Perspectives on the Liberal Arts and Sciences
Course Proposal
General Education Advisory Committee
Queens College, City University of New York
I. Course Information
Course Title:
Credits:
✔
History 168: History and Memory: The United States VT
3
Prerequisites:
None
Existing course, course number:
New course
Department:
Department Contact:
History
Frank Warren
Area of Knowledge and Inquiry
Context of Experience
Extended Requirements
(select one)
(select only if the course
emphasizes one of the
following)
(select only if the course meets
one of the following)
Reading Literature (RL)
Appreciating and Participating
in the Arts (AP)
✔
✔
Pre-Industrial Society (PI)
United States (US)
European Traditions (ET)
Culture and Values (CV)
Analyzing Social Structures (SS)
Abstract or Quantitative
Reasoning (QR)
World Cultures (WC)
Natural Science (NS)
The following information is useful to the subcommittee to estimate the college's progress toward the goal of
offering enough sections and seats in each Perspectives category. How often does the department anticipate the
course will be offered? Please also estimate the anticipated number of sections and number of seats per section.
Every semester
✔
number of sections:
number of seats per section:
1
Every Fall or ✔ Every Spring number of sections:
number of seats per section:
Other:
number of seats per section:
January 2008
number of sections:
30
Page 1 of 5
Course Description
Please include a course description. If the course will include variable topics or be taught in various forms, please
provide as many descriptions of specific sections as possible.
This course will study how history is remembered and how the memory of history contributes to and differs from
the writing of history. Attention will be paid to how historic events are commemorated and what this tells us about
the values and beliefs of those commemorating. The course will explore how different cultures and groups
remember history and the role that institutionalized social structures play in the remembrance of history. Attention
will also be paid to the nature of the discipline of history and the role historic memory and oral history play in the
discipline. The course will be a variable topics course. Depending on the topic, the course may meet the PreIndustrial Extended Knowledge area. The course will meet the United States Context of of Experience. In the
syllabus submitted such topics as the New Nation, a slave rebellion, the Civil War, and the Vietnam are explored
through the study of memory and commemoration.
January 2008
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II. Criteria for Perspectives Courses
Justification
Please describe how the course will address criteria for Perspectives on the Liberal Arts and Sciences courses.
Be sure to include an explanation of the course’s specific learning goals for students to make a connection
between these and the general criteria for Perspectives courses.
Through theoretical readings, the course addresses the criteria dealing with the nature of history and its place within
the Liberal Arts. In terms of a global dimension, this will depend upon whether the topics covered are transnational.
In terms of diversity and the construction of forms of difference, the courses will examine issues of inclusion and
exclusion in the community's or nation's historic memory of events. Change over time is built into the nature of
history courses. There will be primary documents and readings in every section and discussion and student
presentations will assure active learning. To achieve these, History and Memory courses are designed to accomplish
three goals: (1) to introduce students to important theoretical work and the methods and concepts historians
employ when evaluating memory and historic evidence. (2) to introduce students to the techniques and materials of
memory--visual images, monuments and memorials, oral histories and memoirs, stories, epic poems, and novels. (3)
to have students better understand history through an examination of controversies over what conbstitutes public
history, what the controversies are about, and who the groups and individuals involved in them are. This requires
asking questions about what communities and nations choose to forget and remember and how that changes over
time, whose stories are heard and whose are silenced, and how memorializing the past intersects with contemporary
politics and issues and shapes how we think about the future, and reflects the values and beliefs of a society or
groups within a society.
Criteria Checklist
Please be sure that your justification addresses all three criteria 1-3, below. For criteria 4-8, please check all that
apply and discuss these in your justification.
A Perspectives course must:
1. Be designed to introduce students to how a
particular discipline creates knowledge and
understanding.
In addition, a Perspectives course will, where
appropriate to its discipline(s) and subject matter:
✔
4. Be global or comparative in approach.
✔
2. Position the discipline(s) within the liberal
arts and the larger society.
5. Consider diversity and the nature and
construction of forms of difference.
✔
3. Address the goals defined for the particular
Area(s) of Knowledge the course is designed to
fulfill.
✔
7. Reveal the existence and importance of change
over time.
✔
January 2008
6. Engage students in active inquiry.
8. Use primary documents and materials.
Page 3 of 5
III. Course Materials, Assignments, and Activities
Please provide an annotated list of course readings and descriptions of major assignments or exams for the course,
as well as distinctive student activities that will engage students in working toward the course goals discussed in
the course description and/or justification.
Please include the author and title for each reading or text, along with a short description providing information
about how the reading will contribute to course goals.
Please see accompanying sample syllabi
IV. Assessment
Perspectives courses must be recertified every five years, and we are seeking ideas for how to best carry out this
assessment. What forms of evidence that the course is meeting its goals as a Perspectives course would be
appropriate to collect for this course during the next five years? How would you prefer assessment to be
conducted? How might evidence of effective teaching and student learning be collected and evaluated?
The History Department is creating an Outcomes Assessment Committee. Among its charges will be the evaluation
and assessment of the Department's General Education courses. This will involves checking syllabi to see if they are
meeting the criteria and collecting examinations and papers to see if they are measuring the goals of General
Education. Written assignments will be evaluated both in the first year and then over a period of time.
January 2008
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V. Administration
What process will your department develop to oversee this course, suggest and approve changes, and conduct
assessment? Who will be in charge of this process? Also indicate whether the course will be primarily taught by
full-time or adjunct faculty, or by a combination of the two types of instructor.
Proposed General Education courses will be developed using the same process as regular courses--from the
individual who proposes the course, to the departmental curriculum committee, to a department vote, and to the
GEAC and college curriculum committee. The departmental curriculum committee in conjunction with the outcomes
assessment committee will oversee the courses. The course is designed to be taught by full-time faculty, although,
on occasion, an experienced and well-qualified adjunct might teach the course.
VI. Syllabus
Please attach a sample syllabus (or set of syllabi, for courses on variable topics or courses that will be taught in
variable formats).
Some resources to guide syllabus construction:
•
The Provost's page outlining guidelines for syllabi:
http://qcpages.qc.cuny.edu/provost/Cur_stud/Syllabus expectations.htm
•
Sample syllabi for W courses, from Writing Across the Curriculum:
http://qcpages.qc.cuny.edu/writing/wsyllabi.htm
•
Goals for Student Writing at Queens College:
http://qcpages.qc.cuny.edu/writing/Goals.htm
•
Harvard’s Bok Center for Teaching and Learning, suggestions for syllabus planning:
http://isites.harvard.edu/icb/icb.do?keyword=k1985&pageid=icb.page29695
•
Lehman College’s Gen Ed Syllabi Project:
http://www.lehman.edu/lehman/programs/generaledu/gened_syllabi_project.html
Submit this completed form and a sample syllabus (or set of syllabi) by email to Eva Fernández
(eva.fernandez@qc.cuny.edu), Director, Center for Teaching and Learning.
January 2008
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