The first cohort of courses under Boston College’s core curriculum renewal initiative has received good marks from faculty and students alike, which core administrators feel augurs well for the current and upcoming slate of pilot classes.
Eight pilot courses debuted last fall: two in the “Complex Problems” model, team-taught, six-credit classes of around 80 students that address a contemporary problem; and six pairs of linked classes in the “Enduring Questions” category, distinct three-credit classes taken by the same 19 students that are each taught by a faculty member from a different department but connected by common topics, sets of questions, readings and assignments.
Research conducted by the University suggests that the fall 2015 core pilot classes fulfilled many of the core renewal aims, such as to challenge students intellectually, inspire them to examine their values and beliefs, and help them consider future career paths.
These findings – based on course evaluations, surveys and focus group interviews – were part of the discussion at a town meeting held by the University Core Renewal Committee (UCRC), created last year to provide governance after a three-year effort to renew and strengthen BC’s undergraduate core curriculum.
Associate Professor of History Julian Bourg, who is associate dean for the core in the Morrissey College of Arts and Sciences, told the audience in Fulton 511 that the experience of last fall’s pilot courses could be summed up as “Good things are happening when faculty from different departments are working together.”
The creativity and innovation shown by faculty in designing pilot courses such as Global Implications of Climate Change, Understanding Race, Gender and Violence – both in the Complex Problems category – and the paired Enduring Questions classes Truth-Telling in Literature and Truth-Telling in History, Bourg said, will be an asset to the renewal of the core curriculum.
“The core renewal is an opportunity to rethink the core across the University,” he said, noting that core pedagogical innovation grants are available to faculty members interested in developing interdisciplinary core classes [contact bc-core21@bc.edu].
“One longstanding issue is that faculty spend too much time in their own silos. As we’ve seen, the core classes offer a means to put together resonant interests and work with one another.”
Institute for the Liberal Arts Director Mary Crane summarized results from the research on student and faculty attitudes toward the pilot courses. Freshmen said they found the classes “challenging and interesting” and – particularly those in the Enduring Questions classes – that their thinking had changed in several areas, notably their view of the discipline, their choice of major, and their sense of their place in the world. Students in the Complex Problems courses liked having the perspectives of two faculty members representing two disciplines, and appreciated the courses’ emphasis on reflection.
Faculty said that students in the pilot courses “connected to” the core curriculum’s mission of fostering rigorous intellectual development and religious and personal formation, Crane reported. Students achieved most learning goals in the Enduring Questions courses, performed “at a higher level than faculty typically see from freshmen,” and were able to learn methodologies and approaches from both disciplines, according to faculty.
Faculty and teaching assistants described the Complex Problems class workload as heavy, and requiring considerable preparation and organization given the different components (lectures, labs and weekly reflection), Crane added.
Comments from a survey administered by the Office of Institutional Research, Planning and Assessment indicated the extent of the classes’ impact on students: “I now continuously think about the issues and topics brought up in the class on a daily basis,” read one; “Complex Problems classes are not just classes where you can check in at the lecture and then check out to never think of the material again. The knowledge you learn and the experiences that you gain interacting with your peers are readily relevant to my entire life,” read another. One student said the class “Changed my way of thinking, my major, what I wanted to do with my life.”
Also at the town meeting event, a panel of faculty members who had created and taught fall 2015 pilot courses shared their experiences and impressions.
Associate Professor of History Sylvia Sellers-Garcia said she was pleasantly surprised by the level of sophistication in students taking her Truth-Telling in History class. “It’s so critical to encounter them at this point in their lives. They were ready to be challenged, and they felt they were challenged to rethink what they had learned.”
Associate Professor of the Practice in English Allison Adair, whose Truth-Telling in Literature class was paired with Sellers-Garcia’s, agreed that the students seemed to appreciate that resolutions posed by the material were not always obvious or easy.
“The idea was that we would work this through together. I’d say, ‘I don’t know the answer, but this is what we think about when we ask the questions to help us find it.’”
“I learned as much as the students,” said Associate Professor of Sociology C. Shawn McGuffey, who co-taught Understanding Race, Gender and Violence with Professor of History Marilynn Johnson. The class covered issues and events such as the Rodney King beating, truth and reconciliation efforts in countries recovering from conflicts, and LGBT-related violence, and included screenings and discussions of controversial films as well as class excursions to Roxbury and Dorchester neighborhoods.
The number of available seats in pilot core renewal courses in 2016-17 – restricted to freshmen, as were the 2015-16 classes –will more than double, Bourg noted. At the end of the pilot period in 2018, the UCRC will formulate plans for fully developing a renewed core curriculum, to be approved by the provost.
For more on the University’s core renewal initiative, visit the core renewal initiatives page.
By Sean Smith | News and Public Affairs