Developing the Plan:

Curriculum Subcommittee
Proposal January 2001

Index

I. Statement of Vision

II. Transition to Strategic Initiatives	III. The Initiatives
Initiatives and the structure of curriculum review at the College	A. Strategic Initiative - Breadth of Learning
Brief Overview of Initiatives	B. Strategic Initiative: Depth of Learning at Saint Mary's College
A. Breadth of learning.	C. Strategic Initiative: The Integration of Learning at Saint Mary's College
B. Depth of Learning	D. Strategic Initiative: Learning Environment - Student Development
C. Integration of Learning	E. Strategic Initiative - Learning Environment: Faculty Development
D-F : The Learning Environment : Student Development, Faculty Development, Assessment	F. Strategic Initiative: Learning Environment - Assessment of Student Learning
Commencement : Living Life against the Grain
Appendix 1:

I. Statement of Vision for the Curriculum of Saint Mary's College

An undergraduate curriculum in the liberal arts tradition is the student's path to life-long learning. The curriculum introduces the student to the disciplines in the liberal arts, engages her in the ways of knowing particular to her field of study, and encourages her to make interdisciplinary connections. The curriculum cultivates intellectual curiosity, critical evaluation of ideas, and precise oral and written expression. The Saint Mary's College curriculum teaches the student the value of reflection as a precedent to action, empowers her to "make a difference in the world," and encourages her continually to evaluate the practical and ethical consequences of her own and other's actions. As a Catholic college for women, we shape our curriculum to enable each student to probe the connection between faith and reason, personal spirituality and social justice, and to come to a personal understanding and sense of herself as a woman. In this way, the student learns to respond to a complex and changing world and to discover within herself her power to act upon that world.

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II. Transition to Strategic Initiatives

Initiatives and the structure of curriculum review at the College

Fulfilling the mission of the Saint Mary's College curriculum, as articulated above is a multifaceted task, and all of these facets are deeply interrelated. Before pursuing this interrelatedness, however, we must emphasize certain points that have guided the discussions of the Jubilee Community Commitment Curriculum Committee (4C)-basic facts of life concerning the curriculum of the College, as follows:

1) The Governance Manual mandates that the curriculum is under the purview of the faculty, and is the faculty's express responsibility.

2) Curriculum review and revision have been and continue to be an on-going process at the College, as academic departments regularly evaluate the ways in which their course offerings respond to developments in their disciplines, assessment of student learning, and professional accreditation and certification requirements. This is an entirely appropriate and commendable manner in which the faculty exercises its responsibility for the overall curriculum.

3) Because the curriculum is central to the mission and academic life of the College, discussion of it is necessarily more complex and overlapping into other areas of College life (such as student and faculty development) than the topics treated by the other Jubilee Community Commitment Committees.

Any strategic planning for the curriculum must take these basic facts into account. Further, the key words to be kept in mind as one reads this report are complexity and interconnectedness: all of the initiatives and issues our committee presents here are fundamentally related to one another. Change and adjustment in one area will necessarily involve change and adjustment in the others.

For the purposes of this report, the J4C has focused on six topics from with we derive specific initiatives for strategic planning. The first three of these six concern what might be referred to as the formal curriculum of the College: the structure and challenges of general education, the strength of the major programs, and the hoped-for outcome of the students' experiences in these areas, i.e., integration of knowledge. The second group of three addresses areas of initiatives that must be considered for any strengthening of the formal curriculum; these concern the learning environment of the College.

Our six topics from which our strategic initiatives are derived are, thus, as follows:

Formal Curriculum

A. Breadth of Learning

B. Depth of Learning

C. Integration of Learning

Learning Environment

D. Student Development

E. Faculty Development

F. Assessment of Student Learning

The curriculum should ultimately enable our students to bring their reason and values to bear on their actions. In the terms of our Vision Statement for the Saint Mary's College curriculum, "the student learns to respond (ethically and morally) to a complex and changing world and to discover within herself her power to act upon that world." This crucial goal requires that students make the kinds of connections between theory, facts, values, and actions that integrated knowledge makes possible. If students experience their education as the serial accumulation of factual knowledge or the compartmentalizing of unrelated course requirements, they will fail to understand how their classes (and knowledge) are related and how their education creates their understanding of the world and of themselves. Thus, experiencing her college education as serial, compartmentalized, and fragmented leaves the students ill-prepared to bring their knowledge to bear on their lives and the lives of others. Our initiatives regarding the formal curriculum will therefore ask the College to place great emphasis on improving the integration of knowledge at Saint Mary's.

