As the committee discusses possibilities for changing Furman’s curriculum and perhaps considers adopting less Western-centric approaches to education, the Queer Student Alliance would like to emphasize that national borders are not the only dividers. Instead of focusing solely on preparing students to cope with a global society, perhaps the committee should also consider preparing students to cope with society in America more fully. Ignorance manifested in racism, sexism, classism, and homophobia are the antithesis of what a liberal arts education is founded on and should be discouraged. Avoidance of queer themes and feminist issues is the embodiment of the encouragement of homophobia and patriarchy.

We do not want Furman professors to proselytize any one particular viewpoint, but rather we are asking professors to challenge their students to look critically at their world in regards to gender norms and sexual stereotypes. Some professors may think that Furman students will not be able to digest or understand concepts dealing with anything queer. This is an insult to students’ capabilities and hurts them in the long run. Furman has several professors and certain women studies courses that address gender issues, queer theory, and gay and lesbian studies; however, these few professors and courses cannot be expected to take up all the angles of these vexed and complicated subjects.

Our Proposal
On a basic level, Furman professors should be aware of queer thought and gender issues and integrate these theories into their existing classes. This should be an intentional, coherent, and widespread effort on the part of Furman professors.

Furman should also expand the Women’s Studies program and install Gay and Lesbian Studies and Queer Theory courses into Furman’s curriculum. The Women’s Studies department currently offers only 12 courses, and none of them specifically focus on Gay and Lesbian Studies or Queer Theory. If Furman’s aim is to foster a diverse community, then it needs to provide courses that appeal to a diverse group of students. An outstanding number of schools that are similar to and competitive with Furman are moving toward the inclusion of gay and lesbian studies into their curriculums. We have attached a list of other programs, which are more comprehensive than that of Furman.

Larger Schools:

1. Amherst has an extensive Women’s Studies program. In 1993 the core undergraduate curriculum was revamped to emphasize an integrative analysis of gender, race, class, culture and sexuality. See http://www.umass.edu/wost/.
2. UNC offers a major and minor for Women’s Studies and a minor for Sexual Studies. Sexual Studies explores the study of sexual/gender identities – such as gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and heterosexual – as well as the full range of human sexual behaviors and identities in diverse cultures and historical periods, while Women’s Studies focuses more on women. See http://www.unc.edu/sexuality/program.htm and http://www.unc.edu/depts/wmst/.
3. Duke offers a major in Women's studies with almost 75 courses offered each year, including several Queer Theory and Gay and Lesbian Studies courses. See http://www.duke.edu/womstud/ugrad/major.html.
   Duke even has a gay, lesbian, and bisexual resource center as apart of their library. See http://www.lib.duke.edu/reference/subjects/gaybib.htm.
4. Emory has an extensive Women’s studies program offering both a major and a minor. Courses include several Gay and Lesbian Studies courses. A list of offered courses can be found here: http://womensstudies.emory.edu/undergrad/courses.shtml.
5. Brown University offers a concentration in Sexuality and Society. Courses include a Queer Theory Course. See http://www.brown.edu/Departments/Sexuality_and_Society_Concentration/Description.html.

Schools of our Size:

1. Bryn Mawr has a large Feminist and Gender Studies Department. Courses in the program draw upon and speak to feminist theory and women’s studies; transnational and third-world feminisms; womanist theory and the experiences of women of color; the construction of masculinity; gay, lesbian, queer, transgender and transsexual studies; and gender as it is inflected by race, class, religion and nationality. See http://www.brynmawr.edu/femgen/.
2. Kenyon’s Women’s and Gender Studies program offers 26 courses this year, including, “Lesbian and Gay Cultures” and “Issues of Gender and Power”. See http://www.kenyon.edu/x11471.xml.
3. Swarthmore offers a major and minor in Women’s Studies with 25 Women’s Studies courses offered. Two entitled “Gender and Sexuality” and “Performance Theory, Gender and Sexuality.” See http://www.swarthmore.edu/Humanities/women/Women'sStudies.html.
4. Vassar has an extensive women's studies concentration program. Over 25 courses are offered, which includes several Queer Theory and Gay and Lesbian Studies courses. See http://womensstudies.vassar.edu/program.html.
5. Wellesley has an extensive women's studies program including a major and minor in Women's studies. Courses include one called "Social Constructions of Gender”; "This course discusses the ways in which the social system and its constituent institutions create, maintain, and reproduce gender dichotomies." See http://www.wellesley.edu/WomenSt/.
6. Colgate has a Women’s Studies major. Sixteen Women’s Studies courses were offered last spring, many of which were more comprehensive than what Furman offers, such as “Gender, Sexuality and Contemporary Society.” See http://departments.colgate.edu/womens_studies/.

Associated Colleges of the South:

1. Hendrix offers a minor in Gender Studies similar to Furman's program; however, Hendrix offers an Introduction to Gender Studies, which is more comprehensive than Furman’s Women's Studies 30 class.
2. Washington and Lee has a Women’s Studies Department with at least two classes focusing on GLBT themes (Psychology 259 - Experimental Psychology: Stereotyping, Prejudice; and History 353 - Gay and Lesbian Life in 20th-Century U.S.) See http://womensstudies.wlu.edu/.
4. College of Charleston offers a minor in Women’s Studies with 23 Women’s Studies courses offered. Several classes include topics dealing with sexual orientation and Queer Theory. See http://www.cofc.edu/~wstudies/.
5. Trinity University offers a minor in Women’s and Gender Studies which investigates gender in relation to topics including: race and class, women’s history and power, men’s studies, and queer theory. Fifty-six Women’s and Gender Studies courses are offered. See http://www.trinity.edu/departments/academic_affairs/course_catalogue/pages/women_studies.htm.
6. University of Richmond’s program in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies offers 45 courses, several of which deal with the nature of gender and sexual orientation. See http://womens.richmond.edu/.

