Reforming Gen Ed: Strategies for Success on Your Campus by SophyaJohnson

Reforming Gen Ed Strategies for success on your campus

TABLE OF CONTENTS

4 Introduction 6 The Drive to Reform General Education 10 Institutional Profile: Concordia University Irvine

12 The Elements of a Modern Gen-Ed Curriculum 16 A Word About Core Curricula 18 Institutional Profile: University of Kentucky

20 Charting a Course

28 Institutional Profile: Portland State University

30 A Final Word

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reforming gen ed

About the Author

Beth McMurtrie covers innovation in teaching and the future of learning as a senior writer at The Chronicle of Higher Education. In 19 years there, she has written about a range of topics, including scholarship, entrepreneurship, economic divides, campus culture, diversity, and religion. For eight years she was The Chronicle’s international editor, directing coverage of foreign higher education and the global activities of U.S. institutions. She has won honors from the Education Writers Association, including for writing an article on why colleges haven’t stopped binge drinking and editing a series on the growth of higher education in Asia. She is the author of "The Future of Learning: How Colleges Can Transform the Educational Experience," from Chronicle Intelligence.

methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For bulk orders or special requests, contact The Chronicle at copyright@chronicle.com.

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INTRODUCTION

reforming gen ed

hat comes to mind when you hear the term “general education”? A menu of random courses? A way to fill seats in a department? Requirements disconnected from the major? Somebody else’s responsibility? If you’re a student or a member of the increasingly skeptical public, you may also add: a waste of time. There may be no part of the undergraduate academic experience so significant in a student’s career that receives so little collective respect and attention in higher education. Colleges can let a decade or two slide before taking a fresh look at their general-education requirements. When they do, turf battles often break out among departments more interested in teaching upper-level

courses and doing research than helping design a cohesive program. It’s no wonder, then, that these core courses, which make up about one-quarter to one-third of an undergraduate’s credit hours, are often perceived as something to be gotten out of the way before getting down to the serious business of the major. Yet a well-planned general-education program can prepare students for an increasingly complex world. Designed thoughtfully, a coherent core can enable students to think broadly and deeply, hone their communication skills, and address the tough and timeless questions embedded in every discipline. The challenge, of course, is how to get there. Colleges undergoing general-education reform have a minefield to navi-

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gate. They must persuade faculty members to think beyond departmental and disciplinary interests, gather the best ideas about what a modern core looks like, and hammer out the processes and procedures that get them from conception to reality. That’s a heavy lift. With resources tight and so many interests at stake, it’s no wonder that some colleges spend years on efforts that don’t make much progress, or abandon the process altogether. That’s where this report comes in. Designed for faculty members and administrators charged with revamping their college’s program of general education, it

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A note on terminology: “General education” refers to the part of the undergraduate curriculum that is required of all students seeking a liberal education. Most colleges use a distribution model, allowing students to pick from approved courses within certain required areas of focus, including social sciences, sciences, humanities, and the arts. Other colleges offer a core curriculum that includes a set of required courses. In this report, we sometimes use “general-education curriculum” and “core curriculum” interchangeably, although we recognize they have distinct meanings in higher education.

walks you through some of the primary drivers of core reform, describes some of the key elements of a 21st-century curriculum, lays out the challenges you are likely to face, and offers guidance on how to navigate your way forward. Throughout the report you will hear from colleges that have recently been through this process and from experts on general-education reform who will discuss some of the tricky issues that often trip up the best-laid plans. While no college considers itself fully finished with the process, these experts offer advice on how to avoid common pitfalls.

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The Drive to Reform General Education

t a time when skepticism about the value of college is rising, higher education is paying greater attention to the foundational experience of almost every undergraduate: general education. That collection of courses, which can make up about a third of the credits a student earns, is designed to be both a survey of many disciplines as well as a pathway to stronger critical-thinking and writing skills. Yet many academic leaders worry that their gen-ed requirements feel obligatory, lack coherence, fail to teach higher-order skills, or donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t connect with a studentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s major in a meaningful way. How, they are asking, can general education be seen as an opportunity instead of a burden, drawing the best professors and engaging students in more creative and impactful ways? According to a 2016 survey by the Association of American Colleges and Universities, 55 percent of member institutions say that general education has become more of a priority over the past five years.

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A number of factors are driving these efforts. They include:

only about one-third of respondents said that recent college graduates were well prepared in the area of critical thinking and analytical reasoning and could communicate effectively. Those are the kinds of traits that a 21st-century general education should be developing, advocates say.

Questions about purpose. Many students talk about general ed as something to get through as quickly as possible. Making matters worse, some advisers and professors feel the same. That is a warning sign to colleges that they have either not created a coherent plan or are failing to explain the value and purpose of general education to the campus. “Most students in most colleges and universities still do not have a clear understanding of what it is they are expected to accomplish in general education,” says Paul Gaston, a professor at Kent State University and author of several publications on general-education reform.

Polarized politics. As the country becomes more politically charged in confronting deep economic and social challenges, colleges are considering how a common curriculum can better help undergraduates understand the world and their role in it. To that end, they are incorporating learning outcomes that include elements like ethical reasoning, applied problem solving, and diverse perspectives.

Concerns about student success. Undergraduates are coming to college from a wider range of backgrounds and levels of academic preparation. Retaining underprepared students is of increasing concern to many institutions struggling with attrition in the first crucial years of college. To that end, more colleges see their general-education program as a vehicle to more deeply engage students by adding firstyear seminars that tackle big questions, introducing active-learning strategies, and otherwise incorporating high-impact teaching practices.

