By the fall semester of 2016, the general education requirements for Conn students will already begin to transform. Currently, there is a working group on integrative strands and disciplinary breadth, which was introduced by the faculty steering and conference committee. The current requirement design at Conn requires students to complete one course from each of the following seven areas: physical and biological sciences, mathematics and formal reasoning, social sciences, critical studies in literature and the arts, reative arts, philosophical and religious studies, and historical studies. In addition, students must fulfill a foreign language requirement and a writing requirement. Each of these courses is taken for a letter grade and must be worth at least four credit hours. With this model, students are not allowed as much liberty as the college would like. With ample planning, the requirements will begin to change.
According to materials found on Moodle concerning the new program, called Connections, will “span all four years of a student’s undergraduate experience.” Connections encourages academic and creative questioning, fosters interdisciplinary connections, and helps students develop skills they can apply to life after Conn.
The first part of the Connections framework is integrative pathways. Integrative pathways is a way to “offer students an opportunity to achieve academic integration within a broad intellectual framework.” There will be multiple pathways for students to choose from, and “every pathway will be organized around a central theme, in relation to which students will consider an animating question that provides for their work.” Most students will join an integrative pathways by the fall semester of their sophomore year. Students will be required to take at least four classes in their pathway, and each pathway will consist of four principle components.
The first component is thematic inquiry, which requires each student to take a designated course that “presents the theme and provides and overview of the pathway.” The second component is curricular itinerary, which dictates that each student take three other courses, chosen from a roster created by the pathway’s core faculty group. In these courses, the students “will explore the theme of the pathway in light of their animating questions.” This third component is global/local engagement, which preps students to “pursue purposeful engagement in a local or international context, such as study away, an internship, or community-based learning.” The final component is the senior reflection, which will replace the current senior thesis. During the fall of senior year, each student will have the opportunity to “reflect on the different elements of their pathway, in the context of their overall undergraduate experience.” This will also be connected to an all-college symposium, where students will share their responses to animating questions with the College community.
The final aspect of the integrative pathways is the modes of inquiry, which will replace the current seven areas. The five new modes of inquiry will be creative expression, critical interpretation and analysis, quantitative and formal reasoning, scientific inquiry and analysis and social and historical inquiry. This will give students more freedom to take courses that are of interest to them.
Students matriculating in the fall of 2016 are not subject to the current seven-area general education program. The class of 2020 and other transfers students will be expected to complete classes in all five modes of inquiry. In the spring of 2017, these students will have the option to apply to one of the approved integrative pathways. By the fall of 2018, it is expected that the faculty will have created enough integrative pathways for every student to be enrolled.
The main mastermind behind the Integrative Pathways development is Associate Professor of Mathematics and Associate Dean of the College for Curriculum, Christopher Hammond. To become to Associate Dean of the College for Curriculum, Professor Hammond stepped down from his role as Head of the Mathematics Department. Now, sixty percent of his time is dedicated to teaching mathematics, and the rest is spent working to develop the College’s curriculum, particularly Connections. Professor Hammond made the decision to become the Associate Dean of the College for Curriculum because he was already heavily involved in developing Conn’s curriculum. Professor Hammond has found that developing a new curriculum is certainly not a simple task. “The big tension is between disciplinary breadth and student interaction,” said Professor Hammond. He believes that the current program gives students disciplinary breadth, but it doesn’t ask students to apply what they are learning to real world problems. Professor Hammond wants students to integrate their education and give themselves more agency over their education.
Professor Hammond has made it clear that if students have any ideas relating to the development of the pathways, they should share their ideas. A committee will soon be created to discuss ideas, and there is a portal on Moodle that gives students access to information about Connections. In addition, a blog is available for students to learn even more about Connections. •