A key point to emphasize is that we must be careful not to be dismissive of technological skills (or “fluency”) in this discussion. An uncritical reading of the first quote (particularly the highlighted phrase) could lead the unwary reader to the conclusion that “knowing how to use computers” is perhaps somewhat passé and not worthy of serious academic study in the liberal arts. On the contrary, however, the quote goes on to list the technical infrastructure of information as an important objective.

The fact is that rigorous study of information technology itself not only deepens and enriches the information gathering and analysis benefits described in proposal #56, but carries with it benefits that transcend information skills altogether. There was a time when the written word was considered something of a technology, and was regarded by many with suspicion and condescension as being “just a tool”, used only by the weak-minded to write down ideas that they couldn’t otherwise remember. In modern times we think of writing quite differently, of course. Far more than just a tool, it is a means of expression, of organizing thoughts and ideas. The very same idea can be conveyed well or poorly using the written word, and in the difference between the two lie lessons about critical thinking, reflection, efficiency, hierarchical structure, and even aesthetics. We regard the ability to write well as an educational benchmark, and rightly so. We also would consider it unthinkable not to emphasize writing in our curriculum.

I believe that all of these observations can be accurately made about information technology.

Make no mistake – basic skills that may be categorized as “knowing how to use computers” are critical for educated students in the 21st century. (Just as we would argue that basic grammatical skills are critical.) A sampling of these skills would include:

• Finding information
  • Very well enumerated in proposal #56
• Processing and manipulating information
  • Also well enumerated in proposal #56
  • Assessing validity of retrieved information
  • Basic capabilities of productivity tools (including word processing, database management systems, spreadsheets)
  • Manipulating digital media
  • Basics of information storage
• Creating information
  • Organizing information for display with presentation software
  • Organizing information for publication on the web
  • Converting information from one form to another
  • E.g., graphing data, visualizing data, conversion to HTML, etc.
  • Finding and expressing patterns, trends, meaning in data and avoiding pitfalls and trivial conclusions

But what is even more important for our students to learn is the fundamental methodology that is the foundation for all of these skills and is the true focal point of the study of technology – an unquestionably fundamental liberal arts discipline. This methodology, based in critical thinking and problem-solving, is far more complex and far-reaching in its impact than the mundane mouse-clicks and button-pushing that the phrase “knowing how to use computers” typically equates to. It goes to the heart of how we think about problems of all kinds, even those unrelated to technology. It gives us insight into how we as human beings think about subjects of all kinds.

The following list highlights some of the significant outcomes of the study of technology – that I maintain all of our liberally-educated students should understand:

• Taming/managing complexity
• Breaking problems down into component parts
• Analysis/design before implementation
• Testing following implementation
• Hierarchical view of problems
• Incremental refinement of solutions
• Don’t reinvent the wheel
• Effective and efficient teamwork
• Distribution of tasks
• Project management skills
• Interface versus implementation
• Thinking from the specific to the general

These are all fundamental precepts of the study of technology – yet select anything from the list and you will find an item of knowledge absolutely critical to success in any endeavor in any discipline. For example, consider the task of writing an essay. The best and most effective way to proceed is to begin with a high-level outline, which is successively refined with more and more detail until the actual task of writing the paper has been reduced to translating the outline into prose. In this one example we have design before implementation (the writing itself), hierarchical thinking and incremental refinement. Methodologies that have nothing intrinsically to do with technology, but that are the inevitable outcomes of studying technology.

This is the basis of my claim that information fluency (or information technology or technology fluency or whatever name we choose) is not only not lurking on the fringes of the liberal arts, as often perceived, but is absolutely central.

The social relevance and impact of information technology is another reason why the idea that I am describing transcends the technology itself, goes beyond the previous definition of information fluency, and should be a central part of Furman’s curriculum.

Again, a mere sampling of significant topics that all liberally educated people in 2004 should be conversant about:

• Pervasiveness of information technology
  • Integration of information technology into all disciplines
• Significance as an agent for social change
  • Communication
  • Telecommuting
  • e-commerce
  • Voting
  • Grass-roots politics
  • Globalization
  • Impact on identity and reputation
  • Implications of artificial intelligence
  • Environmental implications
• Ethical and moral issues
  • Privacy
  • Intellectual property rights
  • Computer crime and hacking
  • Professional ethics
  • Censorship

In conclusion, I believe that the principles of information fluency that we must convey to our students includes not only the ability to gather, filter and assimilate information as described in earlier proposals, but also skills involving the creation of new information, an understanding and appreciation of the social impact of information technology and – most significantly – a firm grounding in the methodology of technology, which encompasses a wide spectrum of critical concepts and skills.

