U N I V E RS I T Y OF
1119 Main A d m i n i s t r a t i o n B u i l d u i g
College Park, M a r y l a n d 20742-5031
301.405.5252 TEL 301.405.8195 FAX
MARYLAND
OFFICE O F T H E SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT AND PROVOST
December 2,2014
MEMORANDUM
TO:
Bomiie Thornton D i l l
Dean, College o f Arts and Humanities
FROM:
Elizabeth Beise
Associate Provost for Academic Planning and Programs
SUBJECT:
Proposal to Modify the College Requirements for all Arts and Humanities
Bachelor Programs (PCC log no. 14005)
The proposal to modify the college requirements for all Arts and Humanities bachelor
programs has been approved. A copy o f the approved proposal is attached.
The change is effective Spring 2015. Please ensure that the change is fully described in
the Undergraduate Catalog and i n all relevant descriptive materials, including the programs'
four-year plans (contact Lisa K i e l y at lkiely(a),umd.edu for more information), and that all
advisors are informed.
MDC/
Enclosure
cc:
Gregory Miller, Chair, Senate PCC Committee
Barbara G i l l , Office o f Student Financial A i d
Reka Montfort, University Senate
Erin Taylor, Division o f Information Technology
Pam Phillips, Institutional Research, Planning & Assessment
Anne Turkos, University Archives
Linda Y o k o i , Office o f the Registrar
Cynthia Stevens, Office o f Undergraduate Studies
Alene Moyer, College o f Arts and Humanities
THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND, C O L L E G E PARK
PROGRAM/CURRICULUM/UNIT PROPOSAL
•
Please email the rest of the proposal as an MSWord attachment
to pcc-suhmissionsfeumd.cdu.
•
PCC LOG NO.
lAOOS
Please submit the signed form to the Office of the Associate Provost
for Academic Planning and Programs, 1119 Main Administration Building, Campus.
College/School:
Please also add College/School Unit Code-First 8 digits:
Unit Codes can be found at: https://hvpprod.umd.edu/Html Reports/units, htm
Department/Program:
Please also add Department/Program Unit Code-Last 7 digits:
Type of Action (choose one):
X Curriculum change (including informal specializations) • New academic degree/award program
• Curriculum change for an LEP Program
• New Professional Studies award iteration
• Renaming ofprogram or formal Area of Concentration
• New Minor
• Addition/deletion offormal Area of Concentration
• Request to create an online version of an existing
program
n Suspend/delete program
Italics indicate that the proposed program action must be presented to the full University Senate for consid
Summary of Proposed Action:
Replace U N I V l O l requirement with ARHU158 for all Arts and Humanities undergraduate programs.
Departmental/Unit Contact Person for Proposal:
APPROVAL SIGNATURES - Please print name, sign, and date. Use additional lines for multi-un
1. Department Committee Chair
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Summary of Proposed Action:
The College of Arts and Humanities currently requires freshmen incoming A R H U majors who are not already
participating in a living learning program to take a 2-credit U N I V l O l course to introduce them to academic
expectations at U M D and strategies for success along with a general introduction to the campus and college.
A R H U would like to modify this requirement in favor of a 3-credit seminar-type course, ARHU158, in order to
introduce a strong research experience for incoming freshmen integrated with the academic success and skillbuilding part of U N I V ' s focus. Our proposal is for ARHU158 to take the place of U N I V l O l as a required
course for incoming freshmen A R H U majors not currently enrolled in a living learning program.
The goals of A R H U 158 also align with the FIRE initiative from the Provost's office as it will expose new
A R H U majors to several research perspectives from across the college within a focused, theme-based course.
Our first pilot will be offered in Spring 2015. We are currently seeking Gen Ed approval for ARHU158A, the
first version of the 158 course.
