The Plan for the Curriculum

The curriculum content should be structured to fulfill the needs of a liberally educated person. The curricula should be coherent internally with respect to courses and externally with respect to other departments.

Goal 1: To offer a strong curriculum across disciplines characterized by outstanding teaching, intellectual rigor, and high expectations for both student and faculty performance.

Change is constant. Because the world is different now than it was even ten years ago, our students will need more and different skills than they have in the past. Each department should review and revise their departmental curricula with an eye toward the next decade. Not only will new classes need to be added, but new curricula needs to 'fit' together to present a coherent whole as a field of study, not merely a set of related courses. Academic rigor should be a standard in any major or minor field of study. In addition, disciplinary isolation should be replaced with cooperative efforts between departments resulting in the creation of interdisciplinary courses, programs, and majors.

Goal 2: To offer a strong system of curriculum delivery that encourages optimal learning conditions that allow for timely degree completion.

Teachers can use many different methods to teach the same content. Students learn in different ways. Curriculum delivery methods need to be adapted not only to the content but also to student learning preferences. Serious thought needs to be given to optimal learning conditions related to class size, facilities, and equipment. The focus needs to shift from simply 'convenience' to optimal learning as the factor influencing curriculum delivery choices.

Goal 3: To offer a strong general education program in the liberal arts tradition that provides the tools for students to be life-long learners.

The general education committee should be encouraged and supported as they continue to question whether or not the goal of general education is to know what an educated person 'should know' or if the goal of general education is to help the student become aware of how to use the specific tools of knowing.

Another question which needs to be addressed is the placement of general education in a student's curriculum. It might be possible, for instance, that students might benefit more from general education courses if they were interwoven throughout a student's college career, and not just lower division, freshman-sophomore year courses.