Study abroad is one of Furman’s most impressive and distinct educational offerings. While most every institution of higher education sends its students abroad, few do so in a manner comparable to us. While this is true of our study abroad program in general, I am particularly referring to our non-residential travel study programs, which occur mostly, but not exclusively during winter term. I suggest that any discussion of our future curriculum and calendar make the preservation of our existing travel study program a priority. If this can not be done with proposed changes to our curriculum and calendar, then I recommend we limit those changes to avoid losing this precious aspect of our curriculum.
Allow me to use the Spring 2004 program in Latin America as an example. As part of that trip we went to El Salvador with the objective of studying the civil conflict of the 1980s. Because much of the fighting occurred in the rural Eastern areas, we embarked on a three-day trip from the capital city of San Salvador to the far eastern province of Morazan. While there, we went to the small village of El Mozote, which was subject to an army massacre in December, 1981. The army killed nearly 1,000 unarmed, non-guerrilla peasants in two days as part of a counter-insurgency campaign. This was a major international event that defined the civil conflicts in the 1980s. Only one person survived that massacre, a woman named Rufina Amaya. Owing to our contacts in El Salvador, Amaya joined us for the trip to El Mozote, where she provided us with an eye-witness description of the massacre. In addition to meeting Amaya, the students interviewed ranking military officers and read academic analyses of El Mozote.
This combination of personal encounter and academic study not only provided the students with a deeply personal experience, but also allowed them to directly engage questions of oral testimony and “truth” in warfare. In my opinion, this day at El Mozote epitomized a successful study travel program.
But this type of experience is dependent upon two particular conditions, and it is the defense of these conditions that I believe Furman as an institution should make a priority in any future discussions of curriculum and calendar. The first condition is the number of students. If more than 30 or 35 students had been on that trip, going to El Mozote and meeting Amaya would have been impossible. Food, lodging and transportation would have been either economically or practically infeasible. Certainly, the fact that we were in El Salvador, a developing country not prepared for large group travel, was a factor. But that in and of itself should be sufficient to make such a travel study a priority, for it is places like El Salvador and El Mozote that our students need to visit. But, actually, this infrastructural challenge applies to almost anyplace in the world. The number of students on a study abroad more or less defines curricular possibilities. A group of more than 35 students is too large to eat, sleep, move around or listen to on-site speakers without either sending our students out individually (which is impossible in many places) or limiting ourselves to those destinations that cater to mass tourism (which also severely limits our options). Even if a destination allowed either of these options, exercising them would undermine the coherence of small group travel, which in pedagogical terms allows the travel study experience to become a “mobile classroom” or “traveling seminar,” where students and faculty are interdependently engaged.
This brings me to the second condition; the directing presence of FU faculty on travel study programs. Many , if not most other universities farm out their study abroad programs to other institutions or organizations, which means, in short, that the actual teaching is rarely, if ever done by their faculty. Furman has programs like this, where our faculty serve as overseers or are not actually present, and such programs are meritorious, but arguably the distinct aspect of Furman’s study abroad options is our travel study programs where Furman students are taught on the ground by Furman faculty. For me personally, this type of teaching has been the most meaningful aspect of my professional career. It is as if I am teaching my on-campus course abroad with direct access to the people and places being studied. The educational growth of my students during these experiences is immediately palpable.
I am concerned that changes to our calendar or curriculum have the potential to undermine our travel study options. How else can we get 35 or fewer students with two faculty members abroad for up to seven or eight weeks with mobility as the curricular priority? Our current wing-term programs are mostly residential in nature. The Spring 2004 Latin America was designed as a travel program, but it is not a viable long-term option. The reduced teaching load that made it possible taxed the faculty members’ departments and the institution as a whole. Already, faculty members face the difficulty arranging their personal lives to be abroad for up to twelve weeks in Fall term. If we were to change to a semester system, this problem would only be exacerbated by the longer terms. Furthermore, in a semester system the students would likely take four courses per semester, which would effectively eliminate the possibility of small-group travel study, because it would be extremely difficult to cover that many courses with only two faculty members. If Furman were to try to squeeze travel study into an abbreviated January term or a “May-mester,” we would be reducing the time and opportunity for travel and also relegating travel study to a curricular appendage rather than an educational centerpiece.