I believe that the Furman curriculum should prominently feature an emphasis on these principles – just as it necessarily features an emphasis on both writing skills and the critical thinking that the study of writing includes. Furthermore, it must be emphasized that these principles constitute a legitimate academic discipline in the liberal arts. We simply cannot accomplish the stated objectives through workshops and web tutorials – any more than we can teach students to write with such brief encounters. Such endeavors are excellent supplements to a prolonged, serious study, but are not a suitable replacement. We are not talking just about mundane skill training here – finding things on the web, making pretty pictures with a computer, etc. – but something much broader and deeper.

As the saying goes, give a man a fish and he eats for a day. Teach him to fish and he eats forever. Re-stated, it might go like this: Teach a student which buttons to click they can successfully complete a specific short-term project. Teach them the underlying methodology and they can solve any problem they face. It’s the difference between knowing how to use, and simply knowing how.

For the reasons given above, I believe that information technology should be a prominent component of Furman’s new curriculum. My thanks to the CRC for its consideration of these remarks.

The “up side” of a concentration is that it can enable students to look at a topic from several different disciplinary perspectives. The “down side” is that it has the potential of being a collection of courses that have little connection to one another in the student’s educational experience. We are proposing a truly interdisciplinary and flexible course of study, designed by the student under supervision before the courses are taken, that will produce a thoughtful reflection on the relationship among the humanities on a particular topic of interest to the student. A series of courses in different departments thinking about, for instance, Platonic philosophy as expressed in literature, or metaphors of leadership in American history through political speeches, will result in the type of integrated thinking and analytical abilities for which we strive in a liberal arts institution. At the end of the concentration, students will produce a paper which takes an interdisciplinary view of their topic, incorporating the variety of coursework in a meaningful way.

Another benefit of this type of program is that it is easily adaptable to an honors program. Several other institutions maintain this kind of format as an honors system that supplements or sometimes replaces a student’s ordinary course of study in his or her major (which, incidentally, may or may not be a humanities major).

Format

First, we realize that a “concentration” may or may not be in the final iteration of the curriculum, but will use the format of a concentration as a shorthand way to refer to this or other similar programmatic modes. Given our current system, however, a Humanities concentration might take the following approach. Two courses specific to the concentration would be required, one at the beginning and one at the end of the series of courses: first, an introductory class in the history of humanistic education and philosophy, and finally, a capstone research course culminating in a summary paper based on that student’s selection of courses. The integration of coursework would be achieved by a requirement that students would plan with an advisor from the oversight committee a group of courses that would have some interdisciplinary relationship on a proposed topic. In this way, the concentration would resemble our current ICPs in that, instead of the student taking a fairly random choice of courses from a list, a core topic would shape the selection of courses ahead of time. The introductory course would be something like the Humanities 21 course being offered this spring: HUM 21 will explore the history and practice of the liberal arts in the western tradition from the classical period to the present, with a close look at the history and place of the humanities and arts in American society and government. The directed research of the final course would incorporate a synthesis or reflect the relationship among the chosen course scheme.

Filling in the middle would be four other courses from a specified list of upper level humanities courses that fit the criterion of being an in-depth look at a particular area of humanistic study. “The list,” selected by the oversight committee based on each year’s curricular offerings, would not include all upper-level Humanities courses, but only those that seem to take an in-depth look at its subject matter (meaning that it might not include survey courses or courses which are also GERs). Again, this process presupposes our current system of identifying required courses for students, but can be adapted to a variety of other systems of academic requirements.

We support the notion of “engaged learning” but realize that it has possibilities much greater than internships and research. This program of study will enable students to take an intentional approach to their learning and require them to integrate their coursework from term to term, linking the different disciplines through their chosen project. We believe that it can continue that sense of intellectual commitment and excitement that draws students to a liberal arts college.

I would consider the proposed "flip-flopping" of the winter and spring terms to be a marginal improvement that should benefit almost everyone (except possibly some seniors who might choose not to do study abroad programs during spring terms before their graduations), and I urge that serious consideration be given to this proposal if consensus cannot be reached on other curriculum/calendar proposals.

So what did Furman do to take each of us out of our more regional mindset? In part it was the nurturing family-like atmosphere that we are all proud of at Furman. But in large part it also was the curriculum. The passion to learn outside our “comfort zone” (i.e. our major courses) was acquired. In hindsight, it would have been a foolish decision, but early in our college experience, each of us would have gladly avoided the challenge posed by most of the general education requirements. Thus, we are grateful that the faculty made the decision that we should learn integral ideas/concepts of the liberal arts education. Indian Philosophy, Music Appreciation, Art Appreciation, three terms of Humanities, three terms of language, Romantic English Literature, and Anthropology are some of the courses that helped shape us more than our major courses. Now that we hear that some of the even more “prestigious” colleges and universities have fewer requirements in these areas, we value our Furman education all the more.

Finally, we would like to expound the benefits of our current calendar. Our experience as students was that focused attention on fewer courses was a particularly effective approach for learning. This is also the opinion of majority of the students we now teach. The twelve registration periods afford students significant flexibility in their schedules. In particular, foreign study would be impossible for some majors in a semester system. Finally, one of us has just come from having taught for almost ten years at institutions on semesters. He has not found that system to be any more amenable to research or teaching. In fact, the necessity of teaching more classes at once reduces the familiarity with students because each faculty is responsible for more students at a given time.

