In 1973, Conn adopted the general education curriculum that we are familiar with now. On November 5, the faculty expressed their commitment to developing the framework of Curriculum ReVISION, a new general education curriculum, through an overwhelmingly lopsided faculty vote.
Education is not static; it evolves to meet the needs of changing society. Our current general education program has already been in place for over 40 years, and for many it’s not a favorite part of their academic experience.
A senior who wishes to remain anonymous said, “I feel like it’s a good idea to have those kind of requirements—after all, I have chosen to come to a liberal arts school. If it weren’t for the Gen Ed requirements I wouldn’t have found my major. But our requirements are sort of dated.”
According to Associate Dean of Studies for juniors and seniors Philip Ray, more and more seniors run into trouble as they put off their area requirements, especially the science requirement, and find out many courses in that area have already been closed to juniors and seniors.
In response, our current Curriculum ReVISION will be launched. It includes redesigned first-year seminars, team advising, Conn Courses, Integrative Strand and Modes of Inquiry.
Revised first-year seminars and team advising have already been developed into pilot programs this year and will be formally implemented next fall. They are intended to enhance first-year students’ experiences by creating more opportunities for interaction with faculty, staff and fellow students. Seminars with overlapping themes are grouped into clusters, featuring varied forms of learning in which students from different seminars are able to interact with each other.
First-years in the pilot programs also have an advising team, including their seminar’s professor as faculty advisor, a CELS advisor and a peer advisor. The word “team” means the advisors are in constant communication and have a shared “syllabus” of advising, which makes the advising process more intensive and intentional.
A first-year in a pilot cluster called “Living in America: The Real and the Imagined” offered her opinion: “We have a lot of special events, like speeches given by guest speakers and field trips. Many of them brought knowledge to life and opened my eyes, but still a few of them, I would say, are only an innovation in form; the content still needs more crafting.” In terms of advising, she said, “I love my CELS advisor. I would schedule a meeting with her every month, and it feels so good to start thinking about career from the very first year in college.”
In addition to first-year seminars, a robust pool of Conn Courses, mostly at the 100-level, is being designed by a working group this year. Conn Courses will focus on some broad topics and address them using interdisciplinary approaches. The Courses will be within particular major departments, but they will touch on other subjects, providing great opportunities for non-major students.
After the Conn Courses, which will give students a first flavor of connection and integration, students will be expected to integrate concepts they learn even further during their sophomore and junior years by choosing a group of four courses that revolve around a central theme and completing a capstone project in their senior year. This innovation is called the Integrative Strand. “The idea of Integrative Strand grows out of our interdisciplinary centers,” Professor Jefferson Singer, Chair of Faculty Steering and Conference Committee, explained. “We are trying to extend that to reach the full student body, but in a smaller way, meaning not every student is going to have a full certificate experience, but they will still have an opportunity to make meaningful interdisciplinary connections among their courses.”
Finally, the current seven-area distribution requirement—our most familiar part of the general education—will be replaced by Modes of Inquiry, possibly including Creative Expression, Critical Interpretation and Analysis, Scientific Analysis, Quantitative Reasoning, Social Inquiry and Languages.
The redesigned general education is not simply a change in “requirements.” Instead, it suggests a new way for students to look at their education. Professor Singer said, “It would offer the students an opportunity to sample from the curriculum in a slightly different way, one that is less discipline-focused and less focused on specific departments to satisfy the distribution requirements. It will encourage students to do a little bit more looking more widely across the curriculum—to ask where does this type of knowledge, or this form of inquiry, happen, and select courses that fulfill that particular mode.”
“It really represents a paradigm shift, in that we are moving from a conventional distribution model to an integrated model,” Professor Amy Dooling, former Chair of Educational Planning Committee summarized. “Under the new program, general education courses will be threaded throughout all four years of students’ experience.”
Today’s society is arguably more diverse and changing more rapidly than any other time in history. Ten years from now, many of us might be working in jobs that don’t exist today. It’s no longer a single, static field of knowledge that matters; the skills of thinking, learning and cooperating with people of different backgrounds are of paramount importance. The two leading questions in the ReVISION process, as Professor Dooling pointed out, are just “what constitutes a 21st century liberal arts education, and then even more than that, what constitutes a 21st century Connecticut College education.” In an era of “mass higher education,” as historian John R. Thelin puts it, we as a small liberal arts college have to make the best out of our unique strengths to survive and thrive.
This is actually not the first time in our college’s history that an attempt has been made to reform the curriculum. In 2004, “Questions-based” model, a radical change in curriculum, was proposed by the Educational Planning Committee, and it got voted down. The first-year seminars were added after that, but the general education program remained essentially as it was until today.
Now, ten years later, we have started to look at our curriculum once again. We have struggled and there have been consequences left by the failed former attempts. But now we are collectively making our next major effort, in which the most cherished values of our college are manifested to the fullest extent.
Our belief in Inclusive Excellence, a commitment to take into account different backgrounds and different needs of students, is greatly emphasized in ReVISION. “In a way, you could almost argue it’s the foundational aspect of all of [curricular revision],” Professor Singer said. “We really have a goal to say that every student should be able to come through the College, bringing a range of backgrounds and particular circumstances, and by the time they leave, have reached their full potential.”
Besides Inclusive Excellence being highlighted in the content of reformed general education, the process of how the new framework is achieved demonstrates exactly our long-held belief of shared governance. Professor Dooling said, “For me, it has been the best experience of shared governance that I’ve been through. Shared governance is at the core of our institution, but we don’t always see it in practice. This process has been an extraordinary moment for the College, when we’ve seen shared governance at its very best.”
Since 2012, discussion and work have been taking place extensively and collectively. Gabby Arenge ’14, former Chair of Academic Affairs at SGA, recalled the ReVISION Week last semester: “There were a lot of seniors and juniors engaged in the discussions, even though they probably are not going to experience any of these changes in any real sense. They still care about it because they know it has a lasting effect.”
Transparent and inclusive, the process moves slowly but steadily, making sure all the different voices are heard. As a result, it will not only yield a 21st-century education model, but also make our sense of community stronger than ever.
(Note: the details of elements of the revised general education program introduced above are still in development and therefore subject to change. If passed, they will be implemented gradually in the next few years). •
