Revised Proposal for Adjusting General Education (CORE) Distributive

Studies Requirements

Introduction:

Fifteen years have passed since the committee chaired by John Pease produced our current general education program for undergraduate students. In “Promises to Keep,” Dr. Pease and his colleagues maintained that “no part of undergraduate education is more important than the general education component” (p. 10). With that premise in mind and after extensive study and discussion of national and local trends in general education, they proceeded to define a multi-part general education program that came to be known as CORE and has remained in effect largely unchanged since 1990. The longstanding requirements for Fundamental Studies, Distributive Studies, Advanced Studies, and Human Cultural Diversity are described in the current Undergraduate Catalog.

This proposal addresses the Distributive Studies, or “breadth,” requirements that total nine courses and 28 credits. The Pease Committee defined three categories that captured contemporary disciplines: humanities and the arts, natural science and mathematics, and behavioral and social sciences (including social and political history). Within each category, the committee established specific subsets of required courses, as identified in Table 1:

Table 1: Current Distributive Studies Scheme & Requirements (9 courses, 28 cr.)

Table 2: Revised Proposed Distributive Studies Requirements

Categories

Humanities &

the Arts

2-3 courses

Science & Mathematics

2-3 courses

Social Sciences & History

2-3 courses

Interdisciplinary

0-2 courses

Requirement statement

two courses, one to be an HL; second course from a different subcategory & discipline

two science courses, one to be with a lab ^a

two courses, each from a different subcategory & discipline

Optional

Subcategories

HL = Humanities-Literature,

HA = History/Theory of Arts,

HO = Humanities- Other

PS = Physical Science,

LS = Life Science,

M/FR = Math & Formal Reasoning

SH = Social/ Political History,

SB = Social/Be- havioral Science

^aMHEC specification

The Senate CORE Committee also recommends four other provisions related to the proposed modified Distributive Studies requirements:

1) Criteria and process for the selection of interdisciplinary courses:

a) Criteria:

i) A course must meet Distributive Studies general education goals.

ii) A significant portion of the content (theories, questions, methods) will draw from fields represented in two or more CORE categories (Humanities & Arts, Science and Mathematics, Social Sciences & History).

b) Course selection process:

i) A faculty working group will review all interdisciplinary course proposals, just as working groups do for courses submitted for possible inclusion in other categories.

ii) Academic units will submit newly proposed courses to the interdisciplinary working group for review. For permanent-numbered courses, VPAC approval is required.

iii) If a course is already accepted in two or more CORE subcategories, it will, with the consent of the academic unit concerned, be moved to the interdisciplinary category.

iv) Academic units may request the interdisciplinary working group to review other courses currently approved for CORE for possible relocation to the interdisciplinary category.

v) Approved interdisciplinary courses will be identified on a published list, as are approved courses in other CORE categories.

2) Criteria and process for the selection of 300-level courses:

a) Criteria:

i) A course must meet Distributive Studies general education goals.

ii) A course must be open to non-majors, and the offering unit must have seats available for non-majors.

b) Course selection process:

i) Academic units will submit 300-level courses to the appropriate CORE working group (i.e., Humanities & the Arts, Science & Mathematics, Social Science & History, Interdisciplinary) for review.

ii) Approved 300-level courses will be added to the appropriate published lists.

3) 300-level courses counted for Distributive Studies credit may not fulfill a student’s Advanced Studies requirement.

4) Students enrolling in the University for the first time in the Fall semester, 2004, will fulfill the revised Distributive Studies requirements. Current students may choose to complete either the current or the revised requirements.

Rationale for Revisions:

The addition of a fourth, optional interdisciplinary category to Distributive Studies recognizes the viability and vitality of integrative knowledge both at the University of Maryland and nationwide. Our own campus hosts a number of successful interdisciplinary programs that attract grants, produce significant research, and educate graduate and undergraduate students. Environmental science, neuroscience, and the Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities are among the most visible of these initiatives. Among undergraduate curricular programs, Honors, Gemstone, and College Park Scholars are distinctive in part because of their interdisciplinary offerings, which attract high quality students and national attention.

The movement toward recognizing the value of interdisciplinary, integrative approaches to research and learning extends beyond our university. The College of Letters and Sciences at the University of California, Berkeley encourages faculty to develop interdisciplinary courses, known as “College Courses,” that students can use to fulfill breadth requirements. The University of Washington, Seattle describes two of its three distribution categories in interdisciplinary terms. The Committee on Undergraduate Biology Education to Prepare Research Scientists for the 21st Century, appointed by the National Research Council, recommends that universities both adopt an interdisciplinary curriculum and eliminate barriers to cross-departmental, cross-college collaboration. Finally, the Boyer Commission, in its “Reinventing Undergraduate Education: A Blueprint for America’s Research Universities” (1998), encouraged universities such as ours to recognize that intellectual work requires “mental flexibility” and to focus seriously “on ways to create interdisciplinarity in undergraduate education.” The sidebar to this discussion highlights the University of Maryland’s World Courses as exemplars (p.31).

