Assessment of the Proposed Core Steven L. Schweizer Core Curriculum Review Team 4.2.13 Abstract: Members of the Core Curriculum Review Team have completed their initial draft of the revised core. In revising the core, the Committee was primarily motivated by cutting total hours in the core, creating an exciting discipline-­‐based freshman inquiry course, and providing students with two upper division interdisciplinary courses. In its final draft, there are many advantages to the core and these have been documented and discussed (see Wolf Den: Academic-­‐Faculty-­‐Forums). However, reducing the total hours in the core by 22 percent; shaving core requirements in the arts, humanities, and social sciences; and instituting freshmen inquiry and upper division interdisciplinary courses has some troubling consequences that have not been systematically thought through. In the following analysis, I conclude that the core will not work as conceived; all programs will have to hire adjuncts to teach lower division and upper division courses; faculty will teach heavier loads; the liberal arts mission of the College will be compromised; there is an unacceptable reduction in the number of core courses offered in the arts, humanities, and social sciences; the reduction of courses in the arts, humanities, and social sciences will likely result in fewer majors and smaller lower division class enrollments in associated disciplines; the core provides no significant “common Newberry College experience”; there is no evidence that the new core will help improve student critical thinking, writing, and mathematical competencies; the one-­‐semester language requirement is much below the national liberal arts college average and could be satisfied by testing out—resulting in no college level foreign language exposure; civic engagement has not been integrated into the core; and the high cost of implementing the core will not allow us to improve faculty salaries or increase academic budgets, could result in faculty cuts or program consolidation, and would unacceptably increase student college costs. Finally, the political science program at Roanoke College, after which we modeled our inquiry courses, is finding it cannot teach its full complement of political science courses because the faculty are required to teach inquiry courses. I. Practical Concerns with the Proposed Core I believe there are practical problems with the proposed curriculum; but the most critical concern is that I doubt it will work. I doubt it will work because program faculty would not be able to offer courses in their discipline because they are drawn into teaching a freshman inquiry and upper division interdisciplinary courses. I will be very interested if other faculty perceive the same problems. 1 Freshman Inquiry Course Will Cause Faculty Overloads and Require Hiring Adjuncts The freshman inquiry course will require roughly 20-­‐27 classes—depending on freshmen enrollment (300-­‐400 students) and class size (15 students). This will require one program faculty member to teach two sections of a freshman, discipline specific inquiry course each fall. A two-­‐section offering would mean faculty could teach the standard three-­‐preps/four courses and maintain a degree of load equity at the College. However, the faculty would most probably not teach introductory courses in their discipline. 10-­‐13 faculty from various disciplines would be needed to teach two fall courses. Alternatively, a faculty member could teach one inquiry section and one introductory course in their discipline resulting in a 4-­‐prep/4-­‐course load. This would mean 20-­‐27 faculty would be required to teach inquiry sections. All this raises several questions: • The need to teach freshmen disciplinary inquiry courses may prevent programs from offering the necessary introductory courses in their major. One professor, to maintain a 3-­‐preparation/4-­‐course load would be teaching two sections of inquiry rather than two sections of their introductory course, e.g. Religion 110, English 221, Sociology 101, Political Science 121. • One alternative would be to have one professor teach one freshman inquiry course. This would lead to a 4-­‐preparation/4-­‐course load four 20-­‐27 faculty. This is an unacceptable burden on an already over-­‐worked faculty. It also raises the issues of equity: why should some faculty teach 4/4 loads and others 3/4 loads. • It is unclear what faculty would be teaching an inquiry course. “Professional programs” that already teach a large number of students with highly specialized courses (such as education, nursing, music, forensics, business, and accounting representing roughly 20 faculty) may feel hard pressed to teach inquiry courses. The remaining faculty—roughly 40 in number—would bear the burden of teaching the inquiry courses. We have no knowledge how many faculty would be interested in teaching the inquiry courses and this is critical for the success of these courses. • Inquiry learning is a unique approach to classroom learning. It is unclear whether there are personnel in our programs with the desire to teach a freshman inquiry class. Would some faculty be pushed (coerced) into teaching inquiry course? • Not all programs would be able to teach inquiry classes. Under the three-­‐