We recognize also that pursuing curricular initiatives aimed at improving the integration of knowledge will require that the College address issues related not only to the formal curriculum, but to issues that involve the total learning environment in which the students are immersed during their years on campus. Hence, in addition to considering various ways in which the curriculum might lead the student successfully through breadth and depth of knowledge to an integration of her learning, we must consider the no less important ways in which student life outside the classroom can contribute to such learning. Initiatives related to the learning environment at the College will include, then, attention to such underpinnings of the formal curricular experience as extracurricular activities, student advising, student development, faculty development, and assessment of student learning. Here again, the key words are complexity and interconnectedness. Although pursuing the initiative of integrating knowledge may directly involve revisions to the formal curriculum (e.g., a first-year course, expansion of tandems, etc.), the goal of countering fragmentation will remain unrealized if we fail to adequately lay the groundwork for each initiative by bringing to bear related initiatives in student development, faculty development, and assessment.

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Brief Overview of Initiatives

A. Breadth of learning.

Initiatives pertaining to this topic have to do with general education at the College, a program to which the College has historically been, and remains, committed through its distribution requirements. In what may surprise some readers, to whom the Bulletin seems to present these requirements as "cafeteria selections" (pick one from column A, two from column B, and so on), the J4C has concluded that our general education program does have a good bit of coherence, and even a respectable rationale. In their first two years of college, students are required to become familiar with ways of knowing in the liberal arts: the general education program introduces them to courses in the humanities, mathematics, the physical sciences, and the social sciences. All students complete not just an introduction to theology but also a Scripture-study course, and they demonstrate competencies in basic English writing (the W program), and foreign language (the language requirement). It is not unusual for a student to decide on her major based on her experience in general education-and faculty members have all seen students unexpectedly discover their true intellectual passions in these courses.

However, the committee recognizes that the coherence and rationale of the general education curriculum are not evident to large portions of the College community. Students often see general education courses as hoops through which to jump, and in crucial settings, such as faculty-student advising, we fear that there is both poor understanding and poor articulation of the program and its intended relation to inculcating "ways of knowing" in the liberal arts. Thus, if integration of learning is to take pride of place at Saint Mary's over perceptions of fragmented, disconnected learning, advising (which in turn has much to do with both faculty and student development) offers important possibilities for strategic planning as it concerns the curriculum.

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B. Depth of Learning

Initiatives relating to this topic have to do with the College's majors, and the role of individual departments in defining, evaluating and innovating the curriculum. As pointed out above, on-going curricular review and renewal is already part of ordinary departmental business; as we prepare our students to take on specific life work after college, the conscientiousness of departments in this regard cannot be overestimated. The College does a very good job of turning out graduates sufficiently competent in their fields of study to continue their studies at the graduate level, or to find satisfying employment in areas related to their majors. An additional remark may be made here, tying together the strengths of both our general education program and our major fields of study: numerous are our graduates who, drawing on their Saint Mary's experience, find themselves enabled to change careers, undertake graduate or additional professional education after a period of employment in one field, or continue to find their domestic roles as mothers and teachers of their children enhanced by their college experience.

The committee has found reason to be concerned, however, about the articulation between the general education program and the historically strong allegiance of the students to their departments (a not surprising allegiance, since the department faculty are themselves strongly allied to the disciplines in which they have earned their advanced degrees). We suggest that disciplinary allegiance often creates a false dichotomy between major programs and general education.

We further see that there may be significant gaps between what departments expect of their majors in terms of thinking skills"analysis and ability to make integretive leaps between disciplines"and what general education actually provides.

One model that the College has provided to address this false dichotomy is the Advanced W: a student who has earned her W in her general education program is assumed by her major department to have sufficiently developed basic writing skills to fulfill the Advanced W in her major. But is this always the case, and does this step-by-step process of acquiring and then deepening other skills and habits of mind (e.g., mathematical competency, analytic and comparative thinking, ethical and multicultural awareness, among others) always guide the student's progress from general education into her major? The committee suggests that this bears looking into: if seniors are still trying to fulfill general education requirements in their last year, we are not in fact structuring their curricular programs according to this perceived advancement through breadth and depth to integration of learning. Thus, the relationship between general education and the major programs, and the expectations that the latter has of the former, need to be explored and more clearly articulated across the College.

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C. Integration of Learning

Ask for a quick example of "integration of learning" as it currently exists at Saint Mary's College, and the odds are that most students and faculty will answer "tandems." Our sense, indeed, is that these experiences are valuable integrating ones for our students, and research from the Academic Affairs Office may be summoned to support this. In tandems, students are encouraged, indeed required, to cross disciplinary boundaries. However, it is interesting to note that-perhaps because the students in tandems have yet only a vague sense of the particular methods of inquiry specific to the disciplines-the boundary crossing may be more of an integrative experience of the teachers than for the students: the faculty members, as professionals in a specific discipline, are more likely to understand and use their disciplinary boundaries as part of their own identification as a teacher-scholar. This certainly does not vitiate the use of tandems-far from it-but it questions whether the student fully appreciates the strength of the activity.