Such initiatives and recommendations recognize that interdisciplinary courses are rigorous in that they not only demand that students learn knowledge in more than one disciplinary field, but they also require students to reflect upon and synthesize knowledge from several disciplines. In the process, students develop a broader perspective on how disciplines, both on their own and in collaboration with others, contribute to the intellectual work of the academy. Moreover, interdisciplinary courses such as those treating science and ethics or environmental policy, for example, impress upon students how the work of the academy engages with crucial public issues and challenges. They also provide intellectual experiences that enhance each student’s ability to think critically and draw conclusions based on multiple points of view, engage one’s conscience, and exercise judgment.

The increasing quality of University of Maryland undergraduate students has raised expectations for this kind of intellectual engagement. Students in the University Honors, Gemstone, and College Park Scholars programs now complete interdisciplinary courses, some of which carry Distributive Studies credit in a category (or categories) into which they are artificially “best fit.” This practice of fitting interdisciplinary courses into disciplinary-based categories is very much like that of trying to fit a square peg into a round hole; it denies the validity of the peg, leaves the hole misshapen, and distorts the value of the effort. Establishing a Distributive Studies category for interdisciplinary courses is the solution. It will recognize the legitimacy of interdisciplinary knowledge and encourage innovative opportunities for more undergraduate students, especially those who are not enrolled in special programs.

The recommended Distributive Studies requirement incorporates two other modifications that the Senate CORE Committee believes will enhance the general education of undergraduate students. One is the provision of opportunities for more year-long course sequences, which encourages cohesiveness both in terms of course selection and ultimate understanding of the humanities and the arts, science and mathematics, and social and behavioral sciences and history. Rather than just sampling the riches of a particular discipline, a student can pursue in greater depth a language and the culture in which it developed, mathematics, the questions and methods of a natural or social science, or the long dureé of a people.

The other provision recommended in this proposal is to include appropriate 300-level courses within Distributive Studies. If a 300-level course fulfills the intellectual goals of Distributive Studies and if a unit can provide seats, we see no reason why such a course should not fulfill a particular requirement. Opening this possibility addresses the needs and interests of high ability students, who may find 300-level courses more intellectually challenging than are introductory and 200-level courses. It will also meet the needs of some transfer students who have not completed all their Distributive Studies requirements when they arrive on campus. Because of credit limits, some of these students have difficulty enrolling in lower-level Distributive Studies courses in which seats are reserved for freshmen and sophomores.

As noted earlier, the Senate CORE Committee reviewed the Distributive Studies equivalents – usually called distribution or breath requirements – at peer institutions and other national research universities. Among peer institutions, our total course requirement (9) is the same as those at North Carolina and UCLA and more than either Berkeley (7) or Illinois (6). Michigan has established a range (6-9) of courses. The total courses required at other research institutions range from five (Wisconsin), eight (Michigan State, Ohio State, Minnesota, Arizona State), nine (Penn State), to twelve (Indiana, Texas; includes state requirements). The degree of specificity in the distribution requirements also varies. Michigan requires 2-3 courses in each of three areas (humanities, natural science, and social science); these categories are also found at Wisconsin, Michigan State, Ohio State, Indiana, and Arizona State. Berkeley’s seven courses are distributed across seven “smaller” categories, such as arts and literature and biological sciences (similar are Minnesota, Illinois, and UCLA). Only North Carolina continues to require the level of course specificity found in our current Distributive Studies scheme. All of these institutions include interdisciplinary courses in their distribution options.

In effect, peer institutions and other large research universities provide no common model for incorporating interdisciplinary courses and specifying particular disciplinary requirements. We also looked to these institutions’ requirements as we considered whether to recommend increasing the total number of Distributive Studies courses to be able to incorporate interdisciplinary courses and encourage year-long sequences. Given that only three of the 15 institutions – and none of our peers – required more courses than we do currently and that students in several large colleges (e. g., Engineering, Education) already have little, if any, room for additional credits, this did not appear to be a reasonable change. The addition of course requirements would also disadvantage transfer students, who comprise approximately one-half of the undergraduate population. Thus the CORE Committee decided that the flex-course requirement approach evident in the recommended Distributive Studies scheme was the reasonable approach.

The Senate CORE Committee believes that the recommended modification in the University’s Distributive Studies requirements maintains the breath in traditional disciplinary areas that “Promises to Keep” identified as an important expectation of Distributive Studies and enhances students’ general education experiences by incorporating interdisciplinary courses and encouraging year-long sequences. Because the interdisciplinary courses remain optional, a student can take exactly the same courses under the recommended requirement as he or she is currently taking.

Moreover, should a student complete two interdisciplinary courses, he or she will continue to complete seven courses in the traditional disciplinary categories, which parallels the requirement at Berkeley. For undergraduate students, we believe that this “two for two” exchange is an enriching one.

Comparison of Initial (4/3/03) and Revised (4/28/03) Proposals:

We believe that the revised proposal presented in this document addresses a number of concerns expressed by senators about the initial proposal discussed at the April 3, 2003 Senate meeting. Table 3 presents the differences between this revised proposal (presented April 28) and the one discussed on April 3 and summarizes the concerns addressed.