prep/4-­‐course model above, 10-­‐13 “majors” would be teaching inquiry classes. Those who majors that don’t teach freshman inquiry would lose the opportunity to teach potential majors. This is particularly true for the arts, humanities, and social sciences. 2 Interdisciplinary Courses Will Result in Overloads and Fewer Course Offerings Distortion of program offerings is magnified when the two upper division interdisciplinary inquiry courses are added. Assuming an upper division inquiry course is capped at 15 students and there is a 40% attrition rate from freshman to junior year (leaving 180-­‐240 students), programs would have to sport 24-­‐32 classes each year to cover the two upper division interdisciplinary inquiry requirement. Each year roughly 54%-­‐100% of programs would have to offer an interdisciplinary course. Several problems could arise: • The faculty would not be able to offer required or elective coursework in their discipline because faculty would be pulled from the program to teach the interdisciplinary courses. • Since upper division courses are often swung every two years, programs would rather offer their own courses rather than teach the interdisciplinary course. This would threaten the viability of the core because program professors would opt to teach their discipline-­‐specific course, not the interdisciplinary course. • The above assumes that there is no team teaching of courses. If team teaching is employed, programs may have to pony up an additional professor(s) making it even more difficult for programs to offer their required/elective upper and lower division coursework. • There is a real issue is faculty workload equity. A professor teaching an interdisciplinary inquiry course would most likely have to teach a four-­‐ prep/four class course load: the interdisciplinary course, one lower division major course, and two upper division major courses. This would increase faculty workload and introduce the issue of workload equity. The alternative—teaching two lower division preps, one upper division major course, and one interdisciplinary inquiry course—does not seem a viable option. Programs would have to cut an upper division offering to teach the interdisciplinary inquiry course and students in the major would be short-­‐
changed. This would happen in the political science program and I suspect it would be a problem in other programs too. Hiring Adjuncts Is Not a Solution to These Problems Solving this problem is not easy. It appears that adjunct faculty will have to be hired to teach program lower and/or upper division major courses (or the interdisciplinary inquiry classes) to make the proposed core work: 24-­‐32 per year. These rent-­‐a-­‐
professors would need to be hired on a regular basis and whether we can find instructors for a significant number of classes on a regular basis seems problematical. With a favorable job market and USC near by, I have been unable to staff some political science classes because 1) I could not find someone qualified to teach it or 2) the terms of endearment are too low. Since the demand for adjuncts would be continual, would the College be able to identify and employ these adjuncts? Would 3 SACS approve of this way of staffing our undergraduate academic programs? Is hiring full-­‐time faculty the solution to this problem? It Is Unclear What Faculty Will Be Teaching the Freshman Inquiry and Interdisciplinary Courses Who will teach freshman inquiry and interdisciplinary courses? This is not a rhetorical question because some faculty—particularly in the professions such as nursing, business, education, music and communications—may find it difficult to teach core courses. With roughly 20 faculty in the professions, the burden may fall largely on liberal arts and science faculty to teach these courses. The alternative would be to require all faculty to participate in the teaching the core. Intensive Writing Plan Is Not Viable The three writing intensive courses present further staffing issues. At other institutions, writing intensive courses are limited to 15-­‐20 students. Assuming 240 entering students (taking into consideration some attrition) need to take three writing intensive courses, the College would have to offer 240 writing intensive classes (240 students X 3 classes /15 students per class) for each entering freshman class. This is the equivalent of 30 courses per semester over a four-­‐year period. First, I doubt that we can find enough classes and faculty to teach this requirement. Second, current classes, which have enrollments greater than 15, would have to be “broken” into two or more classes—adding to the total number of classes and faculty (or most likely adjuncts) needed to service this requirement. Third, if intensive writing courses are taught in the discipline, the content of the course might be watered down to accommodating intensive writing. Some institutions require course writing assessments to constitute upwards to 70 percent of the class grade. Roanoke College Has Problems We Could Expect to Experience I have contacted political scientists at Roanoke College, after which we patterned our inquiry courses, and they have discovered that teaching inquiry courses has meant the professoriate is unable to teach the full complement of political science courses. Some Roanoke faculty are reassessing the inquiry approach at Roanoke. As suggested above, Newberry College programs teaching inquiry or interdisciplinary courses will have to hire adjuncts or not offer classes in their discipline. II. Liberal Education and the Revised Core Today, the American Association of Colleges and Universities (http://www.aacu.org) is the organization most active in advancing and defending a liberal education. While maintaining a “modern” focus to liberal education, its basic principles are rooted in classic articulations of that tradition (from Plato through Robert Hutchins and Henry Newman to Amy Guttman). If Newberry College promotes a liberal education, it should make decisions that show an awareness of 4 this tradition. The AACU lists four guiding principles as part of its LEAP (Liberal Education and America’s Promise): — Knowledge of Human Cultures and the Physical and Natural World Focused on engagement with big questions: enduring and contemporary — Integrative and Applied Learning Demonstrated through the application of knowledge, skills, and responsibilities to