Curriculum Committee Minutes
October 17, 2000
Present: Barry, Beck, Breitenbach, Clark, Hale, Kerrick, Kontogeorgopoulos, Lenderman, NeffLippman, Neshyba (chair), Pasco-Pranger, Pinzino, Sugimoto, Tomhave, Warning, Washburn
Visitor: Ricigliano
Neshyba called the meeting to order at 9:04 a.m. The minutes for the meeting of October 10
were approved as posted.
Announcements
Ricigliano announced that the library would host an open house on Wednesday, October 17.
Washburn announced that Physical Therapy, Study Abroad, and Psychology had all submitted
their five-year curriculum review packages and that these would be distributed to the relevant
subcommittees.
Report of the Humanistic Perspective Core subcommittee
Warning (chair) brought forward a new course that his subcommittee recommended for inclusion
in the Humanistic Perspective Core. ACTION: Warning M/S/P to approve Religion 218
(“Crime and Punishment”) as a Humanistic Perspective Core course. There were two
abstentions.
Continued discussion of guidelines for the proposed new Core
Barry distributed a revised version of his draft preface for the Core guidelines. After a brief
discussion that yielded an editorial suggestion, the Committee indicated its approval of Barry’s
draft.
Barry distributed copies of the response to the Committee from the Writing and Rhetoric task
force. The task force expressed its willingness to make the changes suggested by the
Committee. Specifically, the task force clarified the wording in those sections of the guidelines
that contained parenthetical lists. When those lists begin with the word “including,” the task force
intends the items listed to be prescriptive, in the sense that all Writing and Rhetoric seminars
must do these things. When the list begin with the phrase “for example,” the task force intends
the items listed to be merely illustrative.
The response from the Writing and Rhetoric task force also included a possible rewording of
section III of the guidelines: “These seminars may be organized around topics, themes, or texts;
in each seminar the material must be appropriate and accessible for meaningful work by first-year
students.” However, this revision is still under discussion by the task force, so no action was
taken by the Committee.
Neshyba turned the Committee’s attention to the guidelines for the seminar in Scholarly and
Creative Inquiry. Warning urged that the word “exciting” be removed from the learning objectives,
which state that “the purpose of this core area is to introduce students to the exciting processes
of scholarly and creative inquiry through direct participation in that inquiry.”
Beck asked about the distinctiveness of this Core rubric. He wondered how this seminar differed
from the other freshman seminar on Writing and Rhetoric. Pasco-Pranger answered that the
Scholarly and Creative Inquiry seminars could be taught by teachers from any discipline, whereas
that possibility would be less likely for Writing and Rhetoric seminars, which had as their aim the
improvement of writing and rhetorical skills. Neff-Lippman described the seminars as two sides of
the same coin: the Writing and Rhetoric seminar would focus on argument while the Scholarly
and Creative Inquiry seminar would focus on a topic. In reply, Neshyba noted that the guidelines
for both seminars seem to give attention to argument. He pointed to the following language in the
Scholarly and Creative Inquiry seminar’s learning objectives: these seminars increase students’
“ability to frame and explore questions, to support, claims, and to respond to others’ questions
and differing opinions.” Breitenbach responded that the ways of framing and exploring questions
and supporting claims might vary widely from discipline to discipline; hence students in the
Scholarly and Creative Inquiry seminars would not necessarily be receiving the kind of
generalized training in argumentation expected from Writing and Rhetoric seminars. Warning
commented that he could imagine a course that would fit both Core rubrics. He wondered if that
prospect revealed a problem of distinctiveness. Neff-Lippman replied that it might be possible to
devise such a course but that it would not be possible to teach it; there would be too much to do
in one semester. Barry concurred, citing the difficulties he had experienced as the instructor of a
freshman seminar that had been designed to teach both writing and a substantive topic.
Neshyba turned the discussion to section III of the guidelines and asked how the Committee
would enforce the pedagogical requirements in it. Pasco-Pranger, who had chaired the Scholarly
and Creative Inquiry task force, stated that the intention of this section was to prevent instructors
from running the seminars as lecture courses. Tomhave noted that the word “should” made
requirements, in effect, unenforceable. Pasco-Pranger indicated a willingness to replace “should”
with “will” so that the last sentence of section III would read, “Pedagogical methods will take
advantage of the opportunities provided by a seminar setting.” Barry observed that the faculty
were attracted to the idea of freshman seminars because of the promise that there would be only
17 students per seminar; he thought it reasonable to expect pedagogy to reflect this small class
size. Sugimoto asked whether this final sentence of section III were even necessary, given that
pedagogical methods were already mentioned elsewhere in the section.
Neshyba asked about the wording in section II about “advance preparation.” Pasco-Pranger said
that the task force wanted to prevent instructors from creating seminars that would expect
students to have previous preparation in the subject area.
Warning observed that the guidelines frequently use the word “must,” a word that has been
known to provoke the faculty. He suggested that rewriting the guidelines in the present tense
would permit the task force to eliminate this annoying word.
Pasco-Pranger summarized the four issues that the Committee wanted the Scholarly and
Creative Inquiry task force to consider: (1) whether to remove the word “exciting”; (2) whether to
retain the last sentence of section III and, if so, whether to make it prescriptive; (3) whether to
change the phrase “advance preparation” to “previous preparation”; and (4) whether to remove
the word “must” from the guidelines. She promised a quick response from the task force.
Barry said that the Committee would next discuss the guidelines for the “ways of knowing” Core
categories. He urged members to read all five of these guidelines so the Committee could
consider them as a single set. He noted that the Committee had only two more meetings to
complete its review if there were to be a realistic prospect of bringing the proposed Core
guidelines before the faculty at its meeting on November 20.
At 9:51 a.m. Breitenbach M/S/P to adjourn.
Respectfully submitted,
William Breitenbach
Secretary