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CUE
continues on path of revision The revised draft of the Common Undergraduate Experience introduced to the Faculty Senate last week is another twist in a process that has seen the document go through five different committees in 17 months. But revision
writers say it is a turn in the right direction. “I think this is a significant step in the process because we managed to create a document (with) a greater dynamic of consensus,” said Faculty Senate chairman elect George Brown after last week’s meeting. “The majority of the people left this room with a positive outlook.” After meeting with Provost William Koehler and Chancellor Michael Ferrari, the Executive Committee of the Faculty Senate drafted a revision of the proposed curriculum based upon criticism received by e-mail and a Faculty Assembly meeting Jan. 30, committee members said. The draft represented another curve in a long and winding road that has included four previous proposals by as many committees in the last year. The revised document increases the original CUE proposal’s total hours to 48 from 45; eliminates the Ethical Thought and Action rubric and replaces it with other ethics requirements; changes the wording and eliminates some outcomes of all requirements; explicitly requires three hours of religion and six in the humanities to be acquired by two different disciplines. Brown said after the meeting that the next step is more discussion. Faculty Senators were given a sheet of questions to ask their constituents about the revised draft, which was e-mailed to professors Monday. After listening to the strengths and weaknesses of the document from other professors, Faculty Senators will discuss the draft in the senate’s regularly scheduled monthly meeting next week, Brown said. Also, several forums, electronic and in person, will be created to discuss each of the three rubrics of the draft. Brown said three “town hall” meetings will be scheduled by the Executive Committee and an electronic discussion board posted on the Faculty Senate Web site. He said departments
and colleges will hold their own meetings. The process to change The process was initiated by Ferrari in September 2000 when he called upon the faculty and the provost to replace the current core “with a new, revitalized curriculum that is consistent with our mission and values” in his annual State of the University address. Koehler said the change was made for several reasons. He said the Commission on the Future of TCU recommended an examination of the University Curriculum Requirements implemented in 1988. Ferrari said at last week’s Faculty Senate meeting that two other groups, the Committee on the Undergraduate Experience and an AddRan task force, persuaded him “that core curriculum review was a topic of considerable interest among faculty.” Koehler said the mission statement had also been rewritten since that time and the UCR was not aligned with it. “One of the things that comes to mind is that the core is 14 years old, and came before long before the university’s actions and activities in global education,” Koehler said. “Technology was in its infancy, in comparison, in 1988. A lot of things have changed.” In October 2000, the Curriculum Outcome Committee was created to study what “qualities, characteristics and skills” a student should possess after completing the university curriculum and after receiving a bachelor’s degree. The nine person committee, chaired by university librarian Bob Seal, issued a nine-page document outlining eight different skills a student should possess after completing the core curriculum and 16 that a graduate should have. The committee sought input from alumni, faculty and students. In December 2000, the Faculty Senate approved the committee’s recommendations. The road got bumpier thereafter. The bumpy road Three different committees were created the next semester and charged with building upon the outcomes outlined in the Seal document and creating separate proposals for a core curriculum. Koehler said the committees were told not to discuss their proposals with one another. The goal, Koehler said, was to produce three independent proposals. From there, Koehler, the deans and the Faculty Senate would find similarities between the proposals and create a single proposal that could be submitted for faculty approval, he said. “As it turned out, the similarity was not as great as I would have expected,” Koehler said. “Because of the lack of similarity — although there were some common elements — we thought there was enough disparity on the three reports that we needed yet another committee to take the three reports and the Seal report and get some final thinking.” Philosophy professor Richard Galvin, a member of the University Curriculum Implementation and Assessment Committee (UCIAC) chaired by assistant political science professor Joanne Green, said the inability to receive feedback from other committees hindered his group in producing a proposal. “We couldn’t run it by anyone,” Galvin said. “We were stalemated.” Galvin said the ethics requirement he authored, which was patterned after Harvard University’s, in the Green committee’s proposal did not resemble the CUE when it was introduced in December 2001. “You had three stages and each new committee started all over again,” Galvin said last week before a revised draft was presented. But Lynn Flahive, an instructor of communication sciences and disorders and member of the UCIAC chaired by engineering professor Ed Kolesar, said the Kolesar committee’s proposals were represented in the CUE. “There are elements of what we suggested,” Flahive said. Chuck Williams, associate dean of undergraduate studies in the M.J. Neeley School of Business and chairman of another committee, said the leadership requirement that made his group’s proposal unique was not in the CUE. The Green committee proposed nine hours of leadership courses. Faculty input Some faculty have called the CUE process closed and said it has lacked relevant faculty input. But Koehler said the three committees were supposed to get feedback from other professors. “They just weren’t supposed to confer with one another,” Koehler said. While Galvin said the Green committee looked for faculty input, Williams and Flahive said their committees were so diverse that consultation was not necessary. “We didn’t specifically poll or research faculty opinion,” said Kathryne McDorman, an associate history professor and member of the Williams committee. “The idea was we were the ones being polled.” Koehler said the university had planned on drafting a single proposal by the end of spring semester 2001. The decision to go with three committees instead of one delayed approval “probably by six months,” Koehler said. “I think it probably worked out as well as having one,” Koehler said. “You try something and sometimes you get better results than others.” In fall 2001, the UCR Drafting Committee, chaired by English professor Richard Enos, was charged with merging the work of the four committees and producing a single proposal, which was introduced last December. The proposal was met with sharp criticism from professors in the humanities and sparked an e-mail debate amongst faculty. In a Jan. 30 Faculty Assembly, professors criticized the CUE and agreed the Faculty Senate should play a bigger role in revising the document. By taking the lead in the revision process, the Faculty Senate became the sixth body to introduce a proposal related to the CUE. “It’s like we are rewriting a paper,” said Faculty Senate chairwoman Carolyn Spence Cagle after last week’s Faculty Senate meeting. “Yeah,” Brown said laughing. “We are like in the 90th revision of the same paper.” Brandon
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