new settings and complex problems — Intellectual and Practical Skills Practiced extensively across the curriculum, in the context of progressively more challenging problems, projects, and standards for performance — Personal and Social Responsibility Anchored through active involvement with diverse communities and real-­‐world challenges The Core Loses Its Liberal Arts Focus The direction of the proposed core is not liberal but manifestly “illiberal.” At the focus groups, faculty expressed approval for broad-­‐based exposure to many disciplines in the core. By driving the core requirement down to 44 hours (a reduction of 22 percent), the core cuts the social science requirement by one course, the humanities requirement by two to three courses, and eliminates the current fine arts requirement by substituting a distribution requirement where students choose one course among fine arts, humanities, and English courses. The mathematics-­‐
science requirement is substantially unchanged: students would take one lab science course, one mathematics class, and an additional quantitative literacy class. This is very similar to the current requirement of 10-­‐11 hours. The only caveat is that the proposed core eliminates the option of taking a lab science in place of mathematics. Consequently, the proposed core is illiberal and thin gruel. It does not provide students with a broad-­‐based exposure to the liberal arts, sciences, social sciences, and humanities. Students would have little opportunity to address the basic questions of life through courses in literature, philosophy, art, music, theatre, sociology, psychology, and political science. There Is No Clear Mandate to Cut Hours in the Core; So Doing Jeopardizes Our Liberal Arts Focus Second, there is no overwhelming faculty “mandate” to reduce the number of hours in the core. While some faculty, mostly in some professions, favor a reduction in core hours to accommodate their program and majors, many faculty favor keeping a strong core of courses in the liberal arts, humanities, sciences, and social sciences. This supports the goal of liberally educating our students and providing them with opportunities to explore different “career” options. Unfortunately, the content of the 5 core is more determined by the desire to reduce its hours than to begin with the question: what courses (content) do we need to insure our students have a broad-­based knowledge of the liberal arts, sciences, social sciences, and humanities and the core competencies that will 1) allow them to ask the important questions in life and 2) provide a meaningful educational experience that will last a lifetime? In short, we are placing the cart (hours in the core) before the horse (courses necessary to realize our mission as a liberal arts college). Rather, the number of hours in the core should be determined by our mission statement, goals, desire to provide a broad-­‐based liberal education, and the courses necessary to insure students acquire core competencies in critical thinking, writing, speaking, and mathematics. Granting Exemptions to Hours Intensive Majors Would Solve the “Hours Issue” Liberal arts colleges, which value broad exposure to the liberal arts, social sciences, and sciences, inevitably run into this problem: students in hour intensive majors such as music, nursing, business, and education have a difficult time meeting their major requirements or taking electives. Liberal arts colleges have a choice: 1) shrinking the core for everyone—and compromising the liberal arts focus—but benefiting hours intensive majors or 2) remaining loyal to their liberal arts mission and granting waivers or exemptions from certain core requirements for hours intensive majors. Granting exemptions is the better, although not perfect, choice; it allows a liberal arts college to maintain a strong liberal arts core and to make needed exemptions for students pressed by the need to take a greater number of hours in their major. Recruiting Students Is Not a Justification for Revising the Core Finally, for those who say that a smaller core will attract more students, I find no evidence in professional literature linking hours in the core to student enrollment. If anything, reducing the liberal arts focus in the core will dissuade parents who want their children to have a broad-­‐based liberal education from going to a College which reduces the visibility of the liberal arts, sciences, and humanities. Second, we should avoid putting the cart before the horse. If we have a solid, relevant core and provide a good education to our students, we will attract students to the College. But reducing the core a priori in the belief that it will attract students is not the best strategy for increasing enrollment and it compromises the liberal arts mission of the college. Revised Core Slights the Social Sciences More specifically the core reduces exposure to the social sciences by requiring one 3-­‐
semester hours course. With geography as a social science option (a course which would broadly focus on climate, topography, and broad cultural trends), it is possible for student to have 1) no exposure to the social sciences and social science methods (by taking geography) or 2) a minimal exposure through one introductory class in the social sciences. Even one course in the social sciences does not provide the breadth of exposure that envisioned by a liberal education. How can a person be 6 liberally educated if they know something about human psychology (to take one example) but have no college-­‐level exposure to knowledge about economics, politics, or social organization? They can’t. Fine Arts Threatened The proposed core does not require a fine arts requirement as we presently have. As explained above, the current fine arts requirement is eliminated in the core. This means all students will not