“General education affords us an amazing opportunity to articulate how and why higher education is of transformative importance to the public good,” says Christopher P. Long, dean of the College of Arts & Letters at Michigan State University and editor of the Journal of General Education. “The issues of civic deliberation, the capacity to understand positions from a variety of different standpoints, the capacity to bring multiple ways of thinking to bear on intractable problems — these are ways you can explain why higher education is important. “

Accreditation policies and state regulations. Policy makers and accreditors are increasingly focused on outcomes, asking colleges to be explicit about what they expect students to learn in their gen-ed courses. Texas prescribes a core set of courses to be taught. Other states expect public institutions to agree to a common approach to gen ed so that transfer students don’t lose credits in the process. The City University of New York enacted an ambitious revision in 2013, called Pathways, in which general-education requirements were standardized and a common core was introduced.

“ Most students in most colleges and universities still do not have a clear understanding of what it is they are expected to accomplish in general education.”

Employer demands. Surveys show that company heads and hiring managers value skills such as the ability to communicate well, solve complex problems, and apply knowledge in real-world settings. Yet many executives believe colleges are coming up short in these areas. In an employer survey by the Association of American Colleges and Universities,

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So why isn’t it easier to revamp gen ed? Other equally powerful forces are preserving the status quo, reformers say. For some disciplines and departments, required courses are a

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FIG. 1: HOW READY ARE RECENT COLLEGE GRADS FOR THE WORKPLACE? Hiring managers see gaps between the value of certain qualities and grads’ levels of preparation.

Very important quality

Recent college grads well prepared

39%

Apply knowledge/skills to real world

87%

-43

41%

Critical thinking/ analytical reasoning

84%

-40

38%

Able to analyze/ solve complex problems 0%

20%

40%

-43

87%

47%

Ethical judgment/ decision making

-48

90%

47%

Communicate effectively orally

Preparation gap

75%

60%

-37

80%

100%

Source: “ Fulfilling the American Dream: Liberal Education and the Future of Work,” Association of American Colleges and Universities

lifeline, placing students in classes they might not otherwise take. It can be difficult to think about what’s best for undergraduates if you’re fearful for your department’s financial future. General education can also get short shrift in the budget process. If the aim is to get students through college as quickly and cheaply as possible, expansive or ambitious requirements like interdisciplinary coursework, experiential learning, or capstone courses are a tough sell when you’re watching the bottom line. Some colleges are figuring out how to do both, by allowing double-counting toward majors or reducing major requirements. Some faculty members also avoid teaching introductory, general-education classes, seeing them as mere “service” courses, which makes it difficult to get buy-in when it comes time to refreshing the curriculum. Tenure-and-promotion guidelines may not reward faculty members for the time put into rethinking gen ed. Finally, the way academe is oriented pushes

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against the idea of a curriculum focused on broad, interdisciplinary thinking, says Scott A. Ashmon, associate provost of Concordia University Irvine, which offers a common core. “We are discipline-driven and research-oriented. So we want niche courses or gateway courses, and those don’t mesh with a common intellectual experience.” Reformers argue that developing a meaningful gen-ed curriculum requires several elements: All faculty members must feel vested in the core; they should be rewarded for rethinking core courses; and they should be encouraged to integrate this coursework better into the undergraduate experience, rather than cordon it off from the major. “There’s a real push now for integration, for holistic education that brings multiple disciplines to bear on grand challenges and wicked problems,” says Long. “That means we need to help faculty think beyond their disciplinary strengths. And that’s a big challenge.”

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INSTITUTIONAL PROFILE

Concordia University Irvine

A liberal-arts college sees student engagement increase with the creation of common-core courses.

few years ago, Concordia, a Christian liberal-arts college in California, unveiled a new general-education curriculum called Enduring Questions & Ideas. It consists of linked pairs of courses that students take over the first three years of college — biology with theology, mathematics with philosophy, and history with literature — along with a series of exploration courses. All are oriented around fundamental questions, such as: Who am I, and who are they? How shall I live? Who is a virtuous citizen? The core, says Scott A. Ashmon, associate provost, offers undergraduates a common intellectual experience. Students engage with primary works, not textbooks. They meet oneon-one with professors outside of class. They grapple with big and timeless questions. And they understand, clearly, why they were taking these courses. No matter what art class you

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“ Learning outcomes don’t motivate students. Questions do.” take, he says, everyone will discuss art’s role and function in society. The first part of the new core — the paired classes — was rolled out in 2010. That proved so popular that the faculty decided to revamp the remainder of distribution requirements to focus on great questions as well. The effect on students has been significant. “What we saw rather immediately were students who had better intellectual habits,”

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CONCORDIA U. IRVINE

Mason Gannaway and other Concordia students take notes during a core history course called “The West and the World.” says Ashmon. In upper-level courses, “we didn’t have to explain, for example, why you need to have a counterargument in your paper.” Another bonus: student commitment soared. The National Survey of Student Engagement now ranks Concordia freshmen in the top 10 percent in engaging with diverse perspectives, collaborative learning, analytic thinking, and reflective integrative learning. Before, says Ashmon, they were in the middle of the pack. The takeaway, he says: “Learning outcomes don’t motivate students. Questions do.” Ashmon’s advice to those interested in undergoing a similar restructuring of general education: First determine institutional will. Is the administration willing to support and fund this? Are faculty members willing to work collectively? Concordia’s “genetics” — being a

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small liberal-arts college — were helpful. But it still had to navigate confusion and unchartered waters. It helped, too, he says, that they had an orienting question: What will enable students to become active citizens? Refreshing general-education courses required all faculty members to rethink what they were teaching, he adds. The core-curriculum committee met with faculty members undergoing course revision. But instead of reviewing the syllabus, they would engage professors in a deeper conversation. What big questions are you going to address? What great works are you going to use? What high-impact practices are you going to incorporate? And how does it all hold together? To that end, he says, faculty “have to be willing to give up some particular things they want for the common good. If they can’t do that, you’re not going to go very far.”

