Having moved through a decade of interesting innovations in curriculum development, assessment, faculty development, and student learning, Saint Mary's College is poised to undertake a comprehensive re-visioning of general education. In 1989-1991, supported by a grant from the Lilly Endowment, the Curriculum Project engaged almost all faculty in an examination of a number of curricular issues, including the meaning and purposes of general education at Saint Mary's. It is impossible to summarize three years of discussion briefly, but the faculty fervently debated whether the general education needs of students could best be met by a series of interdisciplinary core courses taken in common by all students or through a distribution requirement allowing for greater student flexibility and introducing distinctive academic disciplines in courses taught by experts. Proponents of both points of view sought to empower students to become self-motivated learners with a grounding in different and more sophisticated ways of viewing the world; they disagreed only on the best means to accomplish this. In the end, the faculty supported a continuation of the distribution-based model of general education, although the debate continues to this day.
The Curriculum Project helped us to realize that the Saint Mary's general education program is a hybrid system, with de facto core courses taken by all students, such as Philosophy 110 (Introduction to Philosophy) and Religious Studies 101 (Introducing Religious Studies), as well as area requirements that offer students the latitude to determine the particular cast of their general education. In addition, all students demonstrate competency in writing in general (the W) and writing in the major (Advanced W). In both instances, proficiency is assessed by portfolio review in which multiple examples of student writing are evaluated by teams of faculty, in the case of the W, from across the disciplines.
Prompted by a number of external and internal events, the faculty at Saint Mary's College have taken on some of the major issues that animate contemporary higher education. These issues have implications for the college's general education curriculum and contribute to our interest in reform.
Saint Mary's College faculty are self-reflective teachers committed to close attention to fostering student learning. As a Catholic women's college, we also take very seriously our mission to empower young women to make a difference in the world. Through the North Central Accreditation Site Review in 1994, we turned our attention to articulating more closely our goals for our students in general education. This led to a reformulation emphasizing general education as an introduction to, and practice in, ways of knowing. Thus, assessment focuses on students learning how a scientist thinks and what it means to know something in science rather than on mere mastery of a certain content. Also, as a part of the college's assessment plan, we are working to assess student learning outside the classroom and to develop a comprehensive model of student development.
