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The Course-Based Curriculum Delivery System at Salisbury
University
General Principles
and Operational Guidelines
November 2005
The Faculty Senate Ad Hoc
Committee on Curriculum Change proposes the following general principles and
operational guidelines regarding the potential adoption of the course-based
curriculum delivery system at Salisbury University.
General Principles
- To
fulfill its mission Salisbury University
must have a strong, engaged, lively academic/learning community for
students and faculty, both within and across student and faculty
boundaries.
- Students
will best develop the knowledge, skills and core values that Salisbury
University seeks to foster
through deep exploration of the subject matter within their courses.
- In
order to be fully engaged academically, students should spend significant
time outside of class engaged in course work (an average of 12
hours—combined, both in class and out—per week
per course).
- To be
effective teachers, faculty should have a teaching load (in terms of
courses and numbers of students) that enables them to focus deeply on both
the courses they teach and the students with whom they work.
- As
scholars, faculty members need the opportunity to engage in scholarly
work—from the development of ideas to actual
research and writing—within the context of their regular workload, rather
than out of personal time and winter and summer breaks.
Operational Guidelines
The following guidelines provide basic parameters for the
application of the course-based model to SU reality.
- Number
of courses needed to graduate and student course load
Most students will need 32 courses to graduate,
taking, on average, four per semester to graduate in four years. Some majors (those, for example, that
will find it difficult to impossible to fit accreditation-mandated
requirements into the 32-course model) will require more, up to a total of
35. Students will need permission
to take five courses in a given semester.
Students taking three courses a semester will be
considered full-time.
- Course
load for faculty
Faculty will teach fewer courses and/or sections. While each school—and in some cases,
disciplines therein—will be left to decide how teaching load will be
reallocated, most faculty who currently teach 4/4
will teach 3/3. Teaching load in the Henson School will be adjusted to take labs and
clinical observation into consideration.
The Perdue School will consider a
move to a 3/2 teaching load.
Regardless of the specifics, however, all faculty will spend less
time in the classroom than under the current system and load, focusing
their energies on both fewer courses/sections and fewer students.
- Expectations
regarding Scholarship
A change to the course-based system and its reallocated
teaching load will not change expectations regarding faculty scholarship
from what is expected of faculty now.
- Staffing
No tenure-track personnel will be lost in the change to the course-based
model. Avoiding reassignment
of tenure-track faculty will also be a priority. Every effort will be made, as well, to
retain all current full-time contractual faculty
personnel. Early estimates, using
raw numbers, are that a change to the course-based system will require the
addition of at least 16 new
full-time faculty across campus.
- Enrollment
in classes
Class sizes will not increase as a result of the new model, and in some
cases class size will need to be reduced to achieve the academic goals of
this change. Although faculty will
teach fewer courses, students will also take fewer courses, thus, in most
cases, alleviating the need to serve the same number of students for x
course within the same timeframe.
New positions, part-time or full, will need to be created where
necessary to accommodate courses, for example, in which student demand, in
spite of the reduced student course load, remains at pre-change levels and
when said levels cannot be accommodated via a course cycle adjustment.
- Division
of courses regarding Gen Ed, Majors, Electives
Following both the lead of The College of New Jersey
and the most common general pattern practiced at
other institutions that use the course-based model, the 32 courses required for
graduation will be distributed roughly along the lines of 1/3 for Gen Ed, 1/3
for a student’s major, and another 1/3 for electives, minor, and/or a second
major, as prescribed in the three sections that follow.
To fit into the 32-course program of each student,
the General Education program will be reduced from 15 to 12 courses. The following model, using the current SU
model as its starting point, accomplishes this reduction, while distributing
the reduction equitably across disciplines.
2 courses in English (of the English Department's choosing)
2 courses in Humanities (Art, CMAT, Dance, Modern Languages, Music,
Philosophy, perhaps adding Literature to this list)
2 courses in History (of the History Department's choosing)
2 courses in other Social Sciences (Anthropology, Econ, Human Geography,
Political Science, Psych, Sociology, CADR, subtracting
History from this list)
2 courses in Science (of the Henson School’s choosing)
1 course in Math from the Math Department
1 course in Phys Ed
The 12-course program covers a percentage of
a student’s overall program similar to that required by the current SU Gen Ed
program (current percentage: 40%—an average of 48 of 120 credits; 12-course
program: 37.5%—12 of 32 courses).