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The Elements of a Modern Gen-Ed Curriculum

o what does a 21st-century general-education curriculum look like? When talking about the modern core, a few common themes emerge: Coherent and continuous. Rather than a collection of disparate courses taken in the first two years of college, the new gen ed is designed to develop skills and knowledge that prepare students for more complex coursework, and includes curricular and co-curricular experiences that culminate in the use of higher-order skills. According to an Association of American Colleges and Universities survey on general-education trends, two-thirds of administrators say that institutions are placing more emphasis on the integration of knowledge, skills, and application in their general-education programs.

Focused on ways of thinking. This sometimes subtle shift in approach moves general education away from a collection of survey courses designed as an introduction to the major. Instead, greater emphasis is placed on core skills that enable students to approach a subject, or a problem, from the perspective of an expert in the discipline. What does it mean to think like a scientist, for example? How would a historian approach a modern political problem?

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Stanford University was an early adopter of this approach, when it unveiled in 2012 plans to focus its gen-ed curriculum on “ways of thinking, ways of doing." Stanford identified eight areas as important for students: aesthetic and interpretive inquiry, scientific method and analysis, social inquiry, applied quantitative reasoning, creative expression, engaging diversity, ethical reasoning, and formal reasoning. Notre Dame took a page from that book

FIG. 2: WHAT SKILLS DO EMPLOYERS WANT IN A RECENT COLLEGE GRADUATE? Certain skills are considered very important by executives and hiring managers.

Executives Oral communication

Written communication

Hiring managers

this year, when it recategorized its gen-ed requirements into “ways of knowing,” to include quantitative reasoning, science and technology, fine arts and literature, advanced language and culture, history, social science, theology, and philosophy. It plans to review all of the courses that qualify for gen-ed requirements, in collaboration with departments, to reorient them toward meeting these new goals. The AAC&U, which has led national discussions around general-education reform, has championed this approach, noting that subject mastery is no longer sufficient preparation for a rapidly evolving economy and society. “The conversation when I went to college was all about the content boxes,” says Terrel L. Rhodes, vice president of the association’s office of quality, curriculum, and assessment. “It’s 80% selling our students short if all 90% we’re doing is introducing them to a set of knowledge and not to a way of knowing the things that 76% underlay that.”

78%

Critical thinking and analytic reasoning

78%

Ethical judgment and decision making

77%

Teamwork skills with diverse groups

77%

Applied knowledge in real-world setting

76%

Complex problem solving

84%

87%

87% 67% 75%

Source: “Fulfilling the American Dream: Liberal Education and the Future of Work,” Association of American Colleges and Universities

Flexible. Concerned that cumbersome, and sometimes arbitrary, requirements are creating problems with retention and time-to-degree, some colleges are adding flexibility into the program. The University of Colorado at Boulder’s College of Arts and Sciences, which recently revamped its gen-ed requirements, now allows students to double-count 12 core credits toward their major, making it easier for them to add a minor or a second major. “The old core didn’t encourage authentic breadth,” says Cora Randall, one of the professors who led the overhaul committee. “We want students to follow their own passions and interests. When they do that, she says, “they’re going to learn much better.” Interdisciplinary. As with the

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rest of higher education, general education is becoming increasingly multidisciplinary, with core courses oriented around big questions or problems that bridge departmental divides. Some of the more ambitious efforts include courses that are team-taught and include experiential learning components. Boston College, which revamped its gened program in 2015, has provided stipends for faculty members to develop team-taught and paired courses called Complex Problems & Enduring Questions. A course on science and technology in American society, for example, is team-taught by professors in history and natural science, while paired courses in psychology and English examine the psychology of emotion and the emotional impact of literature. Although these courses are challenging and time-consuming to develop, faculty and student interest “far exceeded our expectations,” says David Quigley, BC’s provost.

“ The old core didn’t encourage authentic breadth. We want students to follow their own passions and interests. When they do that, they’re going to learn much better.” culminates with a course called “Symposium on the Common Good,” in which students investigate, discuss, and advocate a position on a civic issue. Similarly, when Pennsylvania State University revamped its general-education requirements, it created “Rhetoric and Civic Life,” a yearlong honors course, as part of its first-year experience. The course uses rhetoric to strengthen students’ communication skills, with a particular focus on analyzing and contextualizing information.

Scaffolded. This refers to the process of weaving general education throughout the undergraduate experience. Portland State University (see sidebar, Page 28) has been a longtime leader in this area. Its University Studies program begins with a sequence of courses in the freshman year, continues with more complex work in the sophomore year, moves into a series of upper-division courses, and culminates with a senior capstone that takes students out of the classroom and into the community. According to AAC&U, nearly half of colleges surveyed have upper-level general-education requirements. And about one-quarter of colleges include a capstone course, or some form of culminating studies, within their general-education program.

