Events for Summer 2007

In Summer 2007, the Academic Affairs Committee asked a group of faculty and teaching staff to meet and consider 5 areas of the curriculum.  They created a final report and a set of recommended readings.

EDUCATING STUDENTS FOR THE 21ST CENTURY AT ROLLINS COLLEGE: 
REORT OF THE AAC SUMMER WORK GROUPS ON THE CURRICULUM

Contents:

• Content of the Liberal Arts Curriculum
• Architecture of the Liberal Arts Curriculum
• A Developmental Curriculum
• Citizenship Education
• The Interdisciplinary Curriculum

Full Report

Recommended Readings on Curricular Reform for the 21st Century

From Summer Curriculum Work Groups 2007

Content of the Liberal Arts Curriculum

Association of American Colleges and Universities (2007). College learning for the new global century: A report from the National Leadership Council for Liberal Education and America’s Promise. Retrieved July 10 from the AAC&U Web site: http://www.aacu.org/advocacy/leap/documents/GlobalCentury_final.pdf

Hawkins, H. (1999). The making of the liberal arts college identity. Daedalus, 128(1), 1-25.

Humphreys, D., & Davenport, A. (2005). What really matters in college. Liberal Education, 91, 36-43.

Lind, M. (2006). Why the Liberal Arts Still Matter. The Wilson Quarterly, 30(4), 52-58.

Pascarella, E. T., Wolniak, G. C., & Seifert, T.A. D. (2005). Liberal Arts Colleges and Liberal Arts Education. ASHE Higher Education Report, 31(3), 1-137.

Architecture of the Liberal Arts Curriculum
(* Recommended Reading)

Cage, Mary Crystal and Douglas Lederman. 1993. “Academic Calendars May Be Lengthened as Colleges Ponder Concerns about Quality.” The Chronicle of Higher Education 40 (7): A37-38. Discusses the impact of having fewer class days in an academic year.

* Hulstrand, Janet. 2006. “Education Abroad: On the Fast Track.” International Educator May/June: 46-55. Addresses the increasing popularity of short-term (as opposed to semester-long) study abroad programs.

* Johnson, D. Kent, James L. Ratcliff, and Jerry G. Gaff. 2004. “A Decade of Change in General Education.” In Changing General Education Curriculum, ed. D. Kent Johnson, James L. Ratcliff, and Jerry G. Gaff: 9-28. New Directions for Higher Education no. 125. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Discusses trends in revisions of general education requirements, including grouping gen-ed courses into themes.

Lovett, Clara M. 1995. “Small Steps to Achieve Big Changes.” The Chronicle of Higher Education 42 (13): B1-3. Advocates the adoption of a 12-month academic calendar.

Shea, Christopher. 1994. “Squeezing the Calendar.” The Chronicle of Higher Education 40 (30): A35-36. Discusses how Albertus Magnus College and other schools have changed their calendars to allow for the option of a three-year baccalaureate.

* Shedd, Jessica M. 2003a. “The History of the Student Credit Hour.” In How the Student Credit Hour Shapes Higher Education: The Tie That Binds, ed. Jane V. Wellman and Thomas Ehrlich: 5-12. New Directions for Higher Education no. 122. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. A concise but thoroughly helpful overview of the topic.

Shedd, Jessica M. 2003b. “Policies and Practices in Enforcing the Credit Hour.” In How the Student Credit Hour Shapes Higher Education: The Tie That Binds, ed. Jane V. Wellman and Thomas Ehrlich: 13-30. New Directions for Higher Education no. 122. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. A survey of how institutions measure the credit hour.

Washington State Higher Education Coordinating Board (WSHECB). 2000. “Washington State University Academic Calendar: Semesters vs. Quarters.” Mimeo, available at: http://www.hecb.wa.gov/Docs/reports/WSUcalendar12-2000.pdf. Evaluates the costs and benefits for Washington State to move from a semester- to a quarter-based calendar; recommends that the semester-based calendar be maintained.

Wolanin, Thomas R. 2003. “The Student Credit Hour: An International Exploration.” In How the Student Credit Hour Shapes Higher Education: The Tie That Binds, ed. Jane V. Wellman and Thomas Ehrlich: 99-117. New Directions for Higher Education no. 122. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Discusses the international trend of moving towards a method of measuring student progress similar to the American credit hour system.