In your deliberations, please consider the uniqueness of Furman and her student body. Our student body is different than that at many other elite institutions. Not lesser, only different. I have no doubt that we all share in the goal of doing what is best for our students. By retaining our uniqueness we give students a different great liberal arts institution to choose from rather than the same one with a different name. Diversity of institutional types in education is key to providing students with choices.

Shapiro, Jeremy J., and Shelley K. Hughes. "Information Literacy as a Liberal Art: Enlightenment Proposals for a New Curriculum." Educom Review 31.2 (Mar.-Apr. 1996). 3 Nov. 2004 http://www.educause.edu/apps/er/review/reviewArticles/31231.html

As students confront today’s dizzying information environment, they are increasingly feeling something known as “information anxiety.” When they discover the number of research resources available to them through the library for their research projects, they tell us again and again that they feel “overwhelmed” and that they have “no idea where to start.” Without guidance, they almost invariably fall back on what they are comfortable with—Google or Yahoo. We are sure that many of you have seen the results of these types of research effort. It is only after they have had one or more IF instructional sessions that they begin to understand the value of more scholarly, reputable sources. Once they become comfortable with the recommended research process, they see how much easier it is to find background information on a topic in a subject specific encyclopedia rather than a web search that yields three million documents. Because of the nature of the information environment, we need to emphasize information-seeking strategies with our students at least as much as memorization of facts and theories.

Information skills are not the same as technological skills, although there is considerable overlap. In their Final Report, the American Library Association’s President’s Committee on Information Literacy said that “To be information literate, a person must be able to recognize when information is needed and have the ability to locate, evaluate, and use effectively the needed information.” The colleges which are members of the Associated Colleges of the South have collectively decided to use the term “information fluency” instead of “information literacy” to indicate that we are striving for an even deeper level of understanding and comfort with information issues and needs.

Currently, we are only able to expose students to IF instruction haphazardly, and there is no guarantee that a Furman student will graduate with any IF instruction at all. We encourage English professors to incorporate IF instruction into all of their English 11 classes, but only about half of them do so, in part because many of them do not require any sort of research for their writing assignments. After English 11, a student’s chances are even slimmer. Because research has consistently shown that IF instruction is only effective if it is course-integrated and related to a meaningful research assignment, we only teach IF sessions at classroom professors’ request. In addition to being very hit-or-miss, this process is completely non-sequenced. Since there is no guarantee that we have seen any given student in any sort of introductory session (such as we do with English 11), we constantly have to start over at square one—we never really get to square two, much less square nine or ten or beyond. This is frustrating for students, because in any given class, some of the students are lost because they lack some of the introductory IF work, and some are bored because they have seen much of it before. Faculty have the sense that by the time a student is a junior or certainly a senior, they are well equipped to handle any necessary library research, but this is simply not the case. Every spring, we have seniors who come into the library and tell us “I’ve never used this library before, but…”

With these issues in mind, we would like to propose a sequenced path for IF instruction with at least 3 levels of encounter with students: 1) first term of their Frosh year in their First Year Seminar, 2) in the “Intro to the Major” or “Research and Analysis” course for their major and 3) in the capstone or senior seminar for the major.

First Year Seminars:

We believe it is extremely important for students to learn early to incorporate research into their writing, giving proper credit to these external sources. Our guess is that many of the cases of academic dishonesty we now see might be prevented if students were ALL taught early in their first year how to conduct effective research and correctly cite their sources. Incorporating IF into the First Year seminars could significantly increase the level of academic integrity on campus. This need not be a complicated or long research project—just enough for them to get a sense of how the academic literature is structured and to be able to distinguish some of the basic types of sources and their uses. IF instruction at this level would also include the basics of evaluating resources. (For an outline of skills we believe all Frosh should have by the end of their first term, see Appendix A). We envision pairing a librarian with each First Year Seminar as an integral part of the course. These librarians would have an excellent understanding of the objectives of the course and could assist the classroom professor as s/he plans the research project(s) for the class. The librarian could also serve as a resource for the students in the course throughout the term, helping them overcome their information anxiety. Overall, IF instruction integrated into the first year seminars would provide students with the foundation of information seeking skills to carry them into research projects for other courses.

Intro to the Major/Research and Analysis:

In this course, we could begin to help students understand how the literature in their chosen field is structured, including the major journals and reference works in the discipline and subject specific article databases they would need to know how to search. We would begin to help them move into more scholarly, peer reviewed sources. These encounters would prepare them for any future literature reviews or other library research they would need to do in their major. (For an outline of skills at this level, see Appendix B).

Capstone/Senior Seminar:

In the capstone seminars, we would focus on the more advanced stages of research including citation searching and comprehensive literature reviews. It would also be the time to explore the social and ethical context of the information in their discipline. At this stage, students would begin the switch from searching the literature of a discipline to contributing to that literature through publication—either print or electronic. (For an outline of skills at this level, see Appendix C).

Depending upon the sequence of courses in the major, some departments might wish to add intermediate phases of IF instruction within their courses, but these three are the minimum we see as providing sufficient exposure to information skills for students to remain competent information seekers after graduation.