Incorporates high-impact practices. These time-tested teaching and learning practices have proved particularly beneficial for students from historically underserved groups. They include first-year experiences, internships, capstone courses, learning communities, diversity and global learning, and writing-intensive courses. Juniata College’s recently approved general-education curriculum will offer a two-semester first-year experience that includes the creation of a learning portfolio to demonstrate mastery of knowledge and skills, such as information literacy and evidence-based reasoning. It culminates in a senior capstone. The University of Wisconsin at Oshkosh’s Universities Studies Program, launched in 2013, begins with a series of intentionally small

Includes civic engagement and professional development. Colleges are making explicit to students — and their families — how general education helps them become better communicators, ethical thinkers, and good citizens. The University of Nevada at Reno includes a demonstrated understanding of ethical principles as one of 14 objectives in its new core. Longwood University revamped its general-education requirements to infuse writing and speaking across the core curriculum. It also focuses on preparing students to be active citizens engaged in democracy. The program

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A Word About Core Curricula

hile more than three-quarters of colleges use the distribution model for general education, the traditional core is far from dead. An estimated 44 percent of colleges use a core curriculum, according to AAC&U, in which students are required to take a prescribed set of courses. (Some colleges both offer a core and have distribution requirements.) Colleges that choose the core model argue that students benefit intellectually and socially through communal study that addresses fundamental questions across the disciplines. Variations on core curricula are found at major universities such as Columbia, Yale, and Chicago, as well as smaller liberal-arts colleges. Traditionalists are often seen as the champions of core curricula, bemoaning the diffuse nature of the distribution model. The American Council of Trustees and Alumni, for example, has graded more than 1,100 public and private colleges on the rigor and breadth of their required courses, with more than one-third receiving a D or F. Yet the core has champions from other quarters too. The Teagle Foundation has advocated on behalf of core coursework, on the idea that a common set of courses can engage students and improve retention efforts by building community through a shared intellectual experience. To that end, it has supported efforts among a broad range of institutions, including community colleges, to develop core curricula. Ursinus College has participated in Teagle’s efforts as it develops its own version of a core, inspired by its longstanding first-year seminar, called the “Common Intellectual Experience.” That

reforming gen ed

ANDREA FABRIZIO

Theodore Chance and Michael Burgos, students at the City U. of New York's Hostos Community College, discuss class materials during a core English-composition course.

course is framed by four key questions: What should matter to me? How should we live together? How can we understand the world? And what will I do? The new Open Questions Core, which went into effect this fall, will be organized around those same four questions, in order to give coherence to general education. It will also

include an experiential-learning and senior-capstone requirement. “Our goal is not simply conveying information but enabling our students to live a more deliberative, thoughtful life,” says Paul Stern, a professor of politics and one of the founders of CIE, “in which they come to understand why they do what they do and they’re able to defend it.”

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classes, in which the same group of students are put together in three courses, including two that cultivate writing and speaking skills, to build a sense of community.

of information, global context, and capstone integration and synthesis.

“ We don’t go in and say, this is a good generaleducation curriculum or a bad one. What we say is, How does this reflect your mission?”

Focused on learning outcomes. Rhodes, of AAC&U, says defining and measuring outcomes is the biggest shift he has seen in general-education design. Driven in part by accountability requirements from state legislatures and accreditors, colleges are redesigning core coursework to emphasize evidence of learning. “We don’t go in and say, this is a good general-education curriculum or a bad one,” notes Jamienne S. Studley, president of the WASC Senior College and University Commission, a regional accreditor. “What we say is, How does this reflect your mission? What are your goals for your general-education curriculum? How do you know whether you are accomplishing your goals? How does general education connect to the rest of your activities, so you can make sure you’re offering degrees with quality?” The University of Nevada at Reno went all-in with this approach when it unveiled its Silver Core Curriculum in 2016. It replaced a traditional general-education model that had been in place since 1989 with a competencies-based curriculum that includes 14 core objectives, including critical analysis and use

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Enhances advising. As general-education requirements grow, so does the need to help students choose their courses wisely. Notre Dame is rethinking its entire advising structure to allow students to spread gen-ed courses throughout their four years and align them with their learning goals. That requires collaboration among the different academic units, something the university plans to work on as it rolls out its new curriculum.

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INSTITUTIONAL PROFILE

The University of Kentucky

A humanities dept revives enrollment by aligning with new gen-ed requirements.

ive years ago, the University of Kentucky adopted a new general-education program that contributed to enrollment declines in the English department of about 20 percent. Peter J. Kalliney, then the associate chair of the department and course scheduler, knew the department risked serious harm if it didn’t adapt. Only a couple of English courses met the new gen-ed requirements. The idea of teaching “service” classes carried a stigma among senior faculty. And a new program in writing, rhetoric, and digital studies, once part of English, had siphoned off most of the required writing courses. So Kalliney created a strategy to make the department relevant again. First, he asked faculty members to propose a half-dozen new classes that would meet different gen-ed requirements. That way, he says, one wouldn’t compete against another. A creative-writing class checked the creativity box. A literature-and-citizenship class checked a box related to U.S. civics. A global-literature class, which he created, checked a global-citizenship

