September 9, 1998

Dear Colleagues,

Today (Wednesday, September 9, 1998), members of the faculty will be asked to vote on a proposal brought forward by the ad hoc Curriculum Review Committee. As members of the committee, we strongly urge you to attend this meeting. Before the meeting, we ask you to review this document and others you will receive from us at this time

The ad hoc curriculum committee was formed by the Faculty Council and the President in response to a vote at the February 12, 1996, Faculty Meeting that (a) approved the use of substitute courses (formerly the Foundations Program) for no longer than two years and (b) required the faculty to meet again no later than February 1, 1998, to confirm the present restricted distribution plan or to adopt a new set of requirements. The minutes of this and preceding faculty meetings indicated serious problems with implementing restricted distribution requirements and a sense that the system was in disarray, with little intellectual coherence. We have acted on this faculty mandate.

The ad hoc committee began meeting weekly in the fall of 1996. We began our work by reading extensively about curricular issues and looking at what other schools have done. In the Spring of 1997, we held meetings to which every faculty member was invited. We also met with students, other committees (e.g., Undergraduate Curriculum Committee), and with outside consultants. In all, including this year, we met among ourselves more than 50 times, and held more than 30 meetings with faculty, and at least eight with students. Every faculty member was invited twice, either by department or personally, and was welcome to attend other meetings as well.

In our meetings with faculty and students, we found significant enthusiasm for a freshman seminar system. These seminars would, in addition to providing information about the university and its resources, expose all first-year students to a small, discussion-based course experience in which they could gain experience in discussing and writing about complex ideas. The primary reservation expressed by faculty about freshman seminars was resource-related, and we were assured by the President that this issue should not dissuade us, that if the faculty wanted such a system, the resources would be forthcoming.

Many faculty-and students as well, as reflected in COFHE surveys-stressed the need for greater attention to writing, speaking, and quantitative reasoning. These are addressed in the "required capacities" segment of our proposal. In addition, a sizable portion of the faculty expressed strong support for a language competency requirement. The ad hoc committee has accepted a recommendation prepared by the Language Steering Committee. Though it will be voted on as a separate requirement rather than as part of the primary proposal, our committee endorses the recommendation as desirable and fully in keeping with the overall proposal.

What remained to discover was how (or whether) to expose students to courses outside their major requirements. We considered several possibilities. (1) a content-based set of core courses in specific areas , (2) a distribution-type system, of which there are many variations, and (3) no courses required outside those defined by the major, other than the number needed for graduation. The first option, a core curriculum, was favored by some faculty, although, even within that group, delineating a common body of knowledge and agreeing on a set of courses required of all students would be quite a challenge. The third option, no required courses outside those defined by the major, won support from some who believed that students should be able to choose those courses and bodies of knowledge they wish to pursue. Our collective perception was that neither of these options enjoyed a majority position within the faculty.

One option remained: a distribution system. In our meetings with faculty, some expressed the view that the current system was not sufficiently "broken" to require alteration. But we perceived the broader view to be that we did indeed need a change. Currently, we simply sort courses into bins according to the departmental affiliation of their instructors. Many faculty thought we needed a more thoughtful, rational structure for a distribution system. The structure we selected is both content-based and process-based. We assume that the content of most courses taught at Rice is substantial and important and of potential interest to at least some students.

Because modes of inquiry vary among disciplines, the distinctive aspects of these approaches emerged in our discussions as a viable way to address many of the concerns that had been expressed in our meetings. Lack of content was not one of these concerns. Again, we assumed, and continue to assume, that ANY course at Rice will feature great amounts of content, that content is critical to reaching any perspective on a discipline and to understanding the particular disciplinary approach, and further, that it would be impossible to recruit Rice professors to teach content-free courses. If lack of content was not a concern, there were others. Many faculty and some students worried about the inability of students to think analytically, to approach problems from more than one perspective, or to link information from one course or one topic with another. Therefore, we chose modes of inquiry as a means of generating a cohesive structure for the distribution system we were proposing. The categories are designed both to provide greater opportunities to move across conventional "lines," and to reflect, albeit incompletely and imperfectly, the distinctive ways in which we do our work as scholars. We also wanted to create a place and a rationale for faculty from different divisions to discuss and develop aspects of undergraduate education that are of concern to us all.

We have used the "Ways of Knowing" as an umbrella term for these categories. That has proved to be an unfortunate choice, because it conveyed, to our surprise, that we wanted courses that were concerned primarily with epistemological, theoretical, and methodological issues and, further, that our proposal implicitly endorsed the view that no objective knowledge exists. This is not our intention, nor is it what the proposal actually says. We are interested in the ways different segments of the university carry out their work and the kind of work that occupies them: looking at the development of great historical, philosophical, ethical, and religious traditions; grappling seriously and at length with texts, objects, and arguments of various sorts; interpreting human behavior using a variety of approaches; and understanding how scientists and engineers go about their work and getting at least some exposure to what they have learned. Perhaps we should have called these categories "Modes of Inquiry" or even "General Education Distribution Categories." We hope you will not let the wording be a stumbling block.

Our committee wanted to add ethical and moral reasoning as another dimension, either as a required capacity or as a distribution course. We were dissuaded from this for two reasons. First, some faculty thought the teaching of ethics could best be done within individual disciplines. More importantly, as a practical matter, the philosophers urged us not to propose such a requirement, lest it swamp them with students. We still think it is a good idea and urge the faculty to give serious consideration to this in the future.

Our encouragement of interdisciplinary courses is intended, at least in part, to mirror the success of Rice's several research institutes and centers, which allow faculty housed in different departments to engage problems of common concern in a more integrated, creative, and productive fashion. We think it would be advantageous to introduce into our undergraduate curriculum some of the dynamism that characterizes the multiple centers and institutes on our campus. At the same time, we are not proposing that every course needs to be team-taught, or indeed that every course requires change, or that every course be interdisciplinary. We have many courses that are excellent for the purposes we envision.

We view implementation of this curriculum as an exceptionally serious issue. Selection of courses that could count in specific categories obviously raises significant concerns within the faculty, and student issues with regard to transfer credit and other aspects of the curriculum are also important. Transitions are difficult and challenging, but often lead to richer possibilities. The committee structure we propose, which is described at the beginning of the FAQ sheet you have received, is intended to place the decisions about curriculum in the hands of the faculty. At present, the deans and the Provost have the approval authority for all distribution courses. The proposed Committee for General Education is intended to provide a more bottom-up structure for the curriculum and to ensure that an evolutionary process will continue into the future rather than stopping with a faculty vote. The absence of detail, which troubles some, is intentional in that implementation of curricular change requires significant latitude. Our vision has been to entrust to a group from among us the responsibility for implementing and updating, with the continuous advice of the faculty as a whole, this curricular change over a period of years. We feared that too detailed a plan would preclude the flexibility and movement in the curriculum that we felt is essential in an evolutionary process. Lack of that kind of continuing attention and oversight is partially responsible for the hodge-podge we now have.

The President has accepted our recommendation that this committee be appointed from a list of candidates provided to him by Faculty Council, our elected representatives. We have significant faith and trust in the wisdom of this ever-changing group of faculty to evolve a strong and dynamic curricular structure for university-wide requirements.

We do not pretend that this is a perfect system. We are virtually certain that it would be possible to find fault with any curriculum any committee were to devise. That, indeed, is the experience of all curriculum committees in all universities. We do believe this is a viable plan, much better than our current system, and capable of continual improvement. We invite you to support it.


The ad hoc Curriculum Review Committee