The typical student today spends hours browsing through dozens or even hundreds of pages on the Web when a 20 minute search in the appropriate article database would yield far better information. We find this a tragic waste of our students’ time and intellectual resources, with frightening implications for their future ability to find information they need, be it on a disease afflicting a family member or a political issue of concern. We appeal to the Curriculum Review Committee to provide a solid place for Information Fluency in the new curriculum.

• Students will be familiar with the seven recommended steps in the research process.
• Students will know how to identify and develop their topic and list major concepts and keywords related to that topic.
• Students will understand the value of using subject-specific reference books to find background information on their topic.
• Students will be familiar with the main library web page and the major links available from that page.
• Students will understand basic database searching techniques, including Boolean Logic, Nesting, Truncation, and Field Searching.
• Students will know how to search for articles in a general academic database, such as Expanded Academic Index, and will be aware of the existence of the many other databases to which the library subscribes.
• Students will understand why they can’t search for individual journal articles in ALCUIN.
• Students will know how to search for books and other materials in ALCUIN.
• Students will understand the difference between a subscription database and an internet search engine.
• Students will distinguish the useful characteristics of books, articles, internet resources, and reference books.
• Students will understand some of the basic strategies for evaluating resources, such as checking for bias in magazines, peer review in journals, scholarly reviews of books and authority, accuracy, objectivity and currency of websites.
• Students will understand the basics of citing sources and know where to find answers on specific citation questions.
• Students will be aware of the existence of Interlibrary Loan and Reference services.
• Students will understand the basics of what constitutes plagiarism.
• Students will feel comfortable approaching a librarian to ask for help.

• Students will be familiar with and know how to search the major discipline-specific databases for their major.
• Students will be familiar with the major journals and reference sources in their discipline, including statistical sources.
• Students will follow effective research paths, particularly the use of reference sources to narrow and focus their topic and find additional keywords to use in database searches.
• Students will understand the difference between primary and secondary sources.
• Students will know how to carefully evaluate all potential resources, both print and electronic, and will understand the concept of peer-reviewed, or refereed, journals. This will include familiarity with Ulrich’s, Magazines for Libraries, and the limiting features in appropriate databases. It will also include the ability to find reviewing resources for books and other materials and to conduct in-depth web page analysis.
• Students will be adept at citing their source using the format most often adopted by their discipline (e.g. APA, MLA, Chicago).
• Students will be familiar with the scholarly publishing process in their field.
• Students will see the librarian as their ally in meeting the challenges of research projects in their major course of study and other upper-level classes.

• Students will be able to perform comprehensive literature reviews in their major field of study, including the use of print bibliographies and tracking down items from lists of references in other articles or books.
• Students will understand the use of citation searching to measure the impact of a particular author or article within a discipline, and will be able to perform citation searches.
• Students will be able to use Endnote or some other similar citation management software to store and retrieve the results of their literature searches.
• Students will know the most appropriate resources to help them maintain a current awareness of developments in their discipline.
• Students will understand, but not be intimidated by, the immensity of the information environment.
• Students will begin thinking about social and ethical issues surrounding the literature of their discipline.
• Students will learn how to contribute to the literature of their discipline, including how to find appropriate journals to which to submit their research.
• Students will understand the changing dynamics of the publishing industry and different models for publication, such as open-source/open-access issues.
• Students will see libraries and librarians as resources for lifelong learning.

A number of faculty members, both those with and without education in the law, have discerned a common interest in the intersection of law and humanistic studies such as philosophy, literature, oratory, and history. At the same time, we have become aware that students realize these areas of knowledge have connections, both academic and professional, and are interested in studying them. Thus, this proposal outlines a concentration that unites such areas as the philosophy of law, the rhetorical aspects of legal discourse, and the legal analysis of literary texts (and vice versa), topics which, if taught at all, are usually taught in separate departments at Furman.

Rationale

If a concentration connects related courses, what is the connection here? And what is the purpose of connecting them? First, we believe that “legal studies” is one way of engaging in humanistic study that encompasses a broad spectrum of human life and knowledge. Operating under the law is one of the few true commonalities that applies to any given person in a society. To a large extent, a legal system is responsible for expressing and implementing a society’s moral and political values. The law thus explicitly or implicitly raises moral, political, philosophical, and even theological questions about human values. Law defines and regulates relationships between and among people and institutions, addresses social, political, and economic issues, among others, and attempts to do so by creating a rational framework with a consistent underlying philosophy. Therefore, understanding legal systems requires understanding their history, development, function in particular cultures, and social roles. In addition, understanding the law requires understanding the role that oratory and rhetoric, inductive and deductive reasoning, and the interpretation of legal texts plays in the life of the law. Modes of reasoning and categorizing information are distinguished; analogies are drawn between sets of facts; past events are analyzed to legislate future events; and judgments of what is “right” and “wrong” are supported with different kinds of arguments. All of these cognitive processes, bodies of knowledge, and skills are part of what makes up an individual fully equipped to participate in civic life: to support and behave in accordance with laws that we understand to be just, to participate in the political process and legal system knowledgeably and responsibly, and to discern and promote the betterment of a community.

The law thus raises a number of interesting and profound questions that require a number of different courses and academic disciplines to adequately address. We would like to take advantage of the ways in which our different fields support and compliment one another to work toward creating such educated, active citizens.