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box. And so on. What made the process meaningful, he says, was that professors created courses on topics of interest to them. “That’s a good cure for cynicism,” he says. Plus, “they don’t feel like they have to reinvent themselves in order to teach that class.” The department also created a few “generic” courses that allow many different scholars to teach them, such as a survey course on great books or great films. Finally, he and the department chair required everyone to teach a gen-ed course, himself included. That ensured that many of the best and most experienced English professors would be the ones students first encountered in college. Not everyone loved the idea, he says, but no one was allowed to opt out. “Faculty put a lot of effort into their teaching, and they’ve embraced the challenge of reaching a different constituency.” Kalliney thinks that attitudes among professors toward introductory courses are changing, particularly as the number of students majoring in the humanities has steadily declined. “Young faculty coming through the

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ranks now realize one of the ways they can make an argument for their own relevance is to say they have a role for the intellectual well-being for all students, not just their majors,” he says. Best of all, students have flocked to these classes, with enrollments in English past their peak before the gen-ed reforms were made. “English has an incredible range of disciplinary flexibility,” he notes. “So it’s well positioned to offer literacy skills, writing skills, critical-thinking skills, and appeal to students in a variety of ways.” It’s ironic, Kalliney notes, that even as Kentucky’s governor has questioned the value of the humanities, students at the university often point to these classes as being among their favorites. “Having general-education classes that we can teach and teach well,” he says, “reminds us as a department and reminds the

Even as Kentucky’s governor has questioned the value of the humanities, students at the university often point to these classes as being among their favorites. university administration that we have a significant role to play in educating our students.”

U. OF KENTUCKY

Michael Carter, a senior lecturer in the English department at the U. of Kentucky, leads an introductory film course.

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Students at the U. of Nevada at Reno conduct an ecosystem assessment as part of "Rangeland Restoration Ecology," a course in the Silver Core Curriculum.

U. OF NEVADA RENO

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Charting a Course

urriculum reform is a long, slow process. Revamping general education can be particularly tricky, as it involves many parts of campus, including academic departments, the teaching-and-learning center, student affairs, and the registrar’s office. Gaston, the gen-ed reform expert, suggests thinking of the process in three stages. By the end of the first stage, a college should have a clear statement of institutional outcomes for a bachelor’s degree. By the end of the second stage, the college has determined what general education is expected to accomplish within those desired outcomes. In the final phase, it has created a structured curriculum that achieves those gen-ed goals. “That’s the process that leads to genuine improvement,” he says, “as opposed to a showdown at the O.K. Corral.” In this section we help you determine how to set up your college for meaningful reform, anticipate challenges, and transition from ideas to implementation.

Early stages

Before you tackle the gen-ed curriculum, step back and think about what it is you’re hoping to achieve. Experts and those with on-the-ground experience recommend the following steps. Begin with the big picture. Don’t jump right into a discussion of general education. Instead draw faculty members into a deeper conversation about what kind of graduates they want to produce. Successful colleges say that is a key step in the

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process because it encourages professors to let go of vested interests and instead think about what benefits students. This is also a conversation likely to excite and motivate professors, as it gets to the heart of why they teach. And it pushes back on the image of gen ed as a necessary if somewhat lifeless requirement or a recruiting tool for majors. Juniata College began its reform process by creating learning communities: groups of faculty members who met regularly to think and read about liberal education broadly. Lauren Bowen, Juniata’s provost, says that helped engage the entire faculty in a conversation around how to provide a strong undergraduate education. Professors realized that the college had been thinking about gen ed in terms of inputs — things like distribution requirements. “It was difficult to determine whether students were emerging as citizens of consequence,” she says. “We knew they were exposed to things, but wanted to develop a less fragmented curriculum.” That also helped Juniata professors come to the conclusion, she says, that “how we taught mattered almost as much as what we taught.” Like other colleges, they then revamped their core to focus on ways of knowing, to help teach students how humanists, natural scientists, social scientists, and others ask questions and think.

of Boston College. To break a two-decade deadlock on revising its general-education curriculum, the college hired a design-thinking firm. The consultants built trust, and jump-started discussion, by getting to know professors and students. From there, they used an open collaboration process — including lots of meetings and publicly posting their notes — to help faculty members determine what kind of academic experience they wanted to create and how to make it happen.

FIG. 3: WHAT GOES INTO A GENERALEDUCATION PROGRAM? Percent of institutions that include these components

63%

First-year seminars

60%

Diversity courses

Consider the best structures to support discussion. Do you want deans in the room, or should these conversations be faculty-led and faculty-driven? Different colleges will find different answers. At Notre Dame, it was critical to have the deans of the two largest colleges head their reform committees, says Mike Hildreth, associate dean for research and graduate studies in the College of Science, as it signaled to the faulty that there were no sacred cows. “They were willing to put everything on the table, much to the chagrin of the faculty,” he says. “But we really did have a broad, high-level discussion of what should a core education mean.” Other colleges have found it more helpful to let professors run the conversation, bringing administrators into the process later. One of the more unusual approaches to getting the review process started came out

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70%

Global courses

55%

Interdisciplinary courses

Service-learning opportunities Civic learning or engagement activities Required experiential learning

46%

42%

36%

Source: “Recent Trends in General Education Design, Learning Outcomes, and Teaching Approaches,” Association of American Colleges and Universities

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Collect evidence. Do you know what your students think of their general-education requirements? Or how alumni view the experience? If you’re concerned about transfer students, do you know how many classes the average student had to retake because their credits weren’t accepted? Doing some exploration of the issues can ground debates in fact and move the conversation forward. Longwood University surveyed faculty, students, alumni, and employers. It discovered that students found the goals of the general-education curriculum baffling, so it greatly streamlined the process. Administrators also learned that they had done nothing to prepare students for a capstone course in their senior year. “We needed to build a curriculum to scaffold those skills,” says Larissa Smith Fergeson, provost and vice president for academic affairs. And, she says, they listened to what employers and alumni were saying. “We very explicitly affirmed we wanted to bake these skills employers want into the curriculum: writing, speaking, communication skills, problem solving, collaborative working.”

faculty workloads? If you want to consider a scaffolded curriculum, will you need to expand your advising staff and rethink course scheduling?

