Curriculum for a Liberal Arts Education

Scott Kleinman has been discussing curriculum and liberal education and I've meant to try to contribute a little to the discussion. A couple of years ago I was on the Educational Policy Committee at Wheaton that re-wrote our curriculum -- with what I think were good results.

Faculty members who've been through a curriculum review are probably already clicking away in horror, since curriculum reviews are notorious bloodbaths of vicious infighting. This didn't happen at Wheaton, partially because the co-chairs of EdPol and the Provost were very sharp politically, but also because we managed to avoid making the curriculum review a turf battle.

I'm not going to go through the 'quia' of the curriculum review right now. Rather I want to talk about what we ended up doing, which I think is innovative and does a good job of accomplishing the contradictory goals of a 'core' and 'distribution' that is the problem for all curricula: you want students to have some basis of shared knowledge, but you also want to give students the freedom to study their interests.

Wheaton's curriculum is divided into "Foundations" and "Connections" (and there's also a stealth "Breadth" requirement that only rarely comes into play). Foundations courses are those all students need to have: Writing 101, Mathematics (can be fulfilled either with traditional math or computer science or a logic course), two semesters of a non-English language,and a silly, politically correct "Beyond the West" course (I don't think it's silly to study cultures beyond the west; I just think it shows a lack of confidence to require it).

The real heart of the new curriculum, though, is the "Connections" requirement. Students have to take paired (or tripled) courses that are linked together across traditional disciplinary groups. Some examples of "connected" courses would include an Anatomy course that the students would take at the same time as Figure Drawing; a course in the chemistry of pigments and art materials connected with an Art History course on conservation; a course in the math of voting theory and a political science course; and (the one I teach) a course in Science Fiction with a course in mathematics (we use Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon and Borges' Library of Babel).

The purpose of the connections is to get students to take courses outside of their interest areas but nevertheless see these courses as being relevant to them. This is particularly useful for science courses, which non-science students tend to hate and avoid. Our experience thus far is that students not only report significantly more satisfaction but also perform better (in terms of attendance, grades, and subjective teacher response) than those who take identical courses without the connection (i.e., the student just takes Anatomy without the Figure Drawing).

Just as significantly, Connections allows the faculty to promote interdisciplinary work without sacrificing disciplinary knowledge: we don't have an English prof attempting to teach biology; we have a biology prof teaching Darwin and an English prof teaching Victorian culture.

To make sure that students sample the major disciplines, there is a 'breadth' requirement that causes students to take at least one science, one social science, one humanities, but thus far just about everyone fulfils these with the two Connections.

The Connections curriculm has been great for the faculty, also, as we've had a real opportunity (and some funding) to work together to produce more integrated connections, like the Math/SciFi one, in which all of our assignments are coordinated and interconnected. So, for example, as students are reading Cryptomonicon, they are doing problem sets about cryptography (including a lot of number theory); when they read Borges, they're doing combinatorics; when they read "The Infinite Assassin" (brilliant story by Greg Egan) they're doing infinities and Cantor sets.

The other elements of the curriculum are the inclusion of writing and quantitative analysis in all of the majors (rather than as separate courses), a 'capstone' experience for each major, and the "infusion" of race, gender, etc. throughout the curriculum (PC requirement, but actually being done very well, in my opinion, as it has led to a lot of faculty working up additions to their classes of high culture from, say, China, Japan, India, etc. rather than the kind of tedious whining about western culture that I had in college).

Overall I'm very pleased with how the curriculum turned out, and thus far it seems to be working. But, I'd add, there is no such thing as a "correct" curriculum. Rather, there's a match between faculty, students, institution and curriculum. If there is such a match, then the faculty and the students have the enthusiasm to make the curriculum work. So far, so good.

Back Down to Earth

Nothing to bring back perspective than a snotty reader's report leading to a rejection letter. I'm not entirely surprised at the rejection, because the paper wasn't perfect for the journal and even if it were, I could see disagreeing with the argument, which is pretty provocative.

But really, to put in a whole paragraph on not being consistent in using single versus double quotation marks, and this not being in line with British usage (and also to complain about commas in date citations): dude, you need to get out more.

In the past I would have really worried about the stupid quotation mark thing, wondering if that had been the straw that broke the camel's back and caused the rejection. Now that I edit a journal (with Doug Anderson and Verlyn Flieger), I know that this is the most trivial nitpicking imaginable. The editing process will fix these kinds of issues.

But the important thing, when this happens to you, is not to ignore the entire, substantive report because one paragraph was so stupid.

And when you're writing reader's reports: don't waste everybody's time because you had difficulty toilet training.

Job Opening at Wheaton and Other Stuff

So, (as Seamus Heaney would say) this is apparently my 100th post on this blog and I've been thinking for a week about what brilliant thing I would write, which has, of course, blocked my attempts to write anything (except all the other stuff I've been writing). So instead I'll post some announcements and news and updates.

First, here at Wheaton (we're the Wheaton in Massachusetts) we are searching to fill an Assistant Professor position, tenure track, in Eighteenth-Century Literature. Teaching load is 5 courses per year (3/2), good research support, very collegial department. We're most interested in someone who can connect up the 18th C with earlier periods (rather than a 'long 18th Century' person who sneaks into Victorian). But the key thing is we want someone who loves to teach and is committed to teaching. Everybody in our dept, from the chair to the newest Assistant Prof, teaching first-year writing, and we actually enjoy it.