As of yet, we have not addressed the rationale that might seem obvious for a Legal Studies concentration: that of the student intending to go to law school. This concentration is not meant to be a pre-professional track. Part of the purpose of the concentration is to insist on the presence of legal philosophy, analysis, speech, and history throughout human culture, not to train students ahead of time in the information or classroom models they will encounter in law school. While the program would be beneficial for the law school bound, as we have indicated, our purposes and scope encompass much more.

Format

The concentration would consist of five courses, some of which are already in place at Furman (see below) and some of which could be developed. A capstone course of directed interdisciplinary research would be the fifth course, requiring students to integrate their studies and produce an article-length essay or study of some legal issue, not as a case to be decided, but as a matter that affects and is affected by the larger aspects of the human community.

The Strategic Plan indicates Furman’s desire “to cultivate habits of the mind and heart that have at their core intellectual energy and curiosity.” We think that developing habits of considering and critiquing the governing principles and practices of our society further both the ends of intellectual maturity and civic responsibility.

Relevant Courses

In Communication Studies:

• Argument
  
• Persuasive Speaking
  
• Introduction to Rhetoric
  
• Rhetorical Criticism
  
• American Public Address
  
• Political Communication
  
• Communication Law
  

• The Rhetoric of Law
  
• Courtroom Oratory
  

In Economics:

• Population, Economy and Society
  
• Public Finance
  
• Government and Business
  

In Business Administration:

• Business Law
  

In English:

• Shakespeare (adapted to “Law in Shakespeare”)
  

• Law in Literature
  
• Narrative and Literary Style in Legal Writing
  

In History:

• Many of the History department offerings currently are applicable in their teaching of governmental systems and historical development.
  

In Philosophy:

• Logic
  
• Ethics
  
• Environmental Ethics
  
• Philosophy of Gender
  
• Law, Justice and the State
  
• Philosophy of Law
  

In Political Science:

• Civil Rights and the U.S. Constitution
  
• Interest Groups and Political Movements
  
• Racial and Ethnic Politics
  
• Women and Politics
  
• Media and Politics
  
• Comparative politics courses dealing with non-U.S. politics
  
• Politics of Religious Movements
  
• Political Parties
  
• Classical Political Thought
  
• Modern Political Thought
  
• American Political Thought
  

• Human Rights Law
  
• Law and Gender
  

In Sociology:

• Law and Society
  

(1) The Furman faculty does not hire Military Science professors, does not review their performance, and has very limited oversight of their curriculum. All of this is done by the Department of the Army, in the Pentagon in Arlington, VA. The faculty therefore has virtually no control over the program. It is the only such program at Furman, and this reason alone, I believe, justifies our questioning its place in the academic program. Why should Furman give academic credit for a U.S. Army program?

(2) The purpose of ROTC courses is primarily narrow ‘professional’ training to be an officer in the U.S. military. This is much more job-oriented than other Furman departments.

(3) Half of the courses in the department are not open to most Furman students, but only to those who have committed to serve in the US Army. Again, this is unparalleled by any other department.

(4) The reason for offering course credit for ROTC is to make it easier for students to both get a college education and be trained for leadership in the military. Thus Furman is serving as a recruitment instrument for the US Army, helping them to fill their quotas. This may have been more justifiable when there was a universal draft, but it should be unnecessary for a volunteer army. The equivalent situation would be for Furman to give academic credit for training courses run by BMW or some other corporation.

(5) Not every university allows ROTC courses for credit; many do not (Harvard, Yale, Colgate, Amherst, Williams, etc. Colgate, incidentally, does have an academic Department of Peace Studies). Those that allow students to participate in ROTC often do so by a co-operative arrangement with another campus or nearby base, so that the program remains extra-curricular.

(6) Though war is a part of our world, and study of issues related to war is obviously a legitimate issue for academic disciplines, the training of military leaders is a very different matter, and is in basic conflict with Furman’s history (“grounded in Judeo-Christian values” – Catalogue, p. 4) and its aim as a liberal arts institution to teach critical thinking. If Furman is not going to excise all references to Christian values from its marketing literature, then it should not give credit for courses that help train soldiers for combat. Though those who have served in the military might consider this proposal “ridiculous,” those of us who are Christians consider training soldiers as an expression of Christian values “ridiculous.” That such training happens without careful thought and justification by the faculty is indefensible.

(7) As other universities have found, it is perfectly possible to offer ROTC and the scholarship money it offers without giving academic credit for military science courses. ROTC would become an extra-curricular activity that students may choose to participate in, and which may continue to turn out commissioned officers for the US Army. But Furman would not be endorsing such training as a legitimate educational aim of the institution. Furman should investigate such a possibility here.

Proposal:
A required course in great books of the Western tradition, including works of history, philosophy, theology, politics, and literature and taught as a seminar, in the freshman or sophomore year, by faculty across the disciplines. Retention of History 11 as a GER.

This is not to say that we are hidebound in the current traditions of the course. Many of them we do not want to give up – the variety of lecture and discussion, the focus on primary texts, the interaction among the teaching faculty, and the involvement of an upper-level “alum” as a teaching assistant. But the content and form of the course may change as the university considers various options for general education requirements and various calendar possibilities. Some staff members have expressed interest in having more than one track of the first-year sequence may be offered, with different content emphases such as a non-Western focus, or an emphasis on certain themes (a couple of possibilities might be the history of science or the development of human communities). The course could also easily be adapted to a semester system. In other words, we are committed to the concept, but not determined that it look exactly the same.