The committee senses that students do, however, come eventually to some integration of their learning. Much of this is based on anecdotal evidence: the student who makes reference in class to a related concept presented in another class, or perhaps the senior comprehensive project that appropriately applies mathematical, or philosophical, or theological, or linguistic reasoning to a specifically disciplinary question. In one sense, maturational and distance factors are at work here: most of our best evidence that the student has 'integrated' her learning experiences at Saint Mary's comes from our alumnae who write back to tell us how little she would have expected x, y, or z aspect of her learning experience to 'come alive' for her as she grew more deeply into her professional and personal life after college. Yet, through systematic assessment of learning while the students are still at Saint Mary's, we need to increase our understanding of how and why integration occurs in their experiences here.

Thus, we return to the question of disciplinary boundaries in a more formal sense-a sense that returns us to our general education program. Does general education-beyond the tandems-have as one of its goals the crossing of disciplines as well as breadth of exposure to those disciplines?

A no less important aspect of 'integration' arises when we consider another 'boundary'-that between the classroom and its outside. A recurrent theme in our committee was the frantic busy-ness of students. Many good and worthy activities compete for our students' time, energy, and resources. As examples, the College encourages the students to:

1) become involved in student government (we advertise ourselves as a College in which women can make a practical difference in the life of the school and its constituencies);

2) commit themselves to service projects, according to the laudable tradition of our sponsors, the Sisters of Holy Cross;

3) participate in sports and recreational and fitness activities;

4) exercise financial responsibility for their education through work-study programs or other on- or off-campus employment;

5) enjoy a healthy social life, since it is developmentally appropriate for students in the 18-22-year-old age group to form life-long friendships, grow away from their families of origin, and prepare for their own eventual marriages and families.

As stated above, these are all competing good things, and the College has worked hard over the past many years, through such leadership programs as those funded by our FIPSE grants, the Leaders of a New Indiana (LONI) project, and most recently, the new Center for Women's InterCultural Leadership, to offer our students a chance to see their leadership activities making a difference in the here and now.

However, as is the case with all competing goods, there is a delicate balance to be struck: while it would be naïve to say that college is 'just' classes and homework, the committee is aware that many faculty members feel the students are not being led to focus sufficiently on their academic responsibilities. It is a fact that our current students have been raised in a culture of busy-ness that is perhaps much different than that experienced by the faculty during their own undergraduate years ; the faculty has all known the intensity that comes with immersion in scholarship, yet our students are neither monks nor graduate students. Yet it remains the responsibility of the 'nation's premier Catholic women's college' to encourage the life of the mind in ways that respond to our mission to promote 'intellectual rigor, aesthetic appreciation, religious sensibility, and social responsibility,' as articulated in the Saint Mary's College Mission Statement.

Our students' need to do more than just study while they are undergradutes, this is certainly supported by data from exit interviews during our enrollment crises of the 1990s, which showed that student dissatisfaction with College was more rooted in the perception that 'there was nothing to do on weekends' than in the quality of the academic program. Thus, strategic initiatives for curricular change, particularly as they regards integration of knowledge must seek to define the intersection of curricular and co-curricular activities. It has been pointed out that outsiders to the College-granting agencies, interviewers, etc. see extraordinarily accomplished women in our students. This is indeed right and good, but the faculty have an equally valid point when they observe that students often wind up sacrificing to these competing interests essential class preparation, and just as importantly, the leisure to reflect on academic experiences. How can the student truly move through breadth, depth, and integration of knowledge, when, as one committee member put it, 'the most important book in her back-pack is her day planner ?'

The wise use of leisure time is no less a mark of an accomplished person as a myriad of activities, and initiatives in curricular development cannot succeed if this fact of student-and faculty-life at Saint Mary's is not incorporated into our planning.

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D-F: The Learning Environment : Student Development, Faculty Development, Assessment

We have repeatedly noted here that without improvement in the College's learning environment (some of whose difficulties have just been examined in the previous section), nothing substantial can be done to improve breadth, depth, and integration of knowledge as hallmarks of a Saint Mary's education. If change is to be accomplished, students and faculty must be taught how to make change; if change is to be worthwhile, it must be amenable to assessment. All again, is interconnected (and we refer the reader at this point, to Figure 1 in the Appendix).