have exposure to the performing and visual arts. How can a person be liberally educated without some exposure to music, art, or theatre? The Humanities Injured The proposed core reduces exposure to the humanities. Take the current humanities requirement of one course in literature, a course in the fine arts, and one additional course in English, philosophy, religion, or history. The core eliminates the literature and fine arts requirements and puts in its place a distribution requirement: students choose one course from English, art, humanities (religion, philosophy, and history?), music, and theatre. It is entirely possible for a student to have NO exposure to the great literary tradition of Plato, Wollstonecraft, Dubois, Elliot, Shakespeare, or Dickens to begin a list) or NO expose to the fine arts. Can a person be liberally educated without exposure to fundamental works of literature, art, music, and philosophy? The focus group report notes that the Committee should be concerned about faculty fear over changes that would jeopardize their jobs or programs. Reducing the fine arts and humanities requirement to three hours would raise those fears—
particularly in the social science, fine arts and humanities. Regarding the humanities, reducing the literature requirement will certainly limit the number of students taking literature courses. This is likely to result in lower enrollments in literature courses. Next semester the English program is offering nine courses in literature (ENG 221 and above and excluding Methods of Teaching English). Without a literature requirement I doubt all these classes would make and this would raise concerns about how many faculty are needed to teach English. With roughly 1000 students today and a literature requirement, the English program can be guaranteed 1000 students will be taking a literature class. This supports their course offerings. However, if these 1000 students are spread equally over English, art, humanities (religion, philosophy, and history?), music and theatre—five disciplines—English’s share is only 200 students. Will this be enough to fill the usual offering of courses? I doubt it. Fearing for their jobs or the quality of the program, some faculty would oppose the proposed core for these reasons. Unclear How Students Will Use Windfall Electives Under the Revised Core It is argued that the reduced hours in the core (from 56 to 44) will give students the opportunity to take more electives and this would compensate for the fewer number 7 of students taking courses in the humanities, arts, and social sciences. However, it is unclear what courses students will take. As I can find no professional literature describing how student make elective choices, I can’t anticipate how our students will use the 4 electives they gain by reducing the hours in the core. Will there be a rush of students into world music, art history, Shakespeare, or the contemporary philosophy? Will students take additional courses in their major or minor? Will programs take the opportunity to increase the hours in their major with the reduction core hours? All this is unclear, but potentially very problematic for the arts, humanities, and social sciences. The Core Looks Like USC’s Core, Not a Liberal Arts Core As a final observation, the proposed core is remarkably similar to cores at state universities—universities that do not aspire to liberally educate their students. In particular, the proposed core is very similar (and in some ways identical) to the “Carolina Core” at the University of South Carolina—a university that does not describe itself as providing a liberal arts education. Should our core mimic state universities, most of which are not motivated the desire to liberally educate their students? III. The Challenge of Core Competencies Discussions on Integrating Core Competencies Have Not Begun One charge of the Committee is to integrate core competencies in writing, mathematics, critical thinking, and oral communication into the new core curriculum. As of this writing, we have barely discussed of how we plan to do it and there is cause for concern. First, requiring only one English writing course—in place of the current two classes—and expecting writing skills to be taught in undefined “writing intensive” courses concerns me. Those wishing to eliminate the second English requirement in favor of writing intensive courses have not provided evidence that the writing intensive course will cultivate writing skills currently taught. Second, the same can be said for mathematics. To depart from our current writing and mathematics requirements places the burden of proof on those wishing to adopt a different model. In sum, proponents of this change have not provided evidence that courses in intensive writing and quantitative literacy will provide the writing and mathematical skills our student need at the College and after graduation. IV. Foreign Languages The Three Hour Foreign Language Requirement May Be Too Thin The inclusion of foreign language is a welcome addition. It was supported by the faculty when it voted to reintroduce the Spanish major, several disciplines instituted foreign language requirements, and the focus group report cites faculty support for putting Spanish in the curriculum. 8 A three-­‐hour requirement maybe too thin. The Modern Language Association’s 2009-­‐