The worst-case scenario for the future of study abroad at Furman is that we end up like so many other institutions and farm out our students’ education to others. If our proposed changes can allow small groups of Furman students to go abroad with their Furman faculty members for more than one month at a time in a travel-seminar format, then we should encourage those changes. But if our proposed changes disallow this curricular option, then we would be undermining one of the great features of a Furman education. As I look back to our experience in El Mozote in Spring 2004, we should do whatever it takes to insure that such opportunities remain possible for future Furman students.
General Education:
1. General Education seminars: Two courses to be taken by all freshmen during their first year, fall and spring that would provide the foundation of what we mean by self-actualization.(3) (They probably need a better name.) These courses should focus on themes that lend themselves to discussion and to writing with a focus on the construction and articulation of arguments. They should not be discipline specific; they should not resemble anything students might have had in high school; nor should they count toward any major. Ideally, these courses would be interdisciplinary with topics that encourage students to interrogate their deepest convictions about the world and their place in it. A standing faculty committee should be established that would evaluate and approve proposals for these seminars. These seminars should have no more than 16 students in them, and there should be a uniform and substantial writing component to the courses.(4)
2. Junior/senior seminars: In order to extend the culture of liberal learning beyond the freshman year, all students should be required to take an advanced interdisciplinary seminar in a team-taught course during their junior or senior year. These courses would bring at least two disciplines into conversation and may count toward a major or more than one major; for instance, the psychology of language (linguistics and psychology); or social justice (sociology and philosophy). These courses can be larger than the general education seminars and would require a significant research paper by each student.(5)
3. Writing: Both the general education seminars and the junior/senior seminars should require substantial amounts of writing, critique of writing and re-writing. Additionally, all students should take one course in their major that is designated “writing intensive.”(6)
4. Language Requirement: The avenue to an understanding of other parts of the world as well as to an understanding of one’s own world and one’s own language is foreign languages. The language requirement as it exists now consists of a minimum of one course and a maximum of three. We are proposing that the requirement be changed to a minimum of one course and a maximum of two. (The pronoun here shifts from “I” to “we” because a group of us worked on this section.) For some students this change would result in a reduction in the number of courses required to satisfy the language requirement, but we believe this change would strengthen the basic skills of those who do the minimum, and would encourage interested students to pursue their language study beyond the requirement. Students would be required to take at most two courses to satisfy the requirement: 11 and 12, (7) or 15 and 21; or a student may only have to take one course, 21 or 22 (or one higher course) as determined by placement. All students would have to take at least one course in a foreign language, as the requirement is now.(8)
We recommend that Furman’s admissions material encourage students to take as many years of a language as their high school offers. In order to encourage students to take language courses beyond the requirement, we recommend that a language certification program be established which would culminate in students in their junior/senior year taking a universally accepted test administered off campus and satisfactory completion of that program would be reflected on a student’s official transcript.
5. Distribution requirements: Students should be required to take 6 courses distributed across divisions and departments.(9) These should be distributed across the 4 divisions, no more than one in any department, no more than 2 in any division.(10) Students should complete these distribution requirements by the end of the sophomore year.
This proposal would reduce the number of general education/distribution requirements from the current 14 (with only one language course required) to 10.(11)
II. The Major: The major is an important
aspect of the undergraduate liberal arts experience, as important as general
education, distribution courses, electives, or any other aspect of the curriculum.
However, the major should not aim to be comprehensive, or to put it as the Harvard
Curricular Review does, to certify mastery of a field.(12)
Therefore, I recommend that there be a firm cap on the number of courses (specific
courses or elective courses in the major) that can be required for a major,
regardless of what licensing organizations require. Should a student elect to
exceed that cap, either to achieve some kind of certification or to apply to
graduate school (especially in the sciences), that should be allowed, but it
should be the decision of the student, not the department.(13)
Additionally, all majors should include some kind of capstone experience in
the final year.(14)
III. The elective component: as described above.
1. The experimentation/exploration segment raises the question
of double majors. Since I am arguing for students to take more responsibility
for their education, it would be contradictory to turn around and deny them
that choice.
2. Even with longer semesters, on a Monday, Wednesday, Friday or Tuesday, Thursday schedule, students would spend less time in class and would have to learn more on their own and become less teacher-dependent.
3. A small group of us agreed that one of these courses might have a common content in all sections, which all freshmen would take. It would not be a mini-humanities course, or a survey of great books, but on a topic determined by committee with common readings that could be tied to the summer reading and to on-campus speakers and programs throughout the year. This could provide the intellectual stimulus that would knit the community together, then to be followed in the spring term by a wide variety of seminar topics. The common course would not be on the same topic every year.