 

A Developmental Curriculum

Harward, Donald W.  “Engaged Learning and the Core Purpose of Liberal Education: Bringing Theory to Practice.” Liberal Education (Winter 2007): 6-15.

            Harward notes that a change has occurred in the way that liberal arts education is viewed.  No longer is it seen as an element of the bettering of students in preparation for adulthood, but instead it has fallen under the ubiquitous concept of college as a commodity.  With this in mind Harward has created the Bringing Theory to Practice program, which has the goal of returning liberal arts colleges to the roots of their true mission. 

Knefelkamp, L. Lee.  “Discovering, Remembering, Learning: When Our Separate
Journeys Converge.”  Perspectives on the Freshman Year.  National Resource    Center for the Freshman Year Experience.  Columbia: University of South Carolina, 1991. 45-53.

Knefelkamp reflects upon her academic career which has ranged from student to Academic Dean.  The liberal arts experience, she suggests, is more than classes, information gathering, and skills enhancement.  Transformative learning occurs when liberal arts faculty members step outside of their chosen discipline and help their students relate the subject material they teach to what the students are passionate about in their own lives. 

Kuh, George D.  “How to Help Students Achieve.”  The Chronicle of Higher Education
15 June 2007. . Rollins College  20 July 2007.

Based on NSSE data, George Kuh argues that student engagement is the key to student learning.  He lists six concrete steps colleges can take to engage students: teach first-year students how to use resources effectively, provide intrusive advising, provide common activities like living-learning communities that make the classroom the locus of community, develop networks and early-warning systems to support students, connect every student with a campus activity or mentor, make successful programs widely available, and remove obstacles to student engagement.

Citizenship Education
Core Commitments:  Educating Students for Personal and Social Responsibility.  Association of American Colleges and Universities.  Available at http://www.aacu.org/core_commitments

A summary of a widespread initiative aimed at infusing the undergraduate liberal arts curriculum with a core commitment to sociaol and personal responsibility

Association of American Colleges and Universities (2007).  College learning for the new global century:  A report from the national leadership council for LEAP (Liberal Education & America’s Promise).  Available at http://www.aacu.org/advocacy/leap/documents/GlobalCentury_final.pdf

A major review of recommendations for American colleges and universityies in the 21st century.   Should be required reading.

Interdisciplinarity
Aram, J. D. (2004) Concepts of interdisciplinarity: configurations of knowledge and action. Human Relations, 57 (4), 379-412.

A qualitative study of how interdisciplinary scholars define their work. Provides an overview of  theories of knowledge and interdisciplinarity. Finds that scholars’ definitions of interdisciplinarity exist on a continuum from less to more knowledge integration. Also differentiates goals as either exogenous knowledge (aimed at “real problems” in the community) or endogenous knowledge (aimed at unifying sciences).

Association for Integrative Studies (2002). Interdisciplinary studies in general
education guidelines. Retrieved July 3, 2007, from Association for Integrative
Studies Web site:

An AIS task force report on appropriate criteria for accreditation of interdisciplinary general education. Organizes recommendations into six categories: goals, curriculum, teaching and learning, faculty, administration, and assessment.

Lattuca, L. R. (2002.) Learning interdisciplinarity: Sociocultural perspectives on
Academic work. The Journal of Higher Education, 73 (6), 711-739.

A qualitative study, from a sociocultural perspective, investigating how faculty learn to do interdisciplinary work. Reports that “learning and the creation of interdisciplinary spaces is achieved through meetings, colloquia, colleagueship, and collaboration… Learning is mediated by others in the workplace” (733). Points to the need for faculty training and “apprenticeship” in other disciplines as well as the importance of institutional support.

Lattuca, L. R., Voight, L. J. & Fath, K. Q. (2004) Does interdisciplinarity promote
learning? Theoretical support and researchable questions. Review of Higher
Education, 28 (1), 23-48.

Reviews theories of learning and connects them with goals and methods of interdisciplinarity. Defines four types of interdisciplinarity: informed, synthetic, transdisciplinary, and conceptual. Sets out an extensive research agenda with the overarching question of whether interdisciplinary courses encourage more positive outcomes than non-interdisciplinary courses.

---

Events for Spring 2007

Rollins College Colloquy 2007:

Liberal Education and Social Responsibility in a Global Community

Results of the A&S Faculty Survey (February 2007)
Results of the A&S Faculty Survey (APril 2007)