2010 foreign language survey finds that 1) only 9% of all U.S. colleges and universities require only one course in foreign language and 2) only 3% of liberal arts colleges offering a BA degree require one course in foreign language. Of all colleges and universities requiring a foreign language, 46% require two semesters and 45% require 3 or more semesters. Newberry College should not be one of the ‘outlier’ colleges in the nation that requires only 3 hours of foreign language. If we maintain the proposed one course foreign language requirement, we are adopting a requirement that faculty at most other universities would not support. There are three substantive concerns with a one course, three-­‐hour requirement. First, it is possible that man of our students could test out of an introductory foreign language course. This would mean that the Spanish program would have access to fewer students and find it more difficult to build their program. Second, the language requirement should reinforce and deepen coursework students have already taken in high school or college and this will require a second course in foreign language. Third, developing a basic understanding and use of a language requires practice over time. One semester of a foreign language cannot catalyze the language in the student’s mind, and it doesn’t allow for continued instruction in grammar, vocabulary, and conversation not introduced in the first course. V. Global Awareness and Quantitative Literacy The Committee Need to Flesh Out the Global Awareness and Quantitative Literacy Requirements The Committee has not discussed global awareness in any methodical manner. The committee has neither defined nor conceptualized global awareness. Without some understanding of and agreement on the nature of global awareness, it is impossible to identify courses that provide exposure to global awareness. The committee has not engaged in an extended discussion of quantitative literacy. It has neither defined it nor established guidelines for determining what classes qualify for quantitative literacy. The Core Curriculum Review Committee’s subcommittees will address these issues. VI. Absence of Engaged Citizenship Newberry College prepares students in the Lutheran liberal arts tradition through its supportive academic community for lifelong intellectual and personal development, meaningful vocation, and engaged citizenship in a global society. 9 Engaged Citizenship Needs to Be Integrated Into the Core At this writing, the concept of “engaged citizenship” has not been broached in Committee deliberations. Although, integrating ‘engaged citizenship’ into the core will be discussed by a subcommittee. The College’s mission statement pledges the College to promote “engaged citizenship.” The QEP emphasizes the critical importance of social responsibility. Education in social responsibility involves recognizing the rights and obligations that accrue to our students as present or future members of civic groups, churches, families, educational institutions, our political system, work groups, and our national and global societies. The Newberry College Goals Statement embellishes these themes saying “Students will acquire, develop, and demonstrate: the values necessary for effective citizenship; the skills and historical knowledge to think critically about complex national and global issues; and the qualities of personal and social responsibility necessary to sustain and deepen democracy.” The Committee must come to some understanding of the notion of “engaged citizenship” and determine how it will be integrated into the core. Where “engaged citizenship” is taught and where service learning is exercised necessarily impacts the core. Will it be taught in freshman inquiry courses? Will it be integrated into required core courses such as English 111 or SPE 110? Where there is a distribution requirement (e.g. in the social sciences), will there be some coordinated effort among these programs to ensure engaged citizenship is taught in each course (e.g. POS 121 American Government, POS 123 Issues, SOC 101 Introduction to Sociology, SOC 102 Social Issues and so forth) so students, not matter what course they take, are exposed to service learning and “engaged citizenship”? Finally what content will be taught in the appropriate courses? Will there be a common body of readings drawn from literature, philosophy, religion, politics, and sociology (for example) that will serve to encourage reflection on civic engagement? VII. Concerns within the Social Sciences that May Concern Other Programs Fear of Losing Jobs May Doom the Core The focus group report cites the need to avoid making curricular changes that increases faculty fear about their jobs and programs. The proposed three-­‐hour social science requirement creates those fears and jeopardizes support for the core. Similar to the humanities/arts distribution requirement, the core’s social science requirement will give students a choice of taking one course in the social sciences. They can choose psychology, sociology, political science, economics, and geography. At the introductory level (SOC 101 Introduction to Sociology or POS 121 American Government, for example), there are roughly 19-­‐20 introductory social science courses each semester or 40 per year. Assuming that 300 entering students (with no attrition that gives a College enrollment of 1,200 students) need one social science credit and that they spread themselves out evenly over all social science courses, 10 there would be an average of 7.5 students in each course. (400 freshman students would result in 10 students per class.) The reality is that students and advisors have preferences and some courses will be substantially “under-­‐subscribed” and others “oversubscribed.” Enrollment in undersubscribed courses will raise concerns in the minds of some faculty about the viability of their courses, the programs, and their jobs—especially when number crunchers in the administration use arbitrary figures to determine whether or not classes make. Even with the current two social science distribution requirement, some classes are close to not making. Reducing the social science requirement to one course would exacerbate this trend. The focus group report lauds the current curriculum for providing students with exposure to many disciplines. The current two course social science requirement broadens their knowledge and helps them sort out a major. The proposed one, three-­‐
