Wednesday, January 30, 2002

Time requested to reach CUE faculty consensus
By Brandon Ortiz
Staff Reporter

Requests for more time to hammer out a consensus over controversial elements of the proposed Common Undergraduate Experience will likely be made in today’s Faculty Assembly, professors said.

Plans call for the CUE, a major overhaul of the core curriculum that has been in the works for over a year, to be approved by faculty by April, but many professors said the core is being rushed.

“This process is going too far, too fast,” said religion professor Claudia Camp, who was the principle author of an e-mail signed by 15 professors in the religion, philosophy and English departments Jan. 18 that criticized the CUE as “marginalizing” the humanities.

“I hope we stop and say we need another year to chew on this,” Camp said.

Faculty will discuss the CUE at 3:30 p.m. today in Moudy Building North, room 141, in a closed meeting. Faculty Senate will review comments and suggestions made in the assembly Thursday and will try to “put together a consensus document,” said Carolyn Spence Cagle, chairwoman of Faculty Senate.

William H. Koehler, provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs, said he would not be against pushing back approval if it would improve the CUE.

“That is something I will take up,” Koehler said. “I am supportive of everyone having ample time (to study the CUE). (But) I would like to see this resolved by the end of the school year.”

Even though Koehler said he would ideally like to see the CUE approved by April, it wouldn’t harm the university to wait a year.

“Many people would argue the curriculum is good so why change it,” Koehler said. “(A delay is) not a setback. I would rather wait to have a better proposal.”

Many faculty have complained tight deadlines have not allowed the CUE to have enough campus wide input.

In an e-mail Jan. 24 responding to concerns that the CUE marginalized the humanities and was created with little faculty input, Phil Hartman said the UCR Drafting Committee, which he was a member of, did not have time to solicit much input.

“The charge from the Provost to the (drafting) committee was to develop a curriculum by the end of the fall semester,” Hartman wrote. “This time-line did not allow for systematic and widespread communication once we began the task at hand. However, the committee, (committee chairman Richard) Enos in particular, interacted extensively with faculty from a number of departments and colleges ... in an honest attempt to represent their desires and concerns to the committee.”

M.J. Neeley School of Business Dean Robert Lusch, also a member of the committee, said the deadline was tough, but necessary.

“We had a real ambitious schedule,” Lusch said. “But faculty will meet forever and forever without a deadline. It was a tight deadline, but we had to have one.”

Brandon Ortiz
b.p.ortiz@student.tcu.edu


credits

TCU Daily Skiff © 2002


Accessibility