Faculty discusses new GenEd model

By Dylan Pichnarcik Associate Editor Following the approval of the new General Education model (GenEd), faculty members involved in its creation and approval reflected on the process of reviewing the revised model. The University Curriculum Committee (UCC) unanimously approved the model, which will replace the current GenEd domain model, in effect since 2013. The new model is set to be adopted by the University in Fall 2027, UCC Chair Aline Davis, a biology professor, said. The new model, which was previously proposed by the General Education Advisory Board (GEAB), chaired by English Professor Patricia Lynne, was withdrawn because UCC “did not come to a consensus about what they wanted GenEd to look like. It did not match what the GEAB wanted or what the GEAB had approved,” Davis said. A memo containing suggested revisions was sent to GEAB as an outline for what UCC would like to see within the revision. Lynne said during last year’s UCC meetings, “There was too much controversy, and the way UCC was running, it was not going to move forward as it was. So it was sent back to the General Education Advisory Board with the idea that we would reconsider and bring forward what we felt was best, and we reconsidered and brought forward about the same thing.” Vinay Mannam, a professor in the Biochemistry, Chemistry, and Food Science department, and a 6-year UCC member, said he believes whenever there is a curriculum change, discussion is warranted. “That's the purpose of UCC - to discuss the points before we make the change. It's because it has a huge impact on students. “So there were a lot of platforms within the committee, and also outside the committee. We had a lot of listening sessions just to kind of consider all the points. So, whenever you see two people argue, it does feel like they're contentious, but they might be friends,” he said. Professor of English and UCC member Rachel Trousdale said she credits the work done on UCC this semester to “the very clear and decisive leadership of Professor Aline Davis, who did, I thought, a really admirable job of leading discussions that had room for dissent but didn't allow the time and space that academics love to occupy with wrangling, and I thought she did a really nice job of making sure that important opinions were heard, but that we didn't end up chasing our tails at great length.” STEM Dean Lauren Nolfo-Clements, a UCC member, also said the new leadership of UCC impacted the committee's proceedings. “The meetings had to be more structured. So you have to say this is the time period when the members of the community can speak, but then we need to stop that, and then only members of the committee can speak.” The “core” model consists of 10 GenEd courses, making up one-third of the institution's degree requirements as outlined by Framingham State’s accrediting body, the New England Commission of Higher Education. The University mandates a minimum of 30 credits to obtain a bachelor's degree. At the core of the model, students will be required to take a RAMS first-year or honors seminar, a Composition II or writing course, one math course, and a world language course. Students will also take two courses in the humanities, two social and behavioral science courses, and two mathematics or science courses. Nolfo-Clements said the model itself has not changed much since last year. However, “the big thing that we had a change in the new model was to make sure that it was easier for us to assess student learning through the general education model.” She added the new model was built with assessing student learning in mind, something that has been found difficult to do in the current domain education model. “In our current model, it's more challenging because the learning objectives don't necessarily align with the required courses perfectly.” Nolfo-Clements said a disappointing part of the model was the removal of three requirements, “signature to the institution.” These requirements are courses in diversity, technology, and civic engagement, which are not included in the core, but may be included later as “overlays” in the model. Davis said overlays “match with our mission and values. But one of the things that came out of the GEAB recommendation was that they wanted those courses to be able to be filled by a major course, a minor course, a GenEd course, or a free elective. And given that wide range of courses … it's not exclusively affiliated with the general education program.” Davis said because of this, overlays did not belong in the log containing the new GenEd. “They are being put in as suggested University requirements that somewhere in a student's curriculum, they have to take a course that addresses this. Our hope is that, for many of them, that courses in the major will address this, because that's honestly the best way to make sure all the students are going to be able to get it if it's actually in their major. There will absolutely be GenEd courses that get tagged with those,” Davis said. Davis said courses that reflect these learning objectives will be reviewed by a separate governance process between UCC and the Academic Policy Committee. As another part of the new GenEd model, students will no longer be required to complete a laboratory science course as part of their general education requirements - a change Nolfo-Clements said she has mixed feelings about, but she sees the benefits of student flexibility. Mannman said he was initially opposed to removing the laboratory requirement from the model. “I see the value of taking a lab course, because science is often [done] in practice. It's almost like taking an art class without a studio.” He added, “But at the same time, hearing the arguments to remove it, like over time, like when it's presented, you can see both sides. And there are ways we can still incorporate active learning, hands-on learning - even in a lecture.” Nolfo-Clements said the model as a whole reflects the values of the institution “in that it allows students to have the flexibility to explore different areas that they're interested in. … Also, because we do have a number of transfer students, it's going to really streamline the transfer process, because the exploratory categories are broader - the learning outcomes are a little more flexible, so it'll be easier to transfer your courses into GenEd pretty much fully.” Another requirement, which was potentially going to be removed from the model, a foreign language requirement, remains in the core. This is a requirement, Inés Vaño García, a professor of Spanish, is pleased to see. “I still don't think it's enough. … We also need to be realistic. How much can you do with one semester, and what are going to be the skills that students have?” Vaño García said she believes one foreign language requirement is “not what equity means” in relation to other requirements. “Students have been taking English and math since they were 6, but they have not been taught, they have not been schooled in a language that is not English, since they were 6. So English writing 100 or math 100 is not Spanish, Portuguese, or Chinese 100.” Professor of Political Science and UCC member Guliano Espino said he believes the approval of the model is a “massive win-win” for students and faculty. He said, “It seems like those big issues were really kind of ironed out when I was coming in here. My biggest thing that I'm very favorable of is that it's a very streamlined model, so it's not going to be students going into these very nice, specific subsets of having to get specific domains out of the way. It gives students a lot more flexibility with the courses that they choose to focus on.” Espino said he has spoken about the model to students in his classes, and “every student said that they wish they were here when this was the model. So from what I've heard from students, too, in terms of sharing it in my classes, [it’s] very attractive.” He added he has been in favor of the general framework of the model, and students are happy to see the lab requirement removed. “You know, that requirement that kind of causes existential dread whenever I'm in advising with students.” Trousdale said she likes that the new model is not “so much of a list of check boxes. By having fewer hyper-prescribed items that students need to address one at a time, we're giving students more agency to pursue their interests. We're giving students more opportunities to discover things they might not have known were there." Senior Merlin Clive, the student representative to UCC said she was pleased with the GenEd model. She added there was was a “debate about the use of the word “sociocultural” in a learning objective for the arts and humanities requirement I believe, I was in favor of the use of this language, arguing that art in all forms whether writing, screen play, sculpture, photography, music, murals, etc. has an inherently political and cultural connection to its making as a reflection of its time. A couple of professors did agree with me on this, and tried to push for the use of it.” She added, “I also felt passionately about this as one of the models we were considering included a diversity requirement that would essentially help students learn more about culture and diversity. “This was not approved which I did find to be a disappointment and disadvantage to our student body, which is majority students of color including myself as a mexican american, secretary for L.U.N.A., and as diversity & inclusion officer of SGA. I hope UCC can reconsider this in the next gen ed review, as well as make an effort to encourage professors and other administrators to continue to push for these changes in current and future curriculum that incorporate a focus on diversity,” Clive said.