“The idea that we need to make students retake classes because we don’t trust other institutions is not particularly student-centered, and it’s not particularly valuable.” Also consider how your potential ambitions for general education fit in with your overall academic strategy. Boston College was able to add more interdisciplinary courses because it had been developing the kinds of structures and systems to support that work. That includes several joint faculty appointments across schools and a new institute for integrated science and society. Some colleges have had luck securing grants to aid them in the redesign process. Juniata has been supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, for example, while Ursinus has received backing from Teagle.

Be mindful of the needs of transfer students. This is particularly true for public institutions as they consider whether to accept coursework from other colleges in their state systems as part of their general-education requirements. In California there has been a strong push to create clear pathways from two-year to four-year institutions. That means no unnecessarily wasted time taking the same classes over again. “We’ve developed this one-degree philosophy, that we are in this together,” says Geoffrey Buhl, a math professor and chair of general education for California State University-Channel Islands. “The idea that we need to make students retake classes because we don’t trust other institutions is not particularly student-centered, and it’s not particularly valuable.”

Examine incentive structures. How do promotion-and-tenure guidelines support or deter professors from participating in the teaching or revision of general-education courses? Do senior faculty feel that it’s beneath them to teach more introductory “service” classes? Without understanding those incentives and attitudes, college run the risk of hitting roadblocks when it comes time to do the hard work of creating or revising courses, and engaging all faculty members in thinking of the relevance of general educa-

Think about resources. A significant revamp will cost time and money. What sort of budget do you have for summer retreats, professional development, or course release? How might new requirements — such as writing courses or smaller class sizes — affect

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tion to their work. “Until we build serious contributions to the general-education mission into the promotion-and-tenure process, and other things that are valued, it’s going to continue to be offloaded to fixed-term academic specialists and nontenured faculty,” says Long, of Michigan State. Communicate. When it comes to curricular reform, there’s no such thing as too much communication. Successful colleges held dozens of meetings — from departmental discussions to campus town halls — and regularly reviewed and revised proposals based on faculty and staff input. “We had to have this extremely transparent process with mega, mega, mega communication,” says Randall, one of the University of Colorado at Boulder professors who led the core overhaul for the College of Arts and Sciences. In one year alone, she says, they held 90 meetings.

Middle stages This is the period in which curriculum-revision committees get down to the difficult work of designing a new core. Here are some guidelines from those who have been there. Begin curriculum mapping. This refers to the process of lining up your general-education program against the learning goals you outlined in the early stages of the process. What specifically do you want general education to accomplish, and where are the gaps in your current program? How well do your current required courses meet these goals? Gaston gives the example of a sociology course that might make a strong contribution to learning goals for social awareness and cultural sensitivity, but fail to address computational or writing ability. If those are the desired outcomes, the core committee can ask the sociology department to revise the curriculum to produce those outcomes. That approach gets professors thinking strategically about how to design courses that work in concert to move students toward

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meaningful outcomes. That, again, is something that accreditors will be watching for. Form subcommittees to begin the deeper work. Curricular revision doesn’t begin and end with course design. It involves

“ You’ve got to make clear that principled reform will not lead to pain and suffering in the departments.” advising, the registrar’s office, the teaching-and-learning center, and so on. Notre Dame, for example, created subcommittees to tackle thorny issues around curricular reform, like whether to allow students to opt out of core courses with AP credits, whether to beef up writing requirements, and how to rethink advising. These subcommittees included people from the main committee plus stakeholders with relevant expertise from around campus. “There were a lot of things thrashed out behind closed doors that the full committee didn’t necessarily have to see,” says Hildreth, who sat on the advising subcommittee. His group explored the inconsistency of advising across campus and ended up suggesting a complete review of the process. Take a do-no-harm approach. Professors are unlikely to support a program that could immediately hurt their department by stripping it of required courses. Some colleges that have successfully pushed through fundamental reforms to gen ed say that administrators agreed to a grace period before adjustments were made to resources, even if a department saw its enrollments drop. That gave the campus time to find a new equilibrium under a different gen-ed system. “For this process to work you’ve sometimes got to create a safety net,” says Gaston.

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“You’ve got to make clear that principled reform will not lead to pain and suffering in the departments.”

could shoot down the entire revamp over that one issue, says Randall. At the University of Nevada at Reno, the gen-ed reform committee came up with two plans for the faculty to choose from. The campus ended up going with the less ambitious but more pragmatic proposal. “That was an important part of the process,” says Sarah A. Cummings, director of the University Core Curriculum. “That this was faculty-led, faculty-driven, with faculty input every step of the way.”