4. The question arises, who would teach these courses? Ideally, faculty throughout the university would be eager to participate in these seminars, but I think it would be unwise to force people to participate in this first-year program. It would be unfortunate if it were to become exclusively a humanities proposition, and perhaps some reward system could be designed that would encourage broad participation. (For instance, accumulating release time that could be applied to a full-year sabbatical.) Designing and implementing such courses would take a lot of faculty time, time that might not be rewarded in our current merit system. That would need to be revisited. Also, new faculty should be hired with a mind to this program.
5. I believe this aspect of general education is important because it keeps the flame alive in the junior/senior year. The liberal arts project ought not cease at the end of the sophomore year. However, developing and staffing such courses would be challenging.
6. Currently we try to address students’ writing needs in English 11, which was designed at a time when many students came to Furman with poor skills as writers. Today’s Furman students are better writers in terms of mechanics, but they still need a lot of work on thinking, organizing and expressing themselves, work that can only occur over time and in a number of courses. Each student should have 4-5 courses while at Furman that devote significant time to developing writing skills.
7. Most introductory language textbooks are designed for 2 semesters, 28 weeks. We try to squeeze those textbooks into fall and winter, which is to say 17-18 weeks. And the most difficult material, which occurs in winter term, is subject to the most squeezing. We do not have the leisure to linger over material to bring everyone along. It is possible that with sufficient absorption time many students at the conclusion of 12 would have a better foundation in the foreign language than is currently the case. However, we would only be open to this change if the current calendar were changed to a straight semester system.
Under our proposal, students who start language study at the 11 level—either because of a low placement score or because they are beginning a new language—would not in fact be required to make it through 21, which is an optimal minimum; in a curriculum that aims to free up course slots to provide more student choice, we are reluctant to require of any student three courses in a language. We would nevertheless urge apt students, for the reasons outlined here, to choose as part of their elective program to continue at least through the 21-level in the language they have begun.
8. We urge that all students, including those who have acquired significant competency in a language before college, be required to take at least one course at Furman using the language. Language study is unique in that there is a sharp distinction between acquisition of the skill and its application. MLL courses numbered 11, 12, and 15 are courses in language instruction: they are directed to acquisition of the language. The focus shifts partially at the 21 level – and fully at the level of 22, 26, and higher-numbered courses – from the language itself as the object of study to its use as a medium for the study of literary and other expressions of foreign cultures. It makes little sense to acquire a skill and never put it to use – to take drivers' ed, for example, but never get a license and begin driving. If new students were permitted to "place out" of language study at Furman, many students would do just that – acquire with much effort, in the high school classroom, a knowledge of the vocabulary and structural patterns of a foreign language, and never put that knowledge to use. (It is extremely rare that the shift is made from language instruction to full-fledged application at the high school level.) Without the reinforcement of active use, the language knowledge acquired in high school fades rapidly and is lost, and one cannot easily dip back into it. With reinforcement, however, a language can often be fully enough internalized that it is retained to a significant degree for life.
If placement alone were sufficient to satisfy Furman's language requirement, the students able to opt out of language study at Furman would be precisely those who are best equipped – through their superior aptitude for language-learning – to bring linguistic knowledge to bear throughout adult life on their role as citizens in a global community. Furman has never lapsed in its commitment to foreign languages as other institutions have and now regret. Harvard, in its recent curriculum review, is recommending that all students be required to take at least one language course at Harvard. (Currently, one can place out of the language requirement at Harvard, and 2/3 of the freshmen do place out of it.) The visitor from Colgate also lamented the fact that their students could place out of the language. The language requirement enables us to offer not just frequently taught languages like Spanish, but also more difficult languages like Chinese, Japanese, ancient Greek; it sustains our worthwhile residential foreign study programs; and it positions students who pursue language study to apply for distinguished graduate awards like the Fulbright or the Rotary, or to prepare for the expectations of many graduate programs.
9. These might be gateway courses to the major, or they might be designed to introduce students to the variety of issues in a discipline, but in all cases they should be rigorous, requiring a lab for science courses.
10. There are, of course, many different ways to divide this pie. This recommendation spreads the pain as evenly as possible. The greatest reduction is in the humanities, but the humanities also have the largest share of the GER as currently constituted. And everyone in this new system takes something of a hit (except for fine arts): math/science could be just one course, as could social science.
