Old curriculum doesn’t fill the bill

Members of the administration, faculty and students have agreed on one thing: The current core curriculum, established in 1983, needs to be revised.

With a new method of reviewing curriculum, Gonzaga is exploring the connection between the mission statement and core curriculum for its required credits.  Although the timeline is uncertain, for now the focus is to determine a desired learning outcome for the core. 
Once the community supports the outcome, structural models will be proposed. This December will mark more than two years of on-going discussion for change to the core.

"It's exciting because this is an opportunity for us to do what we say we want to do in the mission statement," said Dr. Michael Herzog, an English professor and co-chair of the Core Curriculum Committee.

Dr. Thayne McCulloh explained that the committee is asking these questions: "What is it we want for our students to emerge with? What are the things that we want every undergraduate student to experience or to be better at?"

Core review is a common theme across the country right now, with an estimated 82 percent of institutions of higher learning evaluating core curriculum, according to an Association of American Colleges and Universities survey cited by Dr. Herzog.

"There's a reform going on in higher education that has to do with accountability, students are paying $40,000-$50,000 a year." McCulloh said. "Students are beginning to ask what  they are getting out of it."

Dr. Herzog and Dr. Patricia Terry, associate dean of the College of Arts and Sciences and co-chair of the committee, said it is important to distinguish between the University's core and the core requirements for each school.  The core reform committee addresses the University core. If these efforts prove  to be successful, other institutions of higher learning may adopt the Gonzaga process to improve learning outcomes.

Rather than approaching the changes from what classes look like, they are first trying to decide the desired outcome. What the committee is focused on is determining what students should know in a broad sense when they graduate from Gonzaga.

"We're working backwards," Terry said. "Our goal is to be clear and intentional so that students know what we are trying to accomplish through the core curriculum."

After the senior class of 2008 graduated, they were given a survey about the meaning behind the core curriculum. While they acknowledged themes behind their Gonzaga education, they couldn't define the underlying goal of the core because it hasn't been clearly defined in the past, Herzog said.

"The objective hasn't been articulated, it's unclear what holds the whole thing together," Dr.Terry said.

The committee comprises 15 faculty members from a variety of disciplines.  In addition, the committee has created five subgroups for this semester that review the content proposed by the larger committee.  Each subgroup is chaired by a committee member, who then brings feedback to the core committee.

Although these are the official conversations about change, Herzog and Terry expressed that the committee wants a community-wide conversation, and has made efforts to be transparent.  The meeting notes, as well as the history and mission of the core, are available at gonzaga.edu/core.

Since Gonzaga has an emphasis for its faculty to put students first, this will also play a crucial part of core change, Terry said.   The emphasis for teachers would be to think about how teaching in their area of expertise helps students achieve the common curricular objectives.

"For professors it becomes less about my course, but what role does my course play in the curriculum," Terry said.

Back in the '80s, Herzog, along with Dr. Tony Wadden, now retired, created Thought and Expression blocks.  While showing success, the program fell apart because support for the links dissipated and faculty weren't communicating about common goals, Herzog said.  Part of the new changes will provide safeguards to keep programs functioning. This change would include adding the position of a core director, and additional expenses.  The core committee has asked University Relations to find funding for a position that would support continuing discussion about what works or doesn't about the core. 

"We need to revisit our curriculum in order to keep it responsive to student needs and to ascertain whether we are accomplishing what we think we are doing," Terry said.

An element that has helped this work go forward is a grant from the Teagle Foundation, an organization that funds curriculum outcome assessment. The Teagle grant applies only to the College of Arts and Sciences, and has allowed for the evaluation of outcomes for majors within the College of Arts and Sciences.  Teagle money supports the work of core revision, but the conversations have dovetailed; and a lot of what the administration and faculty have learned through the Teagle initiatives will play a role in core changes, Herzog and Terry said.

 One of the requirements of the grant is a partnership with another university. Seattle University and Gonzaga have partnered to each receive $50,000 per year for three years.  What the schools have been able to learn through working together and across disciplines is extremely helpful, Herzog said. 

The Teagle funding is significant because of its national reputation and the fact that Gonzaga is one of five universities in the country that receives funding.

"We're creating a model that should be useful in other institutions," Herzog said.