What Would Change?
Specifically, courses in the ‘Biological and Physical World’ (including BS and PS courses) and the ‘Social World’ (including the AL/AT, HS and SB courses) would shift from 3-credit to 4-credit courses with a corresponding reduction in the number of courses required of students.   Instead of the current three courses in ‘Biological and Physical World’, only two would be required, and instead of the current six courses in ‘Social World’, only four would be required.  In addition, the proposal includes one 3-credit upper level course in a new ‘Integrative Experience’ category.  This year, those teaching Gen Ed courses are being invited to apply for the 4-credit designation, showing how student learning would be enhanced.

For undergraduates, this change reduces the total number of general education courses required from 13 or more down to 11.  For faculty, it would require the teaching of fewer courses in the Gen Ed curriculum, albeit some of the courses taught would require more effort.  For graduate students, the change could mean a reduction in the number of teaching opportunities, especially in the Humanities and Fine Arts.

Making this a win-win
The suggested changes to Gen Ed could be a win-win, with better pedagogy, a more focused student body, and greater support for faculty teaching. With slightly fewer courses being offered and taught, there would be less stress placed on course scheduling and classroom space.  Faculty, staff, and students could all benefit, yet if and only if particular conditions are met including:

1. The revision of courses from 3 to 4 credits involves genuine pedagogical improvement. With 4-credit courses, students could receive substantially better pedagogical experiences, particularly if they are able to take four 4-credit courses a semester, rather than five 3-credit courses, and therefore focus their attention more on each course. Indeed, faculty who have taught 4-credit courses in the past have often done so with the support of additional TAs, and through smaller class sizes and more intensive writing and other engagement with students. These faculty members feel strongly that 4-credit courses can be a significant improvement over 3-credit courses.

Students, the faculty and the MSP have a strong interest in presenting a rigorous, high quality curriculum where students achieve the Gen Ed learning objectives effectively.  Vetting of course proposals and verification that revised courses meet the high standards traditionally required for course approvals is the formal responsibility of the Faculty Senate.  We fully expect the Faculty Senate to continue to energetically engage in course review in the official approval process.

2.  The increased efforts by the faculty delivering new 4-credit variations on Gen Ed courses must be properly recognized at the department, college and university levels.  This extra effort has two components: the effort required to redesign a 3-credit course into a 4-credit version, and the added effort required to teach the course, assess student performance, and manage increased course resources (e.g. TAs, discussion mentors, online tools or other changes).  Adjustments must be made in other aspects of workload, including other teaching, research or service to properly reflect the added workload in teaching a four-credit course. For example, faculty who regularly teach four 3-credit classes may instead shift to regularly teach three 4-credit classes. Such a change would ensure that each course is appropriately “ramped up” to truly provide a 4-credit course experience, without requiring faculty to sacrifice time on research or other activities.

Some of these considerations are addressed in the documents from the administration while others are less clear.

Danger of a lose-lose
In contrast,

1.  If the new 4-credit courses are not more rigorous, do not have genuine enhancement in pedagogy consistent with the Gen Ed learning objectives, students lose as they will be learning less in 11 courses than they previously did with 13. If 4-credit courses look much the same as their former three-credit incarnations, with only cosmetic changes to the curriculum, students clearly will lose. Again, this liability depends on the rigors of the Faculty Senate course approval process.

2.  If there is insufficient recognition of increases in faculty effort, then faculty are being asked to put more time into teaching these 4-credit courses, and as a result, other parts of their work will receive less attention.  We are already operating with quite large student-teacher ratios.  We don’t want research to suffer or for other classes to get short shrift.  Yet, we believe that teaching a 4-credit course does require more effort. This effort must be recognized and offset.

3. During the implementation of any new policy and the distribution of appropriate resources to enable the change, the University and Faculty Senate should be fully cognizant of the potential negative impact on particular programs, and they should work to address the concerns of graduate students, departments, and colleges who may lose resources by shifting to a 4-credit system with fewer total course offerings for students.

The MSP appreciates the complexities and challenges of the proposed change to a four-credit curriculum.  To the extent that issues of rigor and workload are properly addressed, the suggested changes could be a step forward. 

To assure that faculty effort is properly respected in this regard, the MSP has notified the administration of our intention to engage in impact bargaining around this issue.

There will clearly be more to come on this issue.

Sincerely,
Randall Phillis, MSP President