Let's speak first of the connections between student and faculty development. Since there isn't a student or faculty member who was born at Saint Mary's, it follows that every student and every faculty member makes a transition to the life of the College when he or she comes on board. And each student and each faculty member develops in the College. Moreover, each student and each faculty member makes contributions to the world using the College as a supremely important base. Both students and teachers, then, learn to respond to a complex and changing world and to discover within themselves their powers to act upon the world in ways that are heavily dependent upon the breadth, depth and integration of learning that takes place at the College, which in turn provides an important reason for welcoming, rather than demonizing, assessment of learning.

Assessment is not something tacked on to our lives, but is integral to it. We earlier pointed out the strength of the academic departments and their commitment to providing excellent courses of study; as teachers, we are always assessing our work-the development of our courses, the place of our courses within curricula and professional programs, what students respond to, what they don't, what evidence (beyond grades) we have that the students are learning, and so on. Assessment pervades all that we do.

Consider, for example, the combined currents of assessment and integration of knowledge that occur upon the introduction of new students and new faculty to Saint Mary's. When the student first arrives on campus, she brings with her, in a very real sense, her whole life up to that moment. We can't underestimate this fact; she comes from a family, a geographical region, and a set of values developed in response to her 'culture' at large; she has further formed a set expectations of what college life will be like. The specifically academic components of her preparation for college, broadly construed, include her reading habits, her habits of mind, what she has read and what she hasn't, her attitudes towards the subjects she has studied and will have to study, good experiences in grade school and high school, and damage sometimes done there (e.g., widespread cultural misperceptions such as 'girls can't do math'). Looking around her in her first weeks of classes, the student assesses for herself her preparation for her life at college and begins to compare her previous knowledge with that she is now being asked to acquire, an important first step on the way to integration.

In parallel ways, the faculty member who arrives for the first time at Saint Mary's also brings with him or her his or her whole life up to that point. As we did for the student, we can focus on the academic components of that preparation, broadly construed. With much confidence, we can say that the habits of mind of the faculty member are on the whole stronger than those of the student: he or she, after all, has chosen the academic life, trained very rigorously for it and is disposed towards an intellectual life. Yet, the faculty member, too, must go through a process of assessment as well as of integration: how well did graduate studies prepare him or her for the specific demands of teaching, research and service in force at Saint Mary's, and to what extent is he or she capable of interacting with our extraordinary faculty in way that cross interdisciplinary boundaries?

Thus, both the new student and the new faculty member share an experience of transition to Saint Mary's: each is, in his or her own way, a novice. In most cases, the student will need to pick up her pace, embrace her academic life in ways she has not before, and undo effects of earlier education ('Hey! Girls can do math!'). Similarly, the new faculty member-often a freshly minted Ph.D. from a major research university-must adjust to living his or her intellectual life in very different ways from the graduate school experience: teaching and research stand in a different relationship to each other than they did when one was 'simply' pursuing one's degree.

What will, ideally, emerge from this conjuncture of assessment and integration? For the student, we hope that she will immerse herself in her studies; that she will be open to new modes of inquiry in fields she had previously not thought of as 'hers'; but also, to some degree, that she will have a very rich life outside the classroom. For the faculty member, we hope to see continued growth in his or her disciplinary expertise, as well as growth in areas with which he or she has less experience, which may quite possibly include undergraduate teaching. Just as for the student, this growth involves taking on different habits of mind and, often, reformulating expectations of teaching and research that have been formed by one's graduate experience. Again, the way the faculty member goes about this developmental task is vitally connected to the now-familiar issues of breadth, depth and integration. Indeed, the faculty probably struggles with this more than the student (and appropriately so, if the faculty is to provide intellectual leadership): Should I teach a tandem with a colleague in another department? How should I 'grow' my courses within my discipline? How can I better 'reach' my students? What are the sensible boundaries around my own spheres of activity? How should these change? How do I instill in my students the life-long love of learning that motivates me?

Ideally, as faculty members answer these questions to their individual satisfaction, the goals of breadth, depth, and integration of knowledge will be more effectively-and joyfully-communicated to the students themselves.

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Commencement: Living Life against the Grain

For each student, we take the word 'commencement' seriously. Having completed her prescribed course of study (her curricular path), and having engaged in the co-curricular opportunities available to her, she leaves the College and begins, in a significant way, her life. Here, we must confront a paradox of higher education, made particularly evident by the mission of Saint Mary's College to be a Catholic college for women in the liberal arts tradition.

