Languages, Math, Music, Business, Biology, and Chemistry. In particular, the sample schedules seem to assume that most of general education takes place in the first and sophomore years, and most major courses take place in the junior and senior years. But this is not how all programs work. For neither general education nor the student’s major courses should the whole cake be eaten at one sitting. It may be advisable neither that majors courses predominate in the student’s later years, nor that general education courses do the same for the student’s earlier years. There is an evident maturity that builds over four years, and these models should account for that especially as they treat the general education requirements. So the concern here is a lack of flexibility. On the way the sample schedules are arranged, if a student changes majors, it might be very difficult for that person to recover and graduate on time. In general, flexibility and choices were regarded as significant goods that would allow students to find their own paths.

In response, members of the committee suggested that at some point, we should get copies of each major’s program to more accurately assess whether the models could work with each department’s program as currently set up. Moreover, a lack of flexibility may be apparent in the sample schedules accompanying each model, though such may not be the case on other renderings of the models. That is, a perceived lack of flexibility may be an accident of presentation rather than a real problem. At this point, the committee just wanted to insure that there were sufficient slots to fit in both general education courses and major courses. There was no attempt to lay out each model’s requirements for each major at the College. That’s not to say that these sample schedules couldn’t be reshuffled in all sorts of ways to account for individual differences among majors programs and to insure that general education is spread out over four years. If they can’t be successfully rejiggered in that way, then that indeed would be a problem for all of the models.

The next issue brought up related to this topic of flexibility: do these models, one faculty member inquired, make it less likely that students can double major? A committee member stated that double-majoring could indeed wane on these models, especially Model B, which is set up on a four-course/semester schedule. Several faculty members voiced concern that students are already taking too many courses and that anything that could insure that they wouldn’t be taking six courses a semester may be a very good thing. A committee member stated that it may be important to think about why students are double-majoring and triple-minoring (for example). True, these seem to be national trends, but perhaps students are looking for a kind of coherence in their education that eludes many of them with the current general education program. Whichever one it is, it’s important to note that some departments draw a great many of their majors from students taking that discipline as their second major.

The conversation then turned to staffing. One faculty member stated that she appreciated the focus on diversity, inter-cultural competence, and Women’s Studies, but how would these components be staffed? If we go to a 3-3 course load, that would put even more demands on staffing.

Another faculty member stated that she thought all of the models could be made to work, and that there are interesting ideas in all of them. Perhaps we might entertain the possibility that there would be different general education programs for different students, just as we currently have different general education programs for different degrees.

A faculty member then asked how any of these models are better than what we have now. Some responses from the subsequent discussion were as follows: (1) General education has never been adequately explained. Right now, we have the Way of Knowing + a shopping list. That leaves no way of explaining to students why they need to take what they are taking. That limits the effectiveness of advising. While students have choices on the current program, a deficit of knowing the rationale for the program’s requirements leaves them ill-informed in making these choices. And when ill-informed choices are made, freedom is compromised. (2) Interdisciplinarity is integrated into all of the models in a very deliberate way. Moreover, there are core components, especially in Model A and Model C, which would reach more students than currently do interdisciplinary minors, for example, or take tandems.

But have students asked for these changes? A member of the committee said that there was convergence around three points in the student presentations at the recent general education lunch: students wanted an enhanced technology component in general education, greater attention to cultural diversity, and courses that prepared for life after college. It was noted that nothing is being thrown out in terms of courses currently satisfying general education requirements. Those courses would continue to satisfy general education requirements. But the committee is trying to insure that all students benefit from the richness of current offerings and not just those who happen upon this richness fortuitously.

A faculty member stated that the committee should at some point have an eye to how succinctly it can present the rationales for these models. A longer exposition is fine for a faculty audience, but a “quick-and-dirty” version should be available for students and on the College’s website or other official documents.

Support was then expressed for a first-year seminar. It was thought that that could address cultural literacy questions in literature, art, and music, and could be something that gives them a sense of the their history and what it takes to be an educated person. Indeed, we are fighting popular culture for students’ attention. But perhaps it’s not so much that students haven’t been exposed to significant products of literary or artistic culture; but that they just haven’t known what to do with them when they came across them. A first-year seminar was thought to be a more universal experience than tandems. But why, a committee member asked, can’t tandems be done for everyone? In response, a faculty member developed an analogy to which no mere prose rendering could do justice. Tandems, she said, were like getting married. We cannot require people to fall in love, and she wouldn’t want to be a part of a tandem that was forced or tense.