Table 3: Differences Between Previous Distributive Studies Proposal and

Revised Proposal

Challenged or Unclear Element in Original Proposal	Adjustment in Revised Proposal	Concerns Addressed by Amendments
2-4 range of courses	2-3 range of courses	Returns to current limit (3) on number of courses in a given category; prevents a student from “loading up” beyond what is now permitted in a category at cost of breadth
Local units able to determine whether their majors could “double-count” a 4^th course in a category as a major requirement	Dropped; no longer relevant	Returns to current practice of university-wide limit on double-counting; what courses count for CORE will not be in doubt when students change majors
Absence of literature requirement	HL required in Humanities & Arts	Acknowledges ARHU’s position on literature as critical to literacy
Vague definition of Interdisciplinary	Replaced by criteria for identification of courses	Provides criteria for and review process through which a university-wide list of courses will be produced
Misleading statement about selection of 300-level courses	Replaced by explicit procedure for identification of courses	Clarifies criteria and review process through which a university-wide list of courses will be produced
Immediate implementation	Implementation in Fall 2004	Provides time for APAC review, for working groups to review courses, and for the creation of published lists of courses

The Senate CORE Committee believes that this revised proposal is a balanced one. It clarifies the criteria and review processes for interdisciplinary and 300-level courses and ensures sufficient time for the development of course lists, for advising communities to adapt their systems, and for a review by the Academic Planning Advisory Committee. It goes further in ensuring breadth across the disciplines than did the earlier version even as it provides flexibility for students to (a) complete in all categories a year-long sequence of courses that can add coherence to one’s general education, (b) attempt challenging upper-level courses, and (c) engage critical and complex topics, issues, and problems that require the interactions and intersections of disciplinary knowledge and methods in interdisciplinary courses.

We are aware that the recognition of interdisciplinary courses as a distinct set of courses has been and will remain controversial. Some members of the Senate have questioned why we need a separate category, in part because the current Distributive Studies categories include courses that incorporate multiple perspectives. This proposal neither challenges nor denies this position. Rather, it recognizes the legitimacy of interdisciplinary knowledge as complex, integrated, synthetic knowledge, which does not “fit” well in our current discipline-derived subcategories. An interdisciplinary category raises the consciousness of faculty and students about this intellectual reality and, in time, may encourage innovative opportunities for more undergraduate students, especially those who are not enrolled in special programs. Other members of the Senate maintain that we have not gone far enough and would prefer more stringent tests of interdisciplinarity. We recognize these varying positions, and we recognize that there are multiple models of “doing” interdisciplinary work. The criterion that we recommend -- that the theories, methods, and questions presented in a course draw from the fields represented in two (or more) of the “large” categories – is a measure of content that does not favor one model of interdisciplinarity over another.

We hope that diverse positions about interdisciplinary will not mask the larger questions this revised proposal encourages the University Senate to ask. Will the recommended changes to Distributive Studies enhance the educational experiences of undergraduate students. Will it add value to their general educations by making possible access to a wider range of the University’s intellectual resources? The Senate CORE committee believes that the proposed requirements for Distributive Studies will benefit a variety of students in a variety of ways. The revised requirements provide both breadth across the disciplines and the flexibility to allow students to reflect upon and synthesize knowledge from various disciplines in interdisciplinary courses. The incorporation of approved 300-level courses will assist transfer students, whose entering credit levels limit their access to lower level courses, as well as native students who are ready for the challenges of upper-level courses. Course sequences, made possible if a student uses his or her third course in a category to take a subsequent course in a discipline, provide both depth and coherence and may encourage a student to remain a student of the discipline. Finally, as the earlier proposal maintained, a student can complete precisely the same courses under this recommended set of requirements as one can under the current requirements. The revised requirements thus open more intellectual doors and close none.

Final Thoughts – Some Implications:

The effects of change are difficult to predict, but the CORE Committee suggests that some or all of the following may occur as a result of implementing the revised modified Distributive Studies scheme:

· Academic units offering interdisciplinary courses may attract new students who discover a particular field because it is a contributor in an interdisciplinary course.

· Academic units whose faculty are engaged in interdisciplinary endeavors will, in time, develop some exciting new courses. Some of these units may include programs that have not found a niche in the current Distributive Studies scheme.

· Expanded course sequencing opportunities may enhance student enrollments in fields in which students may take only one (or no) course under the current requirements.

· Implementation can occur quickly. The Student Information System (SIS), Degree Navigator, and Testudo can be rapidly reprogrammed.

· Accurate prediction of seat demands may require a year’s experience; there may be demand shifts within categories, and pressure on categories where there have never been enough seats may ease.

· In all categories exciting new courses and exciting revisions of existing courses will likely emerge.

***ATTENTION***

Table 2: Revised Proposed Distributive Studies Requirements

Table 3: Differences Between Previous Distributive Studies Proposal and

Revised Proposal

ATTENTION