One of the reasons that the fledgling student came to us was to situate herself better in the culture at large; for better or for worse, a college degree is valued in American society as a passport to a good job, and that motivation cannot be ignored in our students when they arrive. But our task is not only to aid the student in better situating herself in the culture, for right at the top of this document we state our expectations that she will make a difference in the world, and discover within herself a power to transform culture. This will entail our leading the student, during her career here, against the negative aspects of American culture: e.g., capitalism unbalanced by social justice, knee-jerk politics, manipulation of ethics by the mass media, and on so. If we take the gospels seriously in a philosophical sense, we expect her to drop everything and follow something really worth following, and to show others the way, too. This is not to say that we are to prepare the students, in some post-60s radical way, to drop out of American culture: to transform the values of a culture, one works most effectively from within, and for our students to understand their place in a long line of ethical improvement of culture that includes the voices of Thoreau, King, Emerson, Sojourner Truth, Katharine Hepburn, and George and Ira Gershwin is indeed a valuable goal of an integrated education. Can the student really understand her place in this grand scheme of cultural understanding and transformation if her college experience does not provide her with the reflective space and time-the leisure to think about what she is doing and where she is going-that will undoubtedly be in short supply as she enters the world of work and family?

And we must provide support for this same kind of reflection for faculty. For in a real sense, we hope that the life path of the faculty member, while it is still dotted by career milestones such as tenure and promotion, will turn out to have been a vocation. While it can be argued that the best kind of faculty life resembles to some degree the monastic life, the constructive rejection of much of what the culture at large has to offer, we cannot naively imagine that faculty members live independently of that larger culture and are unaffected by its pressures and values. Our initiatives for faculty development will insist that the College support pedagogical innovation, research, and opportunities for personal, interdisciplinary, and intercultural enrichment that will enable us to more fully convey to our students the importance of our three-pronged goal of breadth, depth, and integration of learning.

In this way, we suggest that Saint Mary's College will continue, on the levels of formal curriculum and the overall learning environment, to honor tradition and pioneer change.

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Appendix 1:

The following chart shows the interconnectedness we see among our six only nominally distinct topics, sources of our initiatives.

Figure 1 :

Look at the six point of the compass. One thing to be noticed immediately is that every node is connected to every other. A less important observation is that the label attached to each node is not quite arbitrary, which is not what one would expect if every point is connected to all the others. But, breadth, depth, and integration have a particular relationship, as do student development, faculty development, and assessment.

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III. The Initiatives

A. Strategic Initiative - Breadth of Learning

Define, describe, reexamine and renew the way in which students gain breadth of knowledge through the curriculum.

Issue 1: The current state of general education at Saint Mary's College

Actions:

Define general education and its goals so that they are clear and coherent to faculty, students and external constituencies; communicate these definitions

Improve the description of the Ways of Knowing Model as an explanatory guide to our general education program

Define what we mean by terms such as fluency, competency, proficiency, literacy in various disciplines

Define & create a decision model for deciding what courses are to be designated as general education courses

Re-examine all courses currently designated as general education & make a determination as to their fit with the above model

Decide if there are gaps or changes that need to be made, based on our goals for general education

Examine role of interdisciplinary programs in general education in the design and implementation of general education

Describe potential role of Center for Women's Intercultural Leadership in the implementation of general education

Responsibility:

Curriculum Committee/Academic Affairs Council

Recommend: Initiate a Task Force on General Education

Resources:

Time

Course load reduction for Task Force Chair

Workshop support

Target Deadlines:

Fall 2001 - Curriculum Committee reviews needs related to general education and recommends either that they will be responsible for a review process, or that an Ad Hoc Committee on General Education be formed.

Spring 2002 - Faculty Assembly, in conjunction with Curriculum Committee and VP/Dean of Faculty, establish mechanism for review of general education program.

Fall 2002 - Review is underway, with interim reports to Curriculum Committee & Faculty Assembly

Fall 2003 - Recommendations made to Curriculum Committee and Faculty Assembly

Fall 2004 - Revisions to general education are initiated.

Fall 2005 - Initial assessment of outcomes of revisions to program of general education

Evidence of Progress:

Renewal of general education, as evidenced by increased faculty and student ability to articulate their understanding of General Education and an increase in marketing efforts that cite descriptions of our General Education program.

Outcome:

A coherent general education program that is well articulated and understood by students, faculty and college personnel.

Issue 2: Structure and governance of General Education

Who should be responsible for general education as a whole? Does general education need a specific place in our academic structure?

Actions:

Consider models to re-configure the structure of the administration of general education as a program of study at Saint Mary's, such as a separate Program of General Education

Communicate pros/cons of the various models to faculty; select a model based on goals and outcomes for general education

Consider role of departments in the governance and maintenance of general education

Consider impact on teaching loads and responsibilities within/across departments, including faculty teaching outside of their departments, but within area of expertise

Clearly articulate decision making power/authority matters as related to general education, including the role of Curriculum Committee

Responsibility:

Task Force on General Education?