hour social science requirement loses this salutary effect. Students may take only one course in the social sciences, blinding themselves to a major that might otherwise suit them. And, as noted above, students satisfying the social science requirement through geography, would have exposure to neither social science methods nor fundamental social science “content”. VIII. Extensions Given this rather cursory reflection on the core, there are several implications. Increased Difficulty in Choosing a Major: A core of 44 semester hours would reduce student exposure to the arts, humanities, and social sciences. The faculty rightly believes that exposure to a greater number of disciplines benefits students when choosing their majors. This salutary benefit is lost by requiring fewer courses in the social sciences, liberal arts and humanities early in their career. Reduction of Faculty and Consolidation of Programs: At 44 hours, it would seem probable that some faculty positions (full-­‐time or adjunct) would be cut—most likely in the social sciences, humanities, and visual and performing arts. Those cuts would have to be 1) adjuncts or 2) faculty who have not been tenured. For reasons other than financial exigency, tenured faculty could be fired if two or more programs were merged. Reduced enrollments in classes would prompt discussion of this. This concern merits serious thought. Imbalance of College Majors: Reducing required courses in the humanities, arts, and social sciences will create greater imbalance of majors within the College. With fewer required classes in English, history, art, theatre, philosophy, religion, political science, sociology, and psychology, these disciplines will teach fewer lower division students. The faculty will teach fewer students and have fewer opportunities to attract students to their major. Consequently, it is highly likely that these disciplines will draw fewer majors. 11 Negative Impact on Faculty Salaries, Load, and Student Costs: Every core revision has consequences to our students and our faculty. These consequences may impact the quality of education at the College and therefore deserve consideration. We also have to face this reality: our faculty is overworked and underpaid. The proposed core will likely increase the workload by having faculty teach 4-­‐courses/4-­‐
preps. It will increase instructional costs and make it increasingly difficult to increase faculty compensation. Additionally, it will make it difficult for the College to supplement underfunded academic programs. In the analysis that follows, I use data that is readily available through the National Center for Educational Statistics. The following chart shows “instructional support per full time student enrollment” (instructional support budget divided by the number of full time students for the 2010-­‐2011 academic year). In the chart below, Newberry College is toward the bottom of South Carolina liberal arts and rural Lutheran colleges. Expending more money on adjunct salaries will likely divert funds from the instructional program. If we try to teach freshmen inquiry and upper division interdisciplinary courses with the existing faculty, we will make no headway on reducing the faculty-­‐student ratio. The Newberry College faculty-­‐student ratio is among the highest of South Carolina and rural ELCA colleges and universities (see the 2008-­‐2009 chart below). We could reduce this ratio by hiring additional adjuncts—permitting faculty to teach upper division interdisciplinary courses and freshmen inquiry courses. Adjuncts would teach lower division introductory or upper division specialty courses. This raises questions about 1) whether we could regularly find adjunct faculty to teach these courses and 2) the impact of using adjuncts in lower and upper division classes on program quality. 12 There is little doubt that Newberry College students will have to bear the brunt of hiring additional faculty. However, the debt burden of Newberry College students is already unacceptably high. First, average 4-­‐year debt (see 2008-­‐2009 chart below) is too high. In 2008-­‐2009 it reached nearly $31,000 and was among the highest in the state and among ELCA colleges and universities. Second, average student debt, as a percentage of total four-­‐year costs (2008-­‐2009 tuition, room and board, and fees), is similarly quite high. 13 The College can ill afford to hire adjuncts and/or full time faculty to fund the proposed core—mainly because students, who would bear the brunt of the costs, can ill afford to pay the cost. Furthermore, additional hiring in the core will make it increasingly difficult for the College to increase instructional funding to programs or make serious headway on improving faculty and staff salaries. The Fisher Report asks us to “address this [faculty and staff salaries] with urgency.” Conclusion At this writing, the core has some exciting features, but on balance, the costs out weigh the benefits. While offering exciting inquiry and interdisciplinary courses, the proposed core has a nightmarish implication—threating the core and academic programs: it reduces the liberal arts focus of the core and it threatens academic programs by overburdening program faculty and using adjuncts to teach lower and upper division classes in the majors. The program cannot be delivered for a reasonable price. Even if it could be funded, the academic programs could be hurt by an over reliance of adjuncts in lower and upper division classes. Returning to a core that is truly liberal arts in spirit and addressing the side effects of the freshman inquiry and upper division interdisciplinary courses will be necessary in developing a successful core. 14