Rationale:
ARHU's U N I V l O l course has long been a department/discipline focused version of UNlVlOO, the stated goals
of which are to introduce students to University life in a small classroom setting. "Study skills, career decisionmaking, and student development processes will be explored." In ARHU's version, U N I V l O l , students are
divided into sections for History majors, or English majors, or Music majors, etc., with just one section for the
general A R H U major population. We would like to carry forward the advising and academic success goals of
our U N I V l O l while giving incoming freshmen a deeper understanding of the College as a place of innovative
scholarship. An important goal is thus to provide a cross-section perspective on the College's disciplines, i.e., to
teach a multidisciplinary course with a centralized theme. By altering the scope and the depth of this freshmen
course requirement, we hope to help build a sense of College identity, help students to connect theory and
method o f artistic and humanistic inquiry, initiate them into research from an A R H U perspective, and acclimate
them to high academic expectations to carry them forward through their chosen major. Because of the strong
content and research focus, we propose replacing the current U N I V l O l with this new course, ARHU158. This
will increase their total credits by I , from 2-credits for U N I V l O l to 3-credits for A R H U 158.
The A R H U 158 course will be the College's first-year innovation and research experience to acquaint freshmen
majors with a hands-on exploration o f multi-disciplinary inquiry in the arts and humanities. Students w i l l
grapple with key questions, concepts, vocabularies, methods, critical strategies and practices, and collaborate
with one another in the practice of humanistic research, drawing on skills cultivated throughout the course, and
supported by campus and College tools and resources. Each section of ARHU158 will be taught by a different
faculty member and w i l l focus on a specific theme, e.g., "Language and Power", "Arts as Social Change", or
"Social Movements and Human Rights". Within each thematic course section, several research traditions from
across A R H U will be represented by visiting faculty, thus incorporating and utilizing interdisciplinarity in
students' understanding of specific research questions.
We are currently seeking Gen Ed approval for Humanities and for other designations according to theme (e.g.,
the pilot, entitled Explorations in Arts and Humanities: Humanist Approaches to Global Warming will seek
Humanities, History/Social Sciences and Scholarship in Practice). Thus, it will fulfill an additional
undergraduate curricular requirement for students.
Resources:
ARHU158 will rely on resources already established for the teaching of UNIV101. Faculty will be paid on
overload funded by the Dean’s office to teach their own thematic, multidisciplinary section. This practice will
continue and will not impact workload for any faculty member or place undue burdens on any department, as a
natural rotation of interested faculty is expected.
Impact on Curriculum and Comparison of Current Requirement to Proposed Requirement:
UNIV 101 has served as an integral component of the college’s retention strategy for many years. The purpose
of ARHU’s department specific format is to assist students in the successful transition to the University of
Maryland and to begin an extended orientation to campus living and learning. Further, students are introduced
to the arts and humanities academic environment, encouraged to explore their major/department, cultivate a
sense of community within the department and develop connections with faculty. The hope is that students
leave UNIV 101 beginning to understand themselves and others as part of the University of Maryland, ARHU
and their respective departmental community. ARHU 158 will expand on these basic elements into what we
hope will become a signature first year seminar course that will utilize high impact learning strategies to
introduce new ARHU students to salient themes in the Arts and Humanities, research in the arts and humanities,
as well as strategies/support for successfully navigating their UM experience. We envision that ARHU 158 will
continue to be integral in our retention efforts but will also be key in helping the College of Arts and
Humanities to recruit academically talented students who may also be considering private liberal arts
institutions.
ARHU 158 will be a 3-credit course required of all first year ARHU students not participating in a living
learning program. ARHU 158 will replace the current 2-credit mandatory UNIV 101 course in the student’s
first semester curriculum. In terms of scheduling, ARHU 158 will be advantageous to students as it will provide
them with an opportunity to take 15 credits rather than 14 during their first semester on campus, followed by 15
credits in their second semester.
The new structure will not have any detrimental effect on time-to-degree or overall 4-year plans for progress
through the degree. We attach two sample four year plans that demonstrate a comparison of how and where the
courses fit into the student’s overall academic experience.