Curriculum Committee

Department Chairs

Dean & Associate Dean of Faculty

Faculty Assembly

Resources:

Time and consideration by Faculty Assembly; in Department meetings

Time to communicate and consider options

Load-reduction for Chair of Task Force

Target Dates:

Concurrent with review of and revisions to general education.

Evidence of Progress:

Faculty Assembly agenda includes discussion and decision making; similarly, department and Chairs meetings will include this issue as a topic.

Outcome:

A decision making structure for issues related to general education (including its maintenance and growth), is in place and functioning.

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B. Strategic Initiative: Depth of Learning at Saint Mary's College

Define, describe, reexamine and renew the way in which students gain depth in an area of study.

Issue 1: The department as the locus of depth of learning

Action:

Each department construct a strategic plan for its curriculum for the next 5 years.

Responsibility:

With guidelines provided by the Curriculum Committee, Department Chairs and Departments.

Resources:

Planning time

Evidence of Progress:

Completion of Plan

Outcome:

Implementation of Plan

Issue 2: Marketing of distinctive features of "depth" of Saint Mary's Curriculum

Actions:

Articulate the distinct features of majors, comprehensive exams, and Advanced Ws.

Coordinated plan for design and update of materials and their distribution

Website design and updates

Examine and review articulation agreements with graduate and professional schools

Responsibility:

Admission Office, Marketing Communications, College Relations, IT; recommend a coordinating task force.

Resources:

Costs of publication, web site design, and other media that might be recommended.

Target deadline:

Systematic timetable to be developed by action bodies.

Evidence of Progress:

Work in departments; coordinating task force gathers separate materials and develops systematic plan and a plan for systematic revision of these materials.

Admission Office and College Relations/Marketing Communications use materials.

Outcome:

Distinct features of departments and majors are highlighted in marketing and communications.

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C. Strategic Initiative: The Integration of Learning at Saint Mary's College

Define, describe, reexamine and renew the way in which students integrate learning across the curriculum.

Issue 1: How do we recognize and define "integration" of learning?

Integration of knowledge involves the ability to apply abstract concepts to each other (theories) and to relevant facts. These concepts can be related within recognized academic disciplines and can cross those disciplinary lines. The goal of integrated knowledge is a more holistic and analytical approach to learning.

Actions:

Define integration of learning and its intended outcomes relative to existing curriculum, its strengths and weaknesses.

Develop specific initiatives to address the weaknesses, e.g.: required tandems, required interdisciplinary minors, capstone or first year course

Explore connections with Center for Women's Intercultural Leadership

Develop a concrete proposal which details a selected action plan for presentation to and approval of Faculty Assembly.

Determine places in curriculum and student life outside the classroom that foster integration of learning.

Responsibility:

Department Chairs: develop the definition and expected outcomes of integration of learning in our curriculum; identify strengths and weaknesses (March 2002). The Chairs will make a report of their findings to Faculty Assembly at the March meeting. Faculty Assembly will elect members of an Ad Hoc Committee to address the integration of learning. Using the work of the Department Chairs as a template, the Ad Hoc Committee will develop a concrete plan for action, with a vote of support by Faculty Assembly at the March 2003 meeting.

Resources:

Time: reduced load for Chair of ad hoc committee

Institutional Research - survey and research support

Target Deadlines:

Spring 2002 Department Chairs report

Spring 2003 Ad Hoc Committee plan; vote by Faculty Assembly

Fall 2004 Begin plan

Fall 2005 Assess outcomes of plan

Evidence of Progress:

Department Chairs and departments discuss the role of integration within the major and define outcomes of integration; interdisciplinary programs are invited to discuss the concept of integration at faculty seminars; presentations to and votes by the Faculty Assembly.

Outcome:

A concrete initiative has been implemented to address concerns regarding integration of learning.

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D. Strategic Initiative: Learning Environment - Student Development

Define, describe, reexamine, and renew the ways in which Saint Mary's students experience their education at Saint Mary's.

Issue 1: The "frantic busy-ness" of students and the role of wise leisure in education.

The role of curriculum in this experience and in the integration of student life outside the classroom.

Actions:

Explore the elements contributing to the "frantic busy-ness" of students, including: the adequacy of student preparation prior to college, the trend of multiple majors and minors, patterns and impact of student employment.

Evaluate overall "workload" of students (academic, employment, activities, service, athletics, etc.) for impact on stress level, style of learning, integration, and wellness of students.

Develop strategies to encourage positive life balance and the role of wise leisure in education.

Responsibility:

Task Force on Learning Environment (?), Vice-President and Dean of Faculty, Vice President for Student Affairs, Academic and Administrative Department heads (for example, Director of Athletics, Director of Health Services, Director of Counseling and Career Development).

Resources:

Time

Research costs for studies that might be recommended by action bodies.