Along these same lines, another person said that we need to be careful in how we use the word ‘inter-disciplinary.’ Tandems are really more cross-disciplinary, and not really truly inter-disciplinary in the way that, for example, “Introduction to Women’s Studies” is. The latter might draw material from ten different disciplinary perspectives. Imagination, creativity, and ambition are very good things, said a faculty participant, but the committee seems to have taken the primary problem with the current general education requirement (fragmentation) and over-compensated in the attempt to remedy it. This person expressed concern that we might now be so invested in inter-disciplinarity and making new connections across subjects, that the perceived value of taking a course in math or history or literature is diminished. He thought that requiring students to do an inter-disciplinary minor was a bad idea that could in fact even dissuade prospective students from coming to Saint Mary’s.
A couple faculty members asked about the number of credit hours required by the new models. Right now for the BA, there are 44 credit hours + 2 semesters of a modern language required (52 hours altogether).

The first-year seminar on Model C was then brought up. How could one faculty member teach and advise twenty first-year students, along with potentially going to the co-curricular requirement and doing enough papers and grading for a W course? On Model C, however, a first-year seminar could not be a W course. There would be too many things going on there. But would that mean that English professors couldn’t staff the first-year seminars since they’re doing W courses each semester? But the first-year seminar wouldn’t be a totally new course, but rather could be folded into existing courses. Another faculty member raised a question about the co-curricular requirement on Model C (and, by extension, Model A). She thought that heritage components didn’t necessary have to be relegated to Student Affairs, and that they could be treated within the classroom as well. A committee member asked in response whether we reasonably expect a majority of the faculty to become experts in this? Another faculty member asked the committee to more carefully define such things as the Junior/Senior Interdisciplinary Seminar on Model C.

A faculty member then brought up a program at Barnard College called “reacting to the past.” Students role play various events or enact different topics in the history of ideas.

Another participant in the discussion advised the committee to “be bold.” This is an opportunity for Saint Mary’s to define itself. She appreciated the requirement of study (diversity) circles + a first-year core in Model A (along with the technology component of ePortfolios), the interdisciplinary minor in Model B, and the way that Model C is spread out over 4 years. She also advised the committee to be careful about definitions. Study abroad doesn’t equal diversity or inter-cultural competence. Those things are not built into Saint Mary’s study abroad programs.
Another person said she liked Model C the best, but was concerned that some of its goals (eg., joy in learning) are not assessable. A committee member asked whether we can state goals that are not assessable. Yes, we can, was the response; but we need to be able to determine that we have fulfilled the institution’s promise to each student.

This moved to a discussion of the life-skills component in the models. We should be careful about inserting lots of 1-credit courses. Is it our responsibility to teach students how to do their taxes, for example? Would we then be placing faculty in the role of the student’s parents? Perhaps, though, there’s a difference between a course that teaches the student how to do her taxes and the kind of instruction in financial literacy that Susan Vance is doing.

What does the committee take to be its next step? A member responded that the hope was to get down to at least two models by the end of the academic year. This could also involve a hybridization of existing models. There was some support for creating a hybrid model. The suggestion was made that the committee should consider which part(s) of each model is/are especially well received and go forward from there in merging the plans. Perhaps a straw vote could be taken at the end of the year with these questions: If you had to choose one of these models outright, which one would you choose? But also if you could select particular parts from each one of them, which one(s) would you select?

The next topic for discussion was the ePortfolio, as proposed in Model A. There were questions about how it would work, what it was meant to accomplish, and who would ultimately evaluate them. Some faculty thought that ePortfiolios represented a substantial additional burden on already busy instructors. The virtue of them would presumably be greater incentive to reflect on the student’s work over her four years. Someone asked whether places that have ePortfolios also have senior comprehensives (a good question that will need to be investigated further). How ePortfolios could take their place in a senior year already crowded by the comp and the Advanced W was another question raised.

At the end of the session, many faculty in attendance graciously complimented the committee on the thoughtful work it had done to this point. There was a sense that the models had been carefully constructed and that the committee is ready to move forward.

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Any comments on the models or on any of the other issues discussed above can be posted below by anyone from the community.