Test the waters. At this stage, sharing ideas and holding meetings remains essential, especially if a committee is unsure how faculty members and others may react to certain proposals. Some campuses take straw polls to test out ideas, for example, and modify ideas based on responses. Colorado, for example, abandoned a digital-literacy requirement because nobody could agree on what that would entail. It put a proposed first-year seminar on the back burner, despite being popular, because faculty members were skeptical that they had the resources to pull it off. And it added a six-credit diversity requirement, despite being somewhat controversial, because the revision committee realized that proponents

Anticipate potential conflicts. Colleges that have been through the process say some common conflicts and tradeoffs arise as the outlines of a curriculum emerge: Time to degree. If you want to create a coherent core, that may mean reducing the practice of allowing students to opt

Students at Ursinus College attend a meeting of the “Common Intellectual Experience,” a first-year seminar.

STUART GOLDENBERG

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out of certain courses with AP credits. But that could potentially increase time to degree. Similarly, add-ons and expansions of the core could potentially exacerbate challenges around retention and excess credit accumulation. Overall, says Rhodes, of AAC&U, colleges have been reducing the number of credits in their gen-ed requirements. The average is shifting from a third of total credit hours to one quarter.

pert. But trying to squeeze a reform process into one academic year is probably a recipe for disaster. The sweet spot, he says, is usually two to three years. “That gives it a sense of urgency without rushing things to a calamitous decision.”

Trying to squeeze a reform process into one academic year is probably a recipe for disaster. The sweet spot is usually two to three years.

Who teaches. On many campuses, junior faculty, adjuncts, and sometimes grad students teach the intro courses that count toward gen ed. If you want more tenured professors to teach, what changes do you need to make to your budget and rewards structures? Class sizes. Some colleges have reduced the size of some required courses in order to create a stronger sense of community among first-year students in particular. What kinds of challenges does that present for course scheduling and teaching loads?

Be mindful of the possibility of failure. Even the most deliberative of reform efforts can falter if faculty aren’t clear on how mission, strategy, and resources align. Despite hundreds of meetings over several years, Duke University tabled in 2017 an ambitious curricular overhaul that included, among other things, multidisciplinary team-taught seminars and a scholarly experience. Faculty members had a wide-ranging set of concerns. Some professors wondered where the extra resources were coming from. Others were unclear how the revised curriculum would affect admissions, recruitment, and advising. "I suppose if they had designed a process that insulated the debate and the outcome from any kind of implication for resource allocation, they might have succeeded," Alexander Rosenberg, a philosophy professor at Duke, told The Chronicle. "That’s always the problem in curricular debate. People look at curriculum with an eye toward ‘What does this mean for me as a faculty member?’ instead of ‘What does it mean for the students as a whole?’ That’s unavoidable."

Timelines. If you are adding on capstone courses, experiential-learning opportunities, and other resource-intensive coursework, what sort of time frame do you have? Not everything can be designed and executed at once. For institutions on a tight budget, building retention efforts into curricular reform can become an important source of financial support, says Franca Barricelli, who helped the University of Wisconsin at Oshkosh through the process. First-year learning communities, active-learning classrooms, and small class sizes have all been shown to improve grades and retention, she notes. If those are incorporated into the redesign, says Barricelli, now dean of arts and sciences at Fitchburg State University, “retention itself becomes a funding mechanism.” Take the time you need. Colleges can take as long as a decade and as little as 18 months to come up with a plan, says Gaston, the Kent State professor and gen-ed reform ex-

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Implementation

you time to phase things in and out. Many colleges that adopt a new core phase in different aspects over time. They may start with a new first-year seminar, for example, then gradually revise the courses that meet gen-ed requirements to align them with learning outcomes. Or they may create a special fund for new interdisciplinary core courses, adding a couple of new courses to the curriculum each year. Whatever the case, the time and resource it takes to execute an ambitious plan are no small matter. The University of Nevada at Reno, for example, is still struggling with its 14th and final core objective — application, which includes things like an internship or service learning. “On a campus where there are roughly 20,000 undergraduate students, finding ways to intentionally work that experience into every student’s degree can be challenging,” says Cummings.

Once a gen-ed revamp has been approved, the hard work of implementation begins. Some questions and issues to consider: Grandfathering vs. reapplying. Do you want to start from scratch and make all departments reapply for course approval? Or is it better to grandfather in courses and work with faculty members to refresh them to meet new standards? The former takes a lot of upfront work but offers a fresh start, while the latter is less radical but more collaborative. Either way, build in time and resources to help faculty members with the process. Align your rewards system. If you haven’t done it already, ensure that promotionand-tenure guidelines recognize the work faculty members put into teaching their gened courses in new ways. For example, some colleges are incorporating active-learning strategies into their gen-ed courses, which take time and training to do well. Ursinus College requires all faculty members who come up for tenure to have taught its first-year seminar, “Common Intellectual Experience,” at least twice. That doesn’t eliminate the pull faculty members feel toward disciplinary specialties, says Stern, the professor of politics. “But it helps us navigate this and make it a little less fraught.”

Maintain momentum. For those who have gotten a new gen-ed curriculum through their faculty senate, the temptation is to declare victory and move on. The reality is that implementation requires continued focus and energy as the curriculum is put in place, professors rethink their courses, and the program is regularly assessed. “One of the big questions we face now, after the pilot phase,” says Quigley, the Boston College provost, “is how do we move forward to maintain quality and energy around these courses, build out capacity, and avoid the mind-set that this is an every-15-year project.”