Load reduction for task force.

Evidence of Progress:

Reports on factors/trends impacting the student learning environment as defined via inquiries and research on Saint Mary's realities.

Proposed intervention strategies have been initiated.

Outcomes:

Student experience over the stages of education where thoughtful and individual decisions address student goals, provide time for sustained attention, and wise leisure for integration and personal growth.

Less frantic and fragmented students, as evidenced by assessment of student learning outside the classroom.

Issue 2: Total hours for graduation.

We need to revisit and settle the issue of the optimum number of hours for graduation. Are variations across departments, degrees, and programs necessary?

Actions:

Examine number of graduation hours required at comparable institutions.

Examine change in faculty load that would result if graduation hour requirement were reduced.

Examine need for departmental changes relative to a potential reduction in graduation hour requirement.

Responsibility:

Task Force, Curriculum Committee, Committee on Faculty Affairs, Department Chairs and Departments

Resources:

Time

Money and Personnel if reduction is accepted

Target Deadline:

Spring, 2003

Evidence of Progress:

Report of Task Force on graduation requirements to Faculty Assembly.

Faculty comfort and support of graduation hour requirement study.

Administrative support of study and of proposed outcome of study.

Determine impact of a reduction in graduation hour requirement on students and their academic lives.

Outcome:

Decide appropriate graduation hour requirement.

Issue 3: Student Advising

We need to examine our system of advising students from the perspective of the stages of a student's life. From admission through orientation into the first year experience, through selection of a major and progress through that major to consideration of plans for life, work, and further education after college, students rely on faculty and administrators of Saint Mary's College to guide them. How do we work together to guide this experience to the best benefit of the student? How does the advising system nurture students' interests and foster their exploration of possibilities?

Actions:

Examine advising throughout the course of the student's life - from admission through four years and beyond, considering role of Office of First Year Studies, Office of Academic Affairs, Counseling and Career Development Center.

Examine advising provided by individual faculty advisers.

Examine advising provided by advisers for graduate and professional schools.

Develop an appropriate definition and model of advising, recognizing roles of general education, the major, and co-curricular activities in the student experience.

Responsibility:

Department Chairs, Office of First Year Studies, Office of Academic Affairs, Counseling and Career Development Center, Vice President and Dean of Faculty and Vice President of Student Affairs, current advisers for graduate and professional schools.

Resources:

Time

Personnel to support assessment of advising.

Target Deadline:

Spring, 2002 - new model is proposed.

Evidence of Progress:

Increased student satisfaction with advising situations is reported.

Less frustration reported by graduating seniors relative to advice throughout the four years and including graduate/work plans beyond.

Articulation of an appropriate model of advising at Saint Mary's College.

Development of an assessment tool for advising throughout course of students' lives at Saint Mary's College.

Outcome:

Systematic assessment of effectiveness of student advising system.

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E. Strategic Initiative - Learning Environment: Faculty Development

Define, describe, reexamine and renew faculty development at Saint Mary's College.

Issue 1: Faculty load, roles and responsibilities

Actions:

Examine the roles and responsibilities of faculty in enhancing the breadth, depth and integration of learning

Describe appropriate expectations of faculty in teaching, scholarship, and service and determine course load necessary to facilitate these expectations

Examine the roles and responsibilities of faculty in assessment and advising

Responsibility:

Vice President and Dean of Faculty, Faculty Affairs Committee, Faculty Assembly, Department Chairs

Resources:

Time

Finance and Administration

SAIL Plan

Target Deadlines:

Fall 2001 - Committee established (core is Faculty Affairs Committee)

Spring 2002 - Committee begins studying issues of faculty load (teaching, research, service)

Spring 2003 - Committee recommendations on teaching load, the nature of advising needed, and the kinds of assessment needed to measure success of proposed changes

Fall 2003 - Committee recommendations

Evidence of Progress:

Committee reports to Faculty Assembly its recommendations for teaching, scholarship, and service, with particular attention to newly articulated roles in advising and assessment.

Outcomes:

A new system of academic advising is established, making the curriculum more effective. Governance Manual reflects changes in promotion and tenure guidelines related to changes in faculty load and advising

Issue 2: The developing role of the Center for Academic Innovation (CFAI) in light of new initiatives, for example, in integration of learning, information technology, intercultural studies, and leadership.

Actions:

Reexamine the role of CFAI, CFAI Fellows, CFAI Grants Committee in guiding faculty development at Saint Mary's College

Responsibility:

Director of the CFAI, CFAI Grants Committee, CFAI Fellows

Resources:

Time and budgetary support

Target Deadlines:

Fall 2001 - CFAI Director will form a committee composed of CFAI Fellows and other appropriate persons (e.g., Director of Information Technology Resource Center) to determine funding needs and resources, including external grants.

