Professors express concern over new curriculum
By Sarah Chacko
Staff Reporter

Some faculty members say they are concerned that proposed design changes to the current core curriculum could place the integrity of courses at stake.

Recently proposed design changes to the current core curriculum will put more focus on student interests and less on department boundaries, said Nowell Donovan, a member of the core curriculum committee.

“The core rests on an outcomes-based philosophy,” Donovan said. “What experiences, character, skills do we want students to take from this, how does the course meet that, will that outcome meet the mission of TCU?”

Daryl Schmidt, a humanities representative in the core committee, said the proposed design changes the perspective of education from teacher-end to learner-end.

“The question is what should you be getting out of it, instead of what am I giving,” said Schmidt, religion department chairman.

Professors expressed concern that the proposed core is moving further away from TCU’s mission statement than it is focusing on it.

Gene Smith, a history professor, said educating individuals to think as ethical leaders and responsible citizens requires a historical understanding of leadership responsibilities. History as a discipline, without being placed in a broader context, will lose its principles, he said.

“Where we, as a human society, are going derives from where we come,” Smith said. “If we don’t know from where we come, how can we make accurate choices that influence where we are going.”

Donovan said the new core is a basic start for the entire student body — a minimum to be added to. This independent outline is about student’s following their own wishes and allows more possibilities, he said.

“It improves students’ academic freedom, their freedom of choice,” Donovan said.
This freedom requires the breakdown of departments and the power they hold over courses, Donovan said. History classes will be required, he said, but they may not come directly out of the history department.

Faculty Senate Chairwoman Peggy Watson said other departments, like fine arts, may propose courses that meet history requirements. Watson said the vast majority of history classes will come from the history department because it understands the discipline.

However, the option is open for other departments to propose courses that investigate their own history, she said.

With the new core overlays, department courses will overlap under the Heritage, Mission, Vision and Values (HMVV) category. Though this might seem to call for course, and ultimately, faculty cuts in the future, Watson said, it will instead allow more room for departments.

German professor Jeffrey Todd said he is not worried that cutting the language requirement will decrease enrollment in language courses. However, he said, the cuts go against the university’s mission statement.

Philip Hadlock, a French professor, said that by not including a university-wide language requirement, TCU is overlooking an important part of its mission statement.

“It would seem that some initiation into the languages and critical traditions of other cultures would play a key role in achieving the sort of ‘global-mindedness’ that the university envisions,” he said.

Donovan said newly designed courses go through the department they are designed for and the HMVV committee, which assess the course’s objectives to see if they meet its established outcomes. The HMVV committee that decides the integrity of these courses will probably be Faculty Senate elected, the balance of which must reflect all interest groups, he said.

Smith said he understands anytime a new core is introduced, there are growing pains.

The Faculty Senate hopes to implement the proposed core for first year students by fall 2004. Part of the proposal is that the core curriculum be assessed every five years to evaluate its effectiveness.

Andy Fort, Faculty Senate assistant secretary, said the core has evolved a great deal through the years, and its four-year goal for implementation will be an evolutionary process as well.

s.e.chacko@tcu.edu