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