2001-2002 - committee studies issues and need for budgetary and outside grant support

2002-2003 - committee develops proposal for providing resources and for outside grant support and expanded roles for the CFAI.

Evidence of Progress:

Ongoing reports of findings to VP and Dean of Faculty and to Faculty Assembly.

Outcomes:

A system of supporting resources offered within the CFAI for new initiatives and a structure for ongoing strategic planning for faculty development at Saint Mary's College.

Issue 3: The role of the Center for Women's InterCultural Leadership in supporting integration and breadth of learning.

Action:

Examine potential role of the Center for Women's InterCultural Leadership (CWIL) with respect to faculty development.

Responsibility:

CFAI Director, CWIL Advisory Committee, and later, CWIL Director and Fellows

Resources:

Lilly grant funding of CWIL.

Target Deadlines:

• Fall 2002 - Operating structure of CWIL will be established.
• Follow timetable and budget appropriations for CWIL.

Evidence of Progress:

Applications for grants related to faculty development activities made to and funded by CWIL.

Outcome:

A system of supporting resources for faculty development in CWIL, focused on integration and breadth of learning.

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F. Strategic Initiative: Learning Environment - Assessment of Student Learning

Define, describe, reexamine and renew the assessment of student learning at Saint Mary's College.

Issue 1: Ongoing assessment of Student Learning: The SAIL Plan

Actions:

Reexamine the Report on Assessment of Student Academic Achievement, submitted to the North Central Association in August 1998

Analyze and Describe the Progress made since this report and Determine actions that still need to be done

Reexamine and Renew the SAIL Plan with attention to:

- the concept of the waves and the procedures for full implementation

- the interweaving of departmental and general education assessment in the most efficient and productive manner

- noting assessment driven change in the major and minor programs

Recommend to Curriculum Committee and Academic Affairs Council any revisions in the SAIL Plan

Design a plan for assessment of student learning outside the classroom.

Responsibility:

Assessment Committee

Dean and Associate Dean of Faculty

Planning Committee for Assessment of Student Learning Outside the Classroom

Director of Student Activities

Resources:

Workshop support for assessment issues through the Center for Academic Innovation

Summer Stipends

Load Reduction

Target Deadlines:

Summer 2001, Assessment Committee reexamines the Report on Assessment of Student Academic Achievement and analyzes and describes progress made since this report and actions that still need to be done.

Fall 2001 - Assessment Committee reexamines the SAIL Plan

Spring 2002 - Assessment Committee and Curriculum Committee recommend any needed changes in SAIL Plan

Summer and Fall 2002 - Assessment of Student Learning outside the classroom instituted

Assessment Committee, Director of Student Activities and Planning Committee for Assessment of Student Learning Outside the Classroom.

Evidence of Progress:

Completion of Reviews and Revisions of the SAIL Plan in preparation for the North Central Association Accreditation Process

Approval of the Assessment Plan for Student Learning Outside the Classroom

Outcome:

Renewed SAIL Plan

Working Assessment of Student Learning Outside the Classroom

Issue 2: Assessment of General Education

Actions:

Re-examine the SAIL plan structure for general education assessment - is Curriculum Committee the best place for the conduct of assessment of General Education?

Re-examine current outcomes of general education - are they clearly articulated? Accepted? In need of revision or renewal? Measurable?

Address the multiple "demands" placed on students to develop competency, fluency, proficiency and/or literacy as outcomes of their general education

Re-examine the outcomes of general education as they related to the expectations of the departments

Re-examine role of departments/programs in deciding requirements within the choices available within the general education categories

Address consistency of general education across majors, taking into account goals of general education and departmental purposes.

Responsibility:

Curriculum Committee

Assessment Committee

Dean of Faculty

Associate Dean of Faculty

Department Chairs

Recommend: Task Force on General Education

Resources:

Time, reduction in load perhaps, and stipends and workshop support for implementation processes

Target Deadlines:

By end of fall semester 2001 plan in place

Spring 2001 Curriculum Committee`& Assessment Committees meet to recommend course of action. Consultation with Institutional Research Office.

Dean & Associate Dean delegate responsibility; discussions in Chairs meetings about role of assessment of outcomes of general education in departments and beyond graduation;

 

Evidence of Progress:

Institutional Research Office report on data already collected pertaining to outcomes of general education.

Assessment of General Education Plan approved by faculty through Curriculum Committee and Academic Affairs Council.

Outcomes:

Flexible General Education Assessment Plan that will accommodate itself to changes in the General Education Program and indeed be an instrument for determining what changes might be best made.

Implementation of improved procedures for assessment of general education.

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