While the model above
will allow Gen Ed to fit into a 32-course system, as well
as allow said system to function, an even more
flexible Gen Ed program, such as those in place at virtually all the
institutions that currently use the course-based curriculum delivery system,
would make for a better fit, both logistically and philosophically, and it is the
recommendation of the Committee that such a Gen Ed program be explored after
the course-based system is in place at SU.
Following the formula put forward in “Division of courses” above,
majors will be between 9 and 12 courses, with efforts made to accomplish the
objectives of the major within 10 courses.
Some majors in professional programs, however, may even have to exceed
the 12-course maximum prescribed here.
A minor will require four to five courses.
Because students will take fewer courses during their time at SU,
so-called “double-dipping” between Gen Ed and a student’s major/minor will be
both permitted, without limit, and encouraged (see “Advising”). “Triple-dipping,” to the limited degree that
such might be possible, will be permitted as well.
With
“only” 32 courses over a student career, the careful selection of specific
courses a student takes will become even more important than under the current
system. There will be few or no “throw-away”
courses in a student’s academic career under the course-based system. This will not necessitate a wholesale change
in advising practices (though both students and advisors will need to be on the
lookout for more “double-dipping” opportunities, for example), but it will,
indeed, accentuate the importance of advising and of a student paying close
attention to both his/her own course selection and overall career and to the
advice he/she receives regarding these issues.
- Withdrawal policy
Because withdrawal from
a course will have serious repercussions for finishing a degree on time
and/or within the context of appropriate student workload, the
University’s current, liberal policy regarding withdrawal deadlines will
be changed to allow withdrawals no later than the third week of the
semester except in exceptional circumstances, such as a documented
illness.
- Curriculum
reform for both individual courses and programs
The course-based model will require a complete
restructuring of the existing curriculum.
This means that changing all of the existing courses and simply
making them more intensive is not an option. Each department will begin by
considering its learning goals and outcomes and then design a new
curriculum taking both these goals/outcomes and the nature of the
course-based model, and of courses therein, into consideration.
- Transitional
curriculum committees
Transition to the course-based system will require the creation of
temporary, special, and (to handle the load) perhaps multiple, school and
university curriculum committees to consider and approve the wholesale
program and course changes that the course-based system will require. These committees will be responsible for
ensuring that the new standards are met.
(It will be the job of both individual faculty, in their own
courses, and programs/departments, to make sure that said standards are
executed once the curriculum change is made.)
- Contact
hours
Individual departments will determine the contact time for
courses. For most courses, contact hours will not change. For example, the type of course that now
meets three hours a week will still likely meet three hours a week under
the new system, with the added rigor and deeper experience coming
via more time for both students and faculty to focus and prepare and the
inclusion of more, or more difficult/complex, material, both in-class and
out. This said, however, the
flexibility of the course-based model offers the potential of adding more
contact time than currently practiced to selected courses, which can be
used by faculty and students as appropriate to the course in question.
- Transition
resources
Financial resources
must be available to cover the cost of transition from the current system
to the course-based system (for example, funds to cover teaching downloads
for designated faculty who might carry the bulk of the load associated
with the curriculum change in their particular departments or programs).
- Teaching
evaluations during the early going
The change from the current system to the
course-based system will be difficult for both faculty and students
alike. Since courses, though fewer,
will rather suddenly become more intense, with higher expectations
regarding student work—particularly outside work—student-generated
teaching evaluations during this time will be either suspended or weighted
differently, so that non-tenured faculty, as well as faculty looking
toward promotion, will not suffer in their progress toward
tenure/promotion by virtue of potentially (albeit temporarily) more
negative teaching evaluations.
- Financial
support for the course-based system vs. other campus needs and commitments
Implementation of the course-based system, and the financial commitment
it may require, cannot “leapfrog” over other campus needs and commitments, such
as equity adjustments to faculty salary and long-term efforts to raise faculty
salaries across the board. These other
needs and commitments cannot suffer—via either cancellation or a deceleration—due
to the adoption of the course-based model and the costs that may be involved
with the transition to, the launch, and the maintenance of the system.
- The
role of a new, enhanced library in the course-based system
The course-based system, and the
more vibrant learning community this system would be intended to establish—with
enhanced courses, deeper student engagement in said courses, more opportunities
for undergraduate research, and an overall upgrading of both academic programs
and the University’s reputation beyond campus—requires, at its center, a new
library. A commitment to the building of
said library must be part of the puzzle regarding the establishment of the
course-based model at SU.
The target date for implementation
of the course-based system will be Fall 2009.