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Beginning next fall, Boston College freshmen can fulfill core curriculum requirements through new team-taught or linked courses that deal with such topics as the global implications of climate change, genocide and crimes against humanity, the social contexts of violence, and the challenge history and literature face in pursuing truth.
These and other new core courses will ask students to consider aspects of the human condition – such as war, spirituality or health-related issues – through a combination of disciplines, including seemingly disparate pairings such as English and nursing, sociology and earth/environmental sciences, or biology and theatre arts.
The pilot courses, approved last month by the Core Foundations Task Force (CFTF), represent a landmark step in the University’s three-year effort to renew and strengthen its undergraduate core curriculum. Earlier this fall, the CFTF had invited faculty members to submit proposals for interdisciplinary courses that reflect criteria spelled out by two guiding documents, “Toward a Renewed Core” and “The Vision Animating the Boston College Core Curriculum.”
Three of the pilot courses to be introduced in 2015-16 are built on the “Complex Problems” model: team-taught, six-credit classes of around 80 students that address a contemporary problem. In addition, there are six linked pairs of courses in the “Enduring Questions” category: distinct three-credit classes taken by the same 19 students – each taught by a faculty member from a different department – but connected by a common topic and set of questions, and with some shared readings and assignments.
[See separate story for an overview of the pilot courses.]
“I, and the other members of the CFTF, are very happy with how the faculty responded to the call for proposals,” says College of Arts and Sciences Interim Dean Gregory Kalscheur, SJ, who chairs the CFTF. “When you look at the topics and themes these courses deal with, the faculty members teaching them will be presenting some very interesting, thought-provoking questions that align with the mission of core renewal. All through the past few years of the core renewal process, we’ve discussed how central the core is to our identity as a Jesuit, Catholic university, and I’m delighted to see the creativity and thoughtfulness that has gone into developing these courses.”
Fr. Kalscheur noted that a number of other strong course proposals had been received by the task force, but owing to faculty schedules and other logistical considerations, will be considered for implementation in the 2016-17 academic year.
Faculty members teaching the pilot courses next year say they relish the opportunity to bring together teaching and research interests in the context of the undergraduate core curriculum. In some cases, the collaboration was one practically waiting to happen, such as the Complex Problems course on climate change that will be taught by husband-wife team Assistant Professor of Sociology Brian Gareau and Visiting Professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences Tara Pisani Gareau.
“We haven’t had the chance to collaborate since we met as Peace Corps volunteers in Honduras, so we are very excited about this course,” says Brian Gareau. “This is an opportunity for us to work together on a theme that is quite important to both of our research trajectories.”
By contrast, the thought of combining academic specialties had never occurred to Associate Professor of Biology Katherine Dunn and Associate Professor of Theatre Scott Cummings. Their interaction was of a more personal nature: Dunn had spoken with him about her son, a theater major at another college, and found Cummings to be “a voice of reason and compassion for a worried mom.”
As the core renewal process unfolded, Dunn wondered how a former course of hers, Epidemics, Disease and Humanity, might fit into the Enduring Questions format, paired with a course grounded in a humanities-related discipline. Cummings had a concept in mind for a course centered on theatrical creation and the group/individual dynamic.
“The closer I got to proposing my course, the more queasy I became about a pairing that amounted to a kind of academic ‘blind date,’” says Cummings. But then he and Dunn happened to attend a core renewal planning session. “When Kathy showed up at that meeting, my heart did a little dance and I thought, ‘Epidemiology and theatre? Why not?’”
Adds Dunn, “I think we both had the same thought as we looked around the table and tried to imagine with whom we could form some ‘enduring questions.’ In addition to the biology, epidemics have an obvious social context, and theatre is one venue to explore and reflect on its impact, personally and communally.”
Like Dunn and Cummings, Connell School of Nursing Associate Professor Jane Ashley and Professor of English Laura Tanner represent disciplines that appear to have little common ground. But over the course of a 15-year friendship, the two frequently spoke about their classes, teaching methodologies and students’ thought processes. The core renewal initiative provided a means for them to blend their insights, teaching linked courses on the human body in the Enduring Questions format.
“My scholarly interests have always revolved around the human body and its depiction in literature, so when the call for proposals came out I thought of Jane and her work on the body right away,” says Tanner. “In addition to planning shared evening events for both classes, we hope to visit each other’s classes to get a sense of the students’ experiences. I know that Jane is a fabulous teacher, and I am looking forward to learning from her as well.”
Says Ashley, “I love the idea of pairing English and nursing. What could be better then bringing together skills in appreciation, thinking, creativity and communication with a very practical, hands-on, real world application? I hope that our paired courses will encourage our students to be caring, empathetic people who want to change the world.”