Roll it out slowly. Don’t do it all at once — you can’t — and a slow start also gives

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INSTITUTIONAL PROFILE

Portland State University

A nationally recognized program says continuing faculty support is central to success.

t’s not unusual for Maurice Hamington to receive visitors from as far away as Japan and New Zealand. As executive director of Portland State’s University Studies Program, he knows it is considered a model of high-quality general education here and abroad. University Studies has been around for a quarter-century and yet, if Hamington were to give a few words of advice to others, it would be this: Gen ed is not a set-it-and-forget-it exercise. A strong program takes continual training, renewal, and attention. “The bones that were put in place 25 years ago are still here, but the program does look a great deal different,” says Hamington. “At the same time, because it is so different we are constantly having to explain ourselves over and over again.”

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What makes University Studies unusual, and possibly unique, is its sheer scope. First, it has 50 faculty members dedicated to the enterprise. Half are interdisciplinary and teaching-focused, housed within University Studies. The others share appointments with departments. This allows University Studies to have both a dedicated core of instructors as well as connections to the rest of campus. It was also among the earliest adopters of scaffolding — the idea that a general-education program works best when it builds on itself and integrates with the major, from first-year courses through senior capstones. It begins with a yearlong sequence of courses called Freshmen Inquiry. They are theme-based, interdisciplinary, and team-taught. Courses come with upper-division

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PORTLAND STATE U.

As part of a senior capstone project, education students from Portland State U. help out at a camp for people with disabilities. peer mentors, students who lead small discussion sessions. Sophomore Inquiry classes are more sophisticated, with writing and research projects. They also focus on topics that are complementary to a student’s major. Upper-division cluster courses build on students’ earlier coursework. And a senior capstone is designed with a local organization, so that students use the skills and knowledge they have developed to address concrete issues in the community. All of these ideas were radical 25 years ago, but are more mainstream today, Hamington notes. Yet the same challenges remain. Among them, training faculty members to create and teach interdisciplinary courses. Professors simply aren’t trained that way in graduate school.

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Hamington offers advice to those looking to create similarly ambitious gen-ed programs. “You need political will at the top and amongst the faculty to undertake these kinds of changes,” he says. “Top-down approaches are seldom successful.” Having a pedagogical philosophy is also important to creating a coherent general-education program. Course content is not the driver in University Studies, he says. Skills and abilities are. That requires tweaking the nature of the typical introductory course, which emphasizes mastery of material. “We keep this going by investing in our faculty a great deal,” he says. “We’re checking in with each other. Faculty come in and do formative analysis of people’s teaching. We have to remain vigilant to prevent people slipping back into old habits.”

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CONCLUSION

A Final Word

f general-education reform can be boiled down to a single takeaway, it’s this: The process is the product. The relationships, strategies, and systems developed during the review period, reform experts say, are as important as the curriculum itself. “I want to push people toward continuous curricular improvement,” says Long, of Michigan State. “And not think of general education as something you do once in a generation.” For a growing number of campuses, that means giving responsibility for regular curriculum review to a newly created body, like Penn State’s Office for General Education, which was designed to ensure that all gen-ed courses align with learning objectives and provides support for faculty through things like seed grants and professional-development workshops. Similarly, Notre Dame created a core-curriculum committee, to include representatives

of all schools and colleges, at-large members, and the registrar’s office. Hildreth says this broader representation ensures that all parts of the campus are thinking about the importance and impact of the revised core. And at the University of Nevada at Reno, says Cummings, the Silver Core was built on the idea that it would be a living document. To that end, it includes a five-year cycle of assessment and review. Last year, she notes, in response to student concerns, the new Core Curriculum Board, which includes representatives from each college or division that has undergraduate majors, supported the creation of several courses to address contemporary topics of diversity and equity. Those will be rolled out in 2019. “We never really want the conversation to end,” says Cummings. “And that’s what keeps the excitement going among the faculty.”

Further Reading Berrett, Dan. “Boston College, to Refresh Its Aging Curriculum, Turns to Design Thinkers,” The Chronicle of Higher Education, April 6, 2015.

Green, Madeleine F. “In Search of Curricular Coherence,” The Teagle Foundation, October 2018.

Berrett, Dan. “General Education Gets an ‘Integrative Learning’ Makeover,” The Chronicle of Higher Education, August 8, 2016.

Kalliney, Peter J. “We Reversed Our Declining English Enrollments. Here’s How,” The Chronicle of Higher Education, April 2, 2018.

Berrett, Dan. “Which Core Matters More?” The Chronicle of Higher Education, September 25, 2011.

Lemann, Nicholas. “The Case for a New Kind of Core,” The Chronicle of Higher Education, November 27, 2016.

“Core Text Programs: Prospects and Challenges,” The Teagle Foundation.

Mrig, Amit. “General Education Reform: Unseen Opportunities,” Academic Impressions, October 2013.

“Fulfilling the American Dream: Liberal Education and the Future of Work,” Hart Research Associates, conducted on behalf of the Association of American Colleges and Universities, July 2018.

Patel, Vimal. “Want to Revamp Your Curriculum? Here’s How to Avoid a Quagmire,” The Chronicle of Higher Education, March 4, 2018.

Gaunder, Alisa. “Guiding Principles for Curriculum Reform in General Education,” The ACAD Leader, June 2018.

“Recent Trends in General Education Design, Learning Outcomes, and Teaching Approaches,” Hart Research Associates, conducted on behalf of the Association of American Colleges and Universities, January 2016.

“General Education Maps and Markers: Designing Meaningful Pathways to Student Achievement,” Association of American Colleges and Universities, January 2015.

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