But I want to put out a word of warning, also: it would be a mistake to tailor your application to Wheaton based on what I've written in my blog. I'm on leave this semester and probably won't be reading applications, so it's important to research the department as a whole.

Also, for the duration of the search I'm not going to blog about job-searches or the job situation in academe. This is voluntary (I don't even know if my chair knows about my blog), but I think it's in the best interests of applicants and of the department.

Second: Anglo-Saxon England accepted my article on Anglo-Saxon medicine. My co-authors (bio prof. Barbara Brennessel and bio student Robyn Gravel) and I worked for over five years, testing Anglo-Saxon medical remedies in the laboratory. None of them worked. To find out why this is important, you'll have to read the article when it comes out. But I'm very excited because ASE is the best journal in our field and it's been a real pleasure working with them.

Third: I'll be speaking at the big Tolkien conference at Marquette University next weekend. My talk is on Saturday morning at 9 a.m. (so much for Friday night drinking). My talk is "The Rhetorical Evolution of J. R. R. Tolkien's "Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics" -- it should be spell-binding.

Fourth: I'll be speaking at the Wrentham Public Library here in Massachusetts on January 11, 2005.

More updates later about the horned Moses.

Job Opening at Wheaton and Other Stuff

So, (as Seamus Heaney would say) this is apparently my 100th post on this blog and I've been thinking for a week about what brilliant thing I would write, which has, of course, blocked my attempts to write anything (except all the other stuff I've been writing). So instead I'll post some announcements and news and updates.

First, here at Wheaton (we're the Wheaton in Massachusetts) we are searching to fill an Assistant Professor position, tenure track, in Eighteenth-Century Literature. Teaching load is 5 courses per year (3/2), good research support, very collegial department. We're most interested in someone who can connect up the 18th C with earlier periods (rather than a 'long 18th Century' person who sneaks into Victorian). But the key thing is we want someone who loves to teach and is committed to teaching. Everybody in our dept, from the chair to the newest Assistant Prof, teaching first-year writing, and we actually enjoy it.

But I want to put out a word of warning, also: it would be a mistake to tailor your application to Wheaton based on what I've written in my blog. I'm on leave this semester and probably won't be reading applications, so it's important to research the department as a whole.

Also, for the duration of the search I'm not going to blog about job-searches or the job situation in academe. This is voluntary (I don't even know if my chair knows about my blog), but I think it's in the best interests of applicants and of the department.

Second: Anglo-Saxon England accepted my article on Anglo-Saxon medicine. My co-authors (bio prof. Barbara Brennessel and bio student Robyn Gravel) and I worked for over five years, testing Anglo-Saxon medical remedies in the laboratory. None of them worked. To find out why this is important, you'll have to read the article when it comes out. But I'm very excited because ASE is the best journal in our field and it's been a real pleasure working with them.

Third: I'll be speaking at the big Tolkien conference at Marquette University next weekend. My talk is on Saturday morning at 9 a.m. (so much for Friday night drinking). My talk is "The Rhetorical Evolution of J. R. R. Tolkien's "Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics" -- it should be spell-binding.

Fourth: I'll be speaking at the Wrentham Public Library here in Massachusetts on January 11, 2005.

More updates later about the horned Moses.

Job Opening at Wheaton and Other Stuff

So, (as Seamus Heaney would say) this is apparently my 100th post on this blog and I've been thinking for a week about what brilliant thing I would write, which has, of course, blocked my attempts to write anything (except all the other stuff I've been writing). So instead I'll post some announcements and news and updates.

First, here at Wheaton (we're the Wheaton in Massachusetts) we are searching to fill an Assistant Professor position, tenure track, in Eighteenth-Century Literature. Teaching load is 5 courses per year (3/2), good research support, very collegial department. We're most interested in someone who can connect up the 18th C with earlier periods (rather than a 'long 18th Century' person who sneaks into Victorian). But the key thing is we want someone who loves to teach and is committed to teaching. Everybody in our dept, from the chair to the newest Assistant Prof, teaching first-year writing, and we actually enjoy it.

But I want to put out a word of warning, also: it would be a mistake to tailor your application to Wheaton based on what I've written in my blog. I'm on leave this semester and probably won't be reading applications, so it's important to research the department as a whole.

Also, for the duration of the search I'm not going to blog about job-searches or the job situation in academe. This is voluntary (I don't even know if my chair knows about my blog), but I think it's in the best interests of applicants and of the department.

Second: Anglo-Saxon England accepted my article on Anglo-Saxon medicine. My co-authors (bio prof. Barbara Brennessel and bio student Robyn Gravel) and I worked for over five years, testing Anglo-Saxon medical remedies in the laboratory. None of them worked. To find out why this is important, you'll have to read the article when it comes out. But I'm very excited because ASE is the best journal in our field and it's been a real pleasure working with them.

Third: I'll be speaking at the big Tolkien conference at Marquette University next weekend. My talk is on Saturday morning at 9 a.m. (so much for Friday night drinking). My talk is "The Rhetorical Evolution of J. R. R. Tolkien's "Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics" -- it should be spell-binding.

Fourth: I'll be speaking at the Wrentham Public Library here in Massachusetts on January 11, 2005.

More updates later about the horned Moses.

Obituary for Patrick Wormald in the Independent

Far more detailed and eloquent than I could have been.