11. Clearly this curriculum entails many changes from our current practice. One noticeable omission is the Asian-African requirement, which is to be much regretted. I found it difficult to justify a non-western requirement when there isn’t any specific western requirement. (However, the argument could be made that much of our students’ education before coming to Furman has consisted of “western” subjects.) One might designate courses as having a non-western focus and say students need to take one before graduation, which might include major courses, or even the general education seminars or the junior-senior interdisciplinary seminars. I would, however, expand the subject matter beyond Asian/African or even non-western to include Latin American and any aspect of diversity or minority cultures.
12. It would be interesting to know how many Furman graduates go on to do something that relates directly to their major—I suspect not the majority. Regardless, our ambition as an institution is not pre-professional.
13. The last curriculum review committee (around 1990 or so) floundered around for a year and came up with only one concrete recommendation: that the 44-hour rule be eliminated. That rule would not allow any student to take more than 44 hours (11 courses) in one department. It was, indeed, a capricious rule, since there are departments like MLL or EBA (at least there was) where it might make good sense for a French major to take a number of courses in Spanish or a business major might want greater foundation in economics, but these students could not exceed the 44-hour rule. It also encouraged a proliferation of 2-hour courses that require a great deal more than 2-hours work. My recollection is that while we voted to eliminate the 44-hour rule, it was still the case that students could not be required by departments to take more than 44 hours for a major. In practice, however, the sky became the limit. Some departments think that if one requires an elective in the major, a so-called required elective (as opposed to a specific course), it is within the spirit of the now dead 44-hour rule. My proposal raises that limit to 48 hours, but I think departments should hold that line absolutely.
14. Honors: It is unfortunate that honors at Furman, whether
it be distinction at graduation (summa cum laude, etc.) or membership in Phi
Beta Kappa (or any other honorary society), is based exclusively on grade-point
average. Furman should develop some kind of honors’ program that would
involve a thesis and defense of that thesis, either at the department or university
level. Or there might be a series of honors’ seminars that could be worked
into the curriculum. As with Phi Beta Kappa, only a limited number of graduates,
or majors, should qualify for honors.
Central in the formal and informal discussions regarding curriculum reforms for many years has been the sensitive issue of the academic calendar. Many faculty members indicate that the current 12-8-12 calendar creates considerable frustration, most typically during the Winter Term when the shortened term (more typically seven weeks) creates problems with student retention, “absorption” time, and instructor capacity to cover the same amount of material as any standard course offered in the wing terms.
In addition, the ‘one-size-fits-all’ model of courses all fitting in a 4-hour course credit mold with classes meeting every day seems non-ideal for some disciplines. On the other hand, several very unique programs have evolved around the original intent of the Winter Term to create exotic and unusual offerings that could not be as effectively offered in conventional semesters, including for example, internships, foreign study experiences (e.g., Biology’s Costa Rica program), the medical ethics course sequence and Chemistry’s Techniques course among others.
A feature often overlooked in calendar discussions that may be more important than the “special” opportunities uniquely provided by Winter Term per se is the flexibility imparted by three scheduling periods spread throughout the academic year. This allows Furman students a unique opportunity to engage in off-campus programs, internships (e.g., Poli Sci’s Washington Experience), research, and other special opportunities without missing an entire half-year of academic credit on campus. For science majors and most pre-professional students for which sequencing is an important and necessary component, it typically facilitates opportunities to register for lower level courses at least two of the three terms each year, making possible their regular participation in study abroad and other enriching off-campus programs. Importantly, the three-term approach also serves to maximize the efficient utilization of classroom and laboratory space in the University, with classes already occupying nearly every classroom each day of the week. (In fact, were Furman to adopt a two-term system, laboratory needs in the lab sciences would increase by a factor of approximately 1.5X each term. Space shortages already present would be seriously amplified, and the planned construction of new facilities has NOT taken into account any change in calendar that would result in increased lab space requirements).