• Pods encourage students to explore the curriculum broadly and meaningfully.
• They encourage and reward integrative thinking and student initiative.
• Pods liberate interdisciplinarity from the structure of the course (i.e., interdisciplinary learning as distinct from interdisciplinary teaching).
• Pods provide a way for students to substantiate “liberal arts moments” as intentional rather than purely serendipitous.
• Pods are an attractive credential for prospective employers, demonstrating independence, creativity, and the ability to contextualize and synthesize disparate knowledge and information.
• Pods can be linked to an electronic portfolio initiative to further foreground and enhance the reflective and integrative experience for students and to further substantiate their experience. (Portfolios are generally not compellingly or effectively linked to curriculum; Furman could define the new standard for portfolio implementation.)
• They can be linked to engaged learning experiences, such as foreign study, internships, or research.
• A database of pods can provide a useful resource for curricular review and design, for funding opportunities, and possibly for institutional planning.
• Pods offer a significant yet realistic way to reposition Furman among other liberal arts institutions.

Open questions:

• Do all students do pods, some, or a select few as part of an “honors”-type program?
• How many courses are required for a pod? How many departments or divisions must be represented?
• Can students do pods in addition to traditional minors or concentrations?
• At what point do students propose a pod?
• What role do advising, mentoring, and support play in relation to pods?
• Should or could pods be tied to an integrative capstone experience?
• What if some configurations of courses become “standardized” pods?
• What threshold determines which pod proposals are accepted?

*I’ve adopted “pods” as a provisional term here to avoid precipitate conflation with majors or minors, which aren’t predicated to the same degree on student intention. (I also happen to like the metaphor of courses as “peas” for which students fashion “pods.” And, of course, “pod” as in “foot” or “feet,” as in students standing on their own.)

We find a surprising congruence between our hopes for change in the curriculum and those expressed by the designers of Furman’s new curriculum in 1968. The changes at that time represented “streamlining and enrichment” according to the Dean Bonner (Reid 1976, 219). We, too, believe that “streamlining” and “enrichment” are important goals for the new curriculum.

First, we find ourselves deeply concerned about the number of GERs in the curriculum. As new advisors, we felt this fall that we spent more time helping students begin the “checking-off” process, than we did talking about the broader picture of what they personally hope for in a liberal arts education. The number and (as we will discuss below) the specificity of courses discourage students from constructing a curriculum that challenges them or reflects their potential array of interests.

Second, we find it puzzling that the GERs are so heavily balanced towards the humanities. In the current system, if languages are considered within the humanities, students must take 6-8 humanities courses (depending on their foreign language ability entering Furman), only three or four science and math courses, and only two social science courses. We propose a new plan to simplify – or “streamline” – the process of meeting requirements, so that students can explore a balanced menu in the three major divisions, as well as explore deeply in their major, and beyond.

The courses that students take beyond their major is also a significant concern for us. We feel that not only the number, but also the specificity of the courses that students must take, contribute to the following problem. Many, if not most, of the required GERs are introductory courses (indeed, many of them are also specific introductory courses required of all students.) We believe that this artificially maintains Furman students in a an approach to subjects where they rarely move past the foundation within a discipline: they learn only the “stepping stones” that would take them further in any given field, but don’t pass across them into the more advanced application of the field’s central concepts or methods. Instead, all they seem to expect of their education is that they will absorb multiple introductions to multiple disciplines without building upon those foundations, except in their major.

Enriching the curriculum could be as simple as making GERs more flexible so that students can build upon their base of knowledge; students would take more upper-level courses to fulfill distribution or other kinds of requirements. (Ironically the current curriculum was praised for its “promise of flexibility and vitality” in 1968 (Reid 1976, 219); we tongue-in-cheek propose a campaign slogan for the revised curriculum as “Restore the Promise.”)

To these ends of streamlining and enrichment, of flexibility and vitality, we offer two possible models for the curriculum. Both have emerged in our discussions as possibilities. While we may write as individuals to endorse a particular plan, as a group we see both as having a significant potential to ameliorate the conditions that concern us.

Plan One: Divisional Distribution Requirements:
This plan is designed to encourage students to explore flexibly while ensuring a balance of courses across the divisions. Since individual courses are not specific, students have the option to explore broadly at the introductory level, or to meet division requirements with a combination of introductory and upper-level classes. While this may appear to be a similar load to our current GERs, the numbers are smaller than they appear, because in our plan students overlap their major courses with the divisional requirement for the division of their major. Thus, for example, a biology major does not need to take three additional non-biology courses within the natural sciences division.

For graduation a student would need to complete:

0-3 courses in foreign language*
3 courses in the social sciences
3 courses in the natural sciences & math
3 courses in the humanities, one of which is a composition course**
A 1st-year seminar***
One of the above courses would need to be concerned with “non-western” or US “minority” peoples/ cultures.****

*We believe that if the goal of a language requirement is to ensure that students experience the expansion of horizons that comes with knowing another language, then students who are already proficient, even fluent, in any foreign language should be exempted from the foreign language requirement. By their proficiency or fluency, they have achieved the goals of this requirement. There are a variety of testing services available to assess students in languages not taught at Furman.

**This composition course would be equivalent to the current English 11. We have wondered if perhaps exceptional students could test out of English 11, as determined, of course, by the English Department.

