Review of Core Courses
- TO: The Faculty of the College
- FROM: Todd Gleeson, Dean, and Rob Tubbs, Chair, Curriculum Committee
- SUBJECT: Review of Core Courses
- DATE: June 3, 2005
The Curriculum Committee of the College has voted unanimously to begin a regular review of all courses offered for core credit. The purpose of this review is to ensure that a course offered for core credit "continues to meet the goals of the core area to which it is assigned." A similar review of core courses was initiated in 1991, under the so-called Core Curriculum Course Maintenance Program, but the only core areas reviewed were Critical Thinking and Foreign Language in 1994-95. We are hoping that the present Core Course Review Program will be more effective.
The Curriculum Commmittee will review courses offered for core credit, by area, according to the following schedule:
- 2005-06 QRMS, Written Communication, and Foreign Languages
- 2006-07 Historical Context, Contemporary Societies, and Ideals & Values *
- 2007-08 Literature & the Arts and Culture & Gender Diversity *
- 2008-09 Natural Sciences and United States Context
- 2009-10 Critical Thinking.
The review process will be straightforward. The Curriculum Committee will mail a short questionnaire to each department/program requesting specific information for each of the courses under review. This approach was chosen because the committee felt that filliing out a simple questionnaire would not be too much of a burden on the faculty and having some uniformity in the responses from units would facilitate the work of the committee.
The Chair/Director of the unit will be responsible for ensuring that the questionnaires are completed and returned by the indicated deadline.
The questionnaires for QRMS and Written Communication core courses will be mailed later this month. The completed forms will be due back to the committee by the end of October. The questionnaires for Foreign Languages core courses will be mailed in October and will be due by the end of January 2006.
We appreciate your cooperation in this important process, which we believe will help us maintain the quality of the education our undergraduates receive.
* The review order has been switched for 2006-07 and 2007-08. Literature & the Arts and Cultural & Gender Diversity will be reviewed in 2006-07 and Historical Context, Contemporary Societies and Ideals & Values will be reviewed in 2007-08.