Conversations with many current and prospective students, their parents and Furman alumni over the past twelve years as a departmental liaison serving in that capacity have suggested to me that many of our prospects (and their critically involved parents) are attracted to Furman simply because of the uniqueness of our current curricular approach. Indeed, there are many highly “selective” liberal arts colleges across the country with excellent facilities, quality liberal arts curricula, dedicated faculty, gifted students and beautiful campuses that all look very similar to each other (and to Furman) in the videos, brochures and web pages, save for some very interesting features such as engaged learning and the academic calendar. It would certainly be a great tragedy if part of the magnetism of the Furman experience for many of our most competitive students were lost in the comparison of looking “just like everyone else” with respect to basic curricula, calendar, and campus. Having served on the last calendar task force in the mid-90’s, I remember vividly that the student body was actually overwhelmingly in favor of the 3-2-3 calendar rather than other national ‘norms’ such as the proposed J-term, even in spite of the Winter Term stresses.
Given the above concerns on both sides of the calendar issue, the question intuitively arises, is there any way to take advantage of the positive design features of the current calendar while at the same time alleviating the stress of Winter Term, and (less importantly) putting Furman on a schedule that more closely parallels other institutions regarding scheduled start/stop times? I do not profess a perfect solution - or even a highly detailed plan, but I do have a proposal for consideration. Essentially, instead of moving to a conventional semester (two 16-week terms) or a “J term” system (two 14 week terms with a three week January term), consider for a moment a move to a conventional quarter system with the “unconventional” following features:
(1) Three 10-week terms (plus finals week) offering up to 50 class days per term… a mild reduction to the wing terms of our current calendar, so current 4-hour courses that continued to meet every day would have no need to be totally re-designed.
(2) The option to create a 3-hour course alternative, where 3-hour courses would typically meet 3-4 periods (i.e., one period = 50 minutes) per week (4-hour courses would meet 5 periods per week as in the current system). Further, there is also opportunity for 1 or 2 hours courses to be offered (e.g., seminar courses in any of the three regular terms, or perhaps even sequenced 2-hour courses), or even 5 or 6-hour course offerings so long as the departments can justify the need and academic integrity of such courses to the satisfaction of the Curriculum Committee and general faculty.
(3) A middle quarter split at the midterm over the Christmas holidays. While non-ideal in some respects, this would put the Furman calendar roughly equivalent to other liberal arts colleges in regard to dates for the start of school and graduation, and would facilitate the development of special 5-week courses (e.g., 2 hours each) that could be offered expressly in the middle quarter. Some of the special courses might be foreign study opportunities, for example, which could take some advantage of the Winter holidays to increase the utilization of the 5-week term, thus retaining some of the supposed features of a “J-term”.
A typical student would create a schedule that would average 11 hours per term. This could be one (4) hour course and two (3) hour courses, or any combination of courses (which would vary by term) such that on average the student would complete 33 hours of academic credit per year, a total of 132 hours by graduation.
Advantages of the Proposed System:
(1) Core courses, distribution requirements and all courses in the major could be offered at any time during the year with three different scheduling options available, maximizing the flexibility for students and departments alike (e.g., faculty engaged on foreign study would still be on-campus for 2/3 of the academic year!).
(2) Departments could determine the number of hours (meetings per week) that best fit their particular needs in terms of student retention, content, absorption time, etc., offering much more flexibility than currently exists with our 3-2-3 system OR a conventional semester system.
(3) The split middle term would open the door for innovation (e.g., students off-campus for a 5-week foreign study could precede or follow-up their experience with five weeks in the classroom on campus, Internships and research opportunities could occupy five-week segments, etc.).
(4) The efficiency of campus space and facilities utilization would continue to be maximized, irrespective of whether courses met on a 3, 4, or 5-day a week schedule.
(5) Such a calendar retains an element of unique design, allowing Furman students the option to focus on only a few subjects very intensely, or in other cases where appropriate, more subjects less intensely. The flexibility to exists for the student to change that ratio up to twelve times through the senior year.
(6) The start date for such a calendar would be mid-late August (similar to other colleges and the public school system), with an early-May graduation, facilitating better alignment of our summer academic and engaged learning programs with other institutions.
(7) Given the fact that three scheduling periods would be maintained as in the current system, the transition into a new curriculum and calendar would be less difficult and complex for students and faculty alike.
At this point I don’t think delving further into the details is useful or necessary to consider the basic concept, but I would simply add just a couple closing thoughts. I attended an undergraduate liberal arts institution with a 4-1-4 that adopted traditional semesters just as I started my program. The graduate program in which I taught was on the quarter system, and I have taught under Furman’s 3-2-3 for thirteen years. In my view, there are any number of advantages and disadvantages to any of these approaches, no one system best fits the needs of all individuals or programs, and the faculty burden is no more or less under any particular system if it is fairly administered (i.e., the pie is the same size no matter how you slice it). Irrespective of the calendar chosen, however, the uniqueness of the Furman experience IS something that DOES matter a great deal, an experience that has served us extraordinarily well in recent institutional history, and one that should be considered most carefully as we strive to make it better still for future generations.
The folllowing calendar worked well at my undergraduate institution (New College of Florida) and might work well for Furman. Both are highly selective instutions with smart students and similar student/faculty ratios. Even if you don't buy the whole New College pedagogical approach, there might be elements worth considering. Here's the plan:
The school year would consist of two, fourteen week semesters, and one
four week "Independent Study Period" in January.
School would start in late August, and go for seven weeks, at which point
we would have a week off for "Fall Break."
We would then return to classes and go another seven weeks, at which point
we would break for Winter Holidays. We would also have a 1/2 wk. off for
Thanksgiving.
School would start up again in January for a four-week winter term. No
formal classes would be offered, but students would have to seek out
professors to sponsor Independent Study Projects, and professors would
have to sponsor some of them (though of course they could turn down
requests, too). [The content of the ISPs range considerably. Some
involve travel; some are internships; some involve theatrical productions,
others look like formal research papers, etc.]
Spring semester would be roughly the same as the Fall -- Go for seven
weeks, have a week off for "Spring break", and then it's graduation at the
end of May.
Professors would generally be required to teach four, semester long
courses a year; eight, seven week "module" courses; or some combination of
each. Courses would be offered on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays;
Tuesdays and Fridays; or Mondays and Thursdays.
One difference between Furman and New College, however, is that at New
College, students could take (and professors were expected to sponsor)
either individual or group tutorials, as well as Independent Reading
Projects, and also every student had to write a senior thesis.
Sponsorship of these projects, were considered part of a faculty member's
teaching load. But if we required all faculty to do some work over the
January term, I think the teaching load would be roughly the same, even
without the thesis.
I enjoyed this calendar system when I was a student, and from what I can
tell, it worked well for faculty, too. The Tuesday/Friday;
Monday/Thursday meeting times were also good, as you had two full days
between classes. In the nat. sciences, I think they ascribed more to a
traditional MWF schedule.
Many features of the Furman experience are attractive to students and prospective students. Some of our students are here as a result of careful consideration of what Furman has to offer academically; some are here because their parents were students here; some are here because the campus is pretty; some are just here.
Whatever their reasons for being here, it is our privilege to help guide them through four significant years of development. What should we offer them while they are here? In what follows, I will suggest several answers to this question, and I will offer a few specific curriculum proposals. Even in this early stage of the curriculum review process, I have already heard and read many wonderful and intriguing ideas and suggestions. My goal here is not to suggest alternatives to these other fine proposals, but rather complements to them. I offer these suggestions as topics for further conversation.
What should we offer our students while they are here?
I. We should offer opportunities to discover and explore connections.
The lines separating areas of study should be thin and dashed, not bold and solid. Students should gain an appreciation for the often quoted expression, “everything is related to everything else.” Our lives are (surrounded by, infiltrated with, enriched by, nurtured by, etc) relationships among people, ideas, procedures, and fields of study. We should help cultivate the ability to recognize the connections that exist among these entities.
II. We should offer opportunities for each student to discover and explore individual passions.
William Butler Yeats said that “education is not the filling of a pail but the lighting of a fire.” While I am not ready to completely discount pail filling, I do appreciate the importance of lighting fires. Isn’t our community ideal for striking matches? Numerous disciplines and subdisciplines are represented here, together with faculty members who understand the passion-finding process. Further, opportunities for fire lighting are plentiful in the many extracurricular activities that are available. We should do what we can to help ignite passions, and we should avoid practices that tend to extinguish them.
III. We should offer opportunities for each student to discover and explore a sense of personal meaning and purpose.
Students participating in the programs of Furman’s Lilly Center have experienced enriching (and in many cases, life changing) discussions and activities. Students here are at a stage of life in which guided self reflection can be of great benefit. We can help provide such guidance.
IV. We should offer our students an educational experience that is distinctly different from a typical high school experience.
Four years at Furman should be more than just 13th through 16th grade. Many of our students, however, come to us expecting just that (and understandably, since this is all they have really known). I like an expression I heard in a recent conversation: we need to “rewrite the contract” with students as soon as they arrive. We need to prepare students to experience the types of things I’ve discussed in the above points, and I worry that the typical high schooler’s approach (if there is such a thing!) will not be conducive to the type of growth we hope will occur.
My list does not end with these four points. There are other things that I think we should strive to offer (to name a few, an appropriate combination of breadth and depth; opportunities to develop critical reasoning skills, communication skills, numeracy, and technological fluency; experiences that enhance environmental awareness). I lift up the four points given above because they are particularly relevant to the proposals I suggest below.
A Few Proposals
Proposal A. Connections Courses
I propose the creation of a collection of Connections Courses, modeled after the current Humanities sequence courses and IDS 30. The concept behind the Humanities sequence and IDS 30 is a good one, and these courses have been cited by many students as particularly meaningful and memorable experiences. Connections courses would be team taught by faculty from several departments (see suggestions below), and the idea would be to present major ideas together with underlying connections. I envision two categories of Connections Courses.
Category 1
There would be four distinct Category 1 Connections courses:
• Arts Connections (Art, Music, Theater Arts)
• Humanities Connections (Classics, English, History, Modern Languages & Literature, Philosophy, Religion)
• Mathematics and Science Connections (Biology, Chemistry, Earth & Environmental Sciences, Mathematics, Physics)
• Social Science Connections (Economics, Political Science, Psychology, Sociology)
These four could be single courses (similar to IDS 30) or sequences of courses (similar to the current Humanities sequence). Whatever the length, each student would complete each of the four Connections courses in Category 1.
You will notice that several departments do not appear in the descriptions given above. I certainly do not mean to suggest that faculty from these departments would be excluded from the teaching of Category 1 Connections courses. Indeed, I envision these faculty making significant contributions to the courses as they see fit.
Category 2
Connections courses in Category 2 would be team taught courses that cross divisional boundaries. Courses could be proposed by teams of faculty members, and, again, the underlying goal is to present major ideas and connections. Possible combinations that come to mind, just to name few, are mathematics/music, science/religion, political science/environmental science, mathematics/philosophy, computer science/psychology, sociology/education, political science/business, and psychology/communication. Credit for these courses could vary from 2 to 4 hours. Students would be required to take a certain number of hours of Category 2 Connections courses.
An added benefit, of course, of this proposal is the potential for enhanced collegiality and enriched cooperation among faculty members.
Proposal B. Reflections Courses
I propose that every freshman take a Reflections Course — a course specifically designed to stimulate self-reflection and analysis. This sort of course could take on any number of forms. One possibility might be for the course to focus on biographies. Students would spend the term reading, analyzing, and discussing a (well chosen) set of biographies. Students would do a good deal of writing in the course, and they would be asked to think through questions such as “What are my foundational beliefs?” or “What are my short- and long-term goals?” or “What do I hope to gain from my Furman experience?” It would be helpful for students to confront these questions early in their time here. In many cases, the answers will not be fully formed yet, and that is ok! The wrestling will be good for them.
I also propose that every senior take a course like this. It would be interesting for a senior to reflect on how her or his responses to the above questions have changed over the undergraduate experience.
A Reflections course could be taught by any interested faculty member. We could discuss what an appropriate number of credit hours would be for a course like this.
Proposal C. Thesis Project
I propose that a thesis (or some type of senior project) be a graduation requirement. This type of activity can provide a wonderful capstone activity for the in-depth study one undertakes in a major. As has been mentioned in another posting, graduates from colleges that have such a requirement often point to the thesis project as one of the most meaningful and memorable features of their undergraduate experience.
Proposal D. Schedule/Grading/Class Size
We need to acknowledge the significance of the learning, comprehension, and growth that take place outside of class. We also need to recognize the importance of allowing enough time for this growth to occur. I have experienced five-day-a-week classes both as student and teacher, and I’ve experienced two- and three-day-a-week classes from both perspectives as well. For me, classes that meet every day just do not seem to allow enough time for outside-of-class growth. I propose that we consider a new schedule that will address this issue.
Grading is a tricky issue. Students are grade-focused when they arrive here, and this mentality/attitude has served them well (from their perspective) throughout high school. While grades can serve as tools for motivation, grade-obsession can be detrimental to the growth and development that we hope will occur. How should we address this? Completely doing away with grades is not the answer (at least it is not an answer for which we are ready). Perhaps we could modify the system a bit, though, and agree that certain courses (possibly the Connections and Reflections courses) are to be taken pass/fail. I am open to suggestions here.
Class size, particularly in the Connections and Reflections courses, should be small. From what I understand, the good things that can be accomplished in our current IDS 30 course are diminished (to an extent) by the large class size. For maximum benefit, small groups are a must.
Why Change the Calendar
In the course of conversations about rethinking our curriculum, I have heard claims that the current calendar is the cause of any number of problems in the intellectual life and development of our students. While structures do matter, we must be careful to recognize that changing the calendar will not cure all or perhaps even most of the concerns we have. Changing the calendar will not, for example, cause our students to do the reading for our classes. And students can be as dependent on us as we allow them to be or as independent as they choose to be under any calendar we might design. That said, there do appear to be some concerns that could be addressed through structural change.
1. Students need time to reflect and absorb information, and meeting classes everyday does not allow for that.
2. Faculty need blocks of time to prepare for classes and to do their research.
3. Winter term is too short to accomplish what some departments need to do in their courses. And if we lose days to bad weather, it is very difficult to recover.
4. Spring term can be very long without a real break (I’m not counting beach weekend) if Easter comes early, and there is a tendency for students to check out mentally well before the term ends.
We may want to consider a structural change in calendar to address these concerns, but we must be careful not to lose the positive aspects of our current calendar or create unintended negative consequences. There are benefits to our current calendar we might wish to preserve:
1. Because class meets everyday, it is easier to continue a train of thought from one class to the next. This may enable us to cover more material during the term than would be possible in a system where classes did not meet daily.
2. Daily interaction with our students allows us to get to know them better and allows us to adjust our pedagogical methods and assignments during a term in response to students’ different learning styles or classroom dynamics.
3. Students typically take only three courses at a time, allowing them to immerse themselves in those courses and think more deeply about them.
Proposed Change:
Fall Term-- 12 or 13 weeks
Winter Term-- 12 or 13 weeks
Spring Term-- 5 or 6 weeks
Classes in fall and winter would meet 50 minutes MTTHF with Wednesdays off. Spring term could operate like that with a longer class period (90 minutes), or we could have classes that meet 2 or 3 days/week for a longer time period. Students would take 3 courses in the longer terms and 2 courses in the short term.
Rationale (benefits of this proposal):
1. Students can concentrate on a small number of courses as they do under the present calendar (as compared to a semester system), but they have a day off to reflect or catch up. If we go to a system where they are in class everyday, even if it is a different class everyday, the students are probably not going to use the time to think about the courses they just got out of; they will use it to get ready for the next class that they haven’t thought about since it last met. Putting the day off in the middle of the week makes it less likely that students will use it to extend their weekend.
2. Faculty would not have to be in class everyday. They could use Wed. for research or preparation for class or meeting with students. This would be an improvement over our current system and possibly even a semester system where it is quite likely many or most faculty would still have to teach daily.
3. Making winter term a long term and spring short lessens the impact of snow days.
4. For sequenced courses that continue in content from one to the next (particularly language, math, and science courses), putting the two long terms back to back allows for more continuity from the first class to the second. For example, under the current system, students who take Physics 11 in the fall must wait two months before they can take Physics 12 in the spring because it is not typically offered winter term.
5. The shorter spring term would allow for some experimentation with the curriculum. Many departments would probably need to create or revamp courses specifically designed for this term. It would not, for example, be a good term to offer traditional introductory courses or most GER courses. However, this would be a good term for each department to provide freshman seminars or senior seminars. It would be an opportunity to offer intensive upper level courses on more narrow or specialized topics than we typically offer, giving faculty more opportunities to teach their specialties or involve students in their research. It would be a good term for students to do independent research. It might be a good time to offer 2 hour courses. Some study abroad trips might fit better into a short term (and that would cut their costs), and some of the trips that typically take place during the winter might move to spring.
6. Putting the short term in the spring would probably make it less likely that students would check out mentally at the end of the school year. Because the spring term would be short and presumably the courses would be something students are interested in—either a major course or some sort of seminar or engaged learning opportunity—the students’ interest and focus might be more easily maintained. There would also not be the specter of 7 weeks of uninterrupted classes like we sometimes face with the current spring term. And if all that fails, the academic cost of checking out mentally before the end of the term would be substantially higher than it is in the current spring term.
7. We could have spring break during the spring (as opposed to the last week of February), say somewhere around the first weekend of the NCAA basketball tournament. (I’m not really sure there is an academic or pedagogical justification for this, but we should consider the total person.)