***A first-year (or freshman) seminar meets a number of important goals. These courses would be taught by all departments depending on interest and availability. They would not meet divisional requirements, and thus, would not have to introduce students to a core of a discipline. They would be topical, with an emphasis on teaching students critical thinking skills. Our interest in these seminars stems from our discovery that Furman students prefer to learn facts. An anecdote from one of us captures this issue perfectly: In running a simulation, students had to extrapolate from only limited knowledge about particular countries to their policies on certain issues, a task which they found incomprehensible, and therefore they did not complete the assignment. In the debriefing, one of the very brightest students said, “Professor X, we should have been told that we were allowed to think outside the box!” Many of us, in our individual classrooms, do challenge students to think outside the box, and to think about thinking. However, we hope that if students discover that they are indeed “allowed” to think outside the box from the very beginning of their time here, and if this exhortation takes place in an institutionally-endorsed form such as a required freshman seminar, then their entire time at Furman will proceed quite differently.

****These course designations would be decided by the curriculum committee; obviously, this departs from the current “Asia/Africa” designation. We believe that the current system under-represents areas about which Furman students are under an equal imperative to explore, for example, the Middle East, Latin & Central America, as well as the diverse peoples that make up this country.

Plan Two: Skills-Based Requirements
This plan would also ensure flexibility, since students could draw upon a variety of courses to fulfill each of the ten required skills. The skills are diverse enough to ensure balance within the curriculum, while students are still given flexibility in how they meet these requirements. This plan is based on Pomona College’s curriculum, about which more information can be found at www.pomona.edu/ADWR/Registrar/Overview/Curriculum.shtml. The important aspect to note is that the curriculum committee would be an important and powerful committee under this plan, as they would determine which courses qualified to meet the required skills.

Students would have to take ten courses, each one of which was designated to meet one of the following skills:
1. read literature critically
2. use and understand the scientific method
3. use and understand formal reasoning
4. understand and analyze data
5. analyze creative art critically OR perform or produce creative art
6. explore and understand human behavior
7. explore and understand the relationship between humans and the natural environment
8. explore and understand an historical culture
9. compare and contrast contemporary cultures
10. think critically about values and rationality

In addition, one of these ten courses would be a First-Year Seminar, on the model of those described above. Thus, all Freshmen Seminars would need to meet one of the ten skill requirements.

CALENDAR

In this section, we would like to respectfully disagree with a central tenet of the curriculum review process. We believe that calendar should be considered, and should be considered independently of the curriculum, if the ultimate goal of the process is the enhancement of intellectual vitality at Furman. The five-day per week teaching schedule has direct effects on intellectual vitality at Furman; we believe it does not support student intellectual vitality, nor does it enhance the intellectual vitality of the faculty. We propose a traditional semester system, with classes meeting on the M-W-F or T-Th schedule.

For Furman students, we think that daily class meetings reinforce the tendency to see courses as providing facts that students assimilate. Because students have so little time in between class meetings, their assignments and their study time are broken into short chunks instead of time to reflect on course material or time to immerse themselves in one course’s readings for an entire afternoon. Neither do they learn the critical skills of balancing competing demands and of taking initiative in their own learning as well as they might under a traditional semester system, where they meet less often. We hope a semester system would provide a more supportive structure for reflection, immersion and learning to pro-actively balance competing demands.

The semester system would also benefit Furman by enhancing the intellectual vitality of the faculty. As junior scholars, we face an imperative to teach well upon our arrival at Furman, to be active within our disciplines, to continue with our research agendas, to perform actively in our artistic fields, and/or to serve the University in any number of capacities. Many of us may be preparing new courses, continuing ongoing research projects, or adapting our work to our new location and circumstances. Yet teaching five days per week, with many of us facing the expectation that we are in our offices available to students for most of the working hours of the day, means that these multiple goals truly pose a challenge. Some of us have found that if we want to take even one morning a week to stay out of the office to concentrate on our writing that we are told that senior faculty will not approve. Others of us are active in our fields in ways that require us to travel, to perform, or to do hands-on work on the issues about which we teach. Yet this is difficult all but 10 weeks of the year. Finally, we hear senior faculty at times describing their own research “work week” as Saturday and Sunday. For us, who either have young families or may be considering beginning them, this may not be a workable or desirable solution to the 5-day a week teaching schedule. Furman’s intellectual vitality will be in large part shaped by the extent to which her faculty remain engaged scholars. It seems to us it would serve that interest to give faculty the flexibility to do so.

Thus, for the reasons above, we suggest a semester calendar, but with a month-long winter term in January. We believe that this structure could mitigate potential negatives about the semester system, in that it would allow for study abroad during that term. Departments could choose to offer travel courses in that January term (as well as perhaps during the regular semester). However, our suggested January term would not mandate faculty teaching. Students would be required to complete perhaps three projects during their four winter terms, and these projects could be internships, independent activities subject to faculty approval (but not necessarily direct supervision), or travel, elective or interdisciplinary courses offered by departments or individual faculty. It is possible that an additional month-long term after the spring semester could also be created, which would provide even more flexibility. A semester system would bring significant benefits, with fewer costs than some might fear.

In closing, we would like to thank you for the opportunity you have created, which has inspired so many conversations among faculty, including among ourselves,