This continues my recap of the \u201cFuture of Gen Ed\u201d event<\/a> that Inside Higher Ed hosted. Sorry that I have allowed such a long time to pass since part 1<\/a>!<\/p>\n Since I last wrote,\u00a0Inside Higher Ed<\/em> has had countless pieces related to the themes of this day workshop on general education and core curriculum requirements. These include:<\/p>\n Articles Overstate Millennials\u2019 Loss of Interest in Higher Ed<\/a><\/p>\n Shape of Higher Ed to Come<\/a><\/p>\n Study Student Learning Outcomes<\/a><\/p>\n Beyond Distribution Requirements<\/a><\/p>\n Finding the right models for higher education<\/a><\/p>\n Nondegree Credentials<\/a><\/p>\n Completion Blockchain<\/a><\/p>\n Illustrating Applied and Practical Arts<\/a><\/p>\n Inside Higher Ed also held a multi-day workshop on the Future of Higher Ed. Here are recaps from someone who participated in\u00a0Day One<\/a>, Day Two<\/a>, and Day Three<\/a> of that workshop with a slightly different but related focus to the one I am blogging about here.<\/p>\n Colleen Flaherty, Faculty Affairs Reporter for Inside Higher Ed (who wrote the recap I linked to<\/a> in part 1 of my own recap<\/a> of this event) led one session featuring panelists from\u00a0institutions that have recently gone or are currently going through revisions to their gen ed program. One of them sought to m<\/span>ove from \u201c9 ways of knowing\u201d to focusing on knowing how to think.\u00a0\u201cThinking Digitally\u201d was part of that.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Linda Bell from Barnard College said that a gen ed or core that is \u201cfundamentally working\u201d is not good enough. There have been lots of changes in the 16 years since their gen ed requirements were implemented. Students tell us changes are needed, faculty express dissatisfaction, and there was support from the board and faculty for change. \u201cFaculty own the curriculum and have to be involved from the ground up.\u201d They were told they can \u201cwipe the slate clean\u201d if they want to. The administration had no stake in the game other than to \u201cget it right\u201d by listening to faculty and students. A lot of c<\/span>ommunity-building took place. Some cynically remarked that they had simply replaced \u201c9 ways of knowing\u201d with\u00a0\u201c6 ways of thinking.\u201d But their o<\/span>ld core had been shown to be outdated, inflexible, inequitable, and also to lack the rigor the institution demanded. They eliminated a<\/span>ll exemptions based on the argument that no high school class is the same as a Barnard experience. That\u2019s one thing that attending this workshop really drove home. There is no one approach when it comes to things like\u00a0students bringing in transfer credit,\u00a0dual credit, dual enrollment<\/a>, AP, and IB<\/span>. Some accept nothing, some accept everything, and there is a whole spectrum in between. Each has advantages and disadvantages.<\/p>\n They have maintained a 2,2,2,2 (humanities, social science, natural science, electives) distribution requirement. It is old fashioned, but flexible. They added d<\/span>igital courses including ones in music, dance, arts. Students love them. They have m<\/span>oved resources in direction of student demand, and feel that the impact has been positive.<\/span><\/p>\n Mary Hinton from the College of St. Benedict talked about their new \u201cintegrations curriculum\u201d which comes online in fall 2020. It aims to give a more cohesive experience to students.\u00a0<\/span>The change was not mandated by the administration: the core was expanded, and this was driven by faculty. It is important to ask explicitly why core matters to liberal arts students (who may naturally incline to the broad and intellectually curious approach that core requirements seek to foster\/impose in other sorts of institutions), and how we meet our goals. They engaged students in conversation from the outset. Asked which courses they thought would have the most impact on them outside of college. The core reform was not driven by students, but the faculty still wanted to hear their perspective and valued their input. A key point that was made is that t<\/span>he liberal arts are not encapsulated by a collection of courses, but rather intentional integrated learning.<\/span><\/p>\n They privileged several things in the design and implementation of their new core: <\/span><\/p>\n When it comes to assignments in a core like this, an integrations portfolio can be very meaningful, placing the focus not on individual isolated courses but connections between them.\u00a0<\/span>Key 21st century skills are learned: construct, deconstruct, reconstruct, work with information.<\/span><\/p>\n Melody Bowdon of University of Central Florida is at an R1 institution with 59,000 undergraduates. They are in year 3 of a reboot of their gen ed requirements after it being the same for 17 years. Their focuses include \u201c<\/span>Direct Connect\u201d and integrated learning, connecting STEM and humanities. Faculty development is a centerpiece of their current effort. She t<\/span>weeted info about this, and there is also a website:\u00a0https:\/\/curriculumalignment.ucf.edu\/ <\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n Launching a downtown Orlando campus, they co-built it with a state college institution, rather than the usual model where one just has a building on the other\u2019s campus.\u00a0 They aimed for an i<\/span>ntegration of student affairs and academic affairs efforts. Improving advising is crucial and yet never easy or simple, and thus often never gets tackled, much less tackled effectively. This needs to be a priority. <\/span><\/p>\n They provide students with a curriculum map, and offer a Bachelors in Integrative General Studies.\u00a0<\/span>Physics and all other disciplines have to explain how they are integrating goals such as cultural awareness into their curriculum.<\/span><\/p>\n The timeline for changes to general education\/core is important. It causes problems if an institution moves too quickly or allows the process to drag on too long. Design and implementation need to be separate processes. <\/span><\/p>\n They developed rubrics for learning, and coded classes to indicate how they relate to the modes of learning around which Barnard\u2019s core is focused. They speak of them as \u201cfoundations.\u201d The institution\u00a0<\/span>made a promise to reevaluate its \u201cmodes of thinking\u201d every 5 years, since this component of student education always needs to be modern and rigorous. <\/span><\/p>\n A key question that always comes up: Do we remove something when we add something? Some have called for a requirement related to sustainability. Around\u00a0<\/span>25% of a typical undergrad\u2019s courses at Barnard are gen ed. But where that general education focuses can and should change over the years. Barnard had a s<\/span>trategic plan that addressed distribution of resources, a plan as well as a process. Other things that were mentioned were \u201cLiberal Arts for Life\u201d and the development of an \u201cinclusion ecosystem.\u201d\u00a0<\/span>Assessment was built in from outset: How will we measure success and from what vantage points? It is easy to sum up a core in terms of \u201c5 ways of thinking, 4 modes of engagement.\u201d But there has to be clarity on what that means and how we tell whether it is being accomplished. A core has to be dynamic. One way of accomplishing that is for there to be themes that are intentionally dynamic, and for the interpretation and focus of those themes during a particular period to be faculty driven, so that the core does not remain static even in between more structural and systemic curricular reevaluations and revisions. <\/span><\/p>\n Provosts found it r<\/span>efreshing and encouraging to discover how much students shared the institution\u2019s valuation of gen ed. For state institutions, the state constrains what an institution can do. At any institution, a<\/span>dvisors need to explain the reason for taking courses and connections between them.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n In one process they drew on 200 \u201cpower professors\u201d who had taught gen ed courses 5 times in the past 3 years. There were grants, meetings, workshops, and cross-disciplinary small groups, all for faculty development. In one case a physicist ended up working with an instructor in speech, making connections between their courses. They called it a \u201cReboot Camp.\u201d\u00a0<\/span>You can see more about this on the\u00a0<\/span>UCF \u201cGen Ed Refresh\u201d page. Different institutions are bound to be different when it comes to gen ed:\u00a0<\/span>some classes at UCF have 500 students in them!<\/span><\/p>\n Creating a community of gen ed\/core faculty, with meetings, awards, appreciation, compensation, and recognition. All fields and ranks should be represented. <\/span><\/p>\n Matt Sanders spoke about \u201cBecoming a Learner.\u201d I love the image of gen ed as like \u201ccross training,\u201d less about moving muscles in the precise activities that you may confront in everyday life, and more about building muscles in ways that make them ready to tackle foreseen and unforeseen needs for physical strength. The same applies to mental strength.<\/span><\/p>\n Students select where they go based on their understanding of our mission and values. If we are clear about how our values are expressed in and through our curriculum, we get buy in from students. This in itself moves gen ed out of its silo, so that it becomes how we define ourselves, who we are and want to be in the world. <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cYour curriculum should be your main attraction for your institution\u201d (Mary Hinton).<\/span><\/p>\n Benedictine values are reflected at one institution through a theology requirement that students take two courses, one in Catholicism, while the other can be something else. They seek to be inclusive and welcoming as they represent that identity. \u201cCharism that enlivens our campus.\u201d Some institutions offer c<\/span>ourses about their local context, e.g. Barnard courses about Harlem.<\/span><\/p>\n Gen Ed reexamination sometimes leads to discovering how much is already there and making it explicit, e.g. physics faculty talking about philosophy and history. They had already been doing it.\u00a0<\/span>UCF shifted its focus onto SLOs instead of disciplines \u2013 something Butler University did the last time we revised our core!<\/span><\/p>\n There was a question during the Q&A session from a representative of the University of Puerto Rico, about community service. At St. Benedict it is embedded in the major. One of their \u201cways of thinking\u201d is thinking about society in scientific terms.\u00a0<\/span>There is not much double counting at St. Benedict.\u00a0<\/span>Barnard, by way of contrast, doesn\u2019t have a community service requirement. They do double count, and are more flexible, but with no double counting within the same category. The flexibility of their approach resides in the fact that one course may fit more than one category. I imagine that my course on the Bible and Music might be the sort that could be taken to meet different possible core requirements at that institution.<\/span><\/p>\n David Alvarez from De Pauw<\/a> asked about the role of the board of trustees in gen ed\/core revision. They are stewards of an instiution\u2019s mission, while faculty put meat on bones. The board are not the ones to say what the curriculum should look like. But they should look to see whether curriculum is meeting stated goals, interrogating and assessing processes and outcomes.<\/span><\/p>\n I will try to post the third part much sooner than I did the second. In the meantime here are a few links of related interest:<\/p>\n Inside Higher Ed<\/em> on communicating the value of higher education<\/a>, and attacks on disciplines in Brazil<\/a>.<\/p>\n Liberally-educated business leaders<\/a><\/p>\n Reports from a national survey on first year and capstone experiences<\/a><\/p>\n And something on senior experiences<\/a><\/p>\n Harvard<\/em> magazine on reforming high school<\/a><\/p>\n https:\/\/lareviewofbooks.org\/article\/a-market-correction-in-the-humanities-what-are-you-going-to-do-with-that\/<\/p>\n Conservative views of higher ed<\/a><\/p>\n The critical skill the liberal arts provide to the STEM industry<\/a><\/p>\n Teaching Thursday: A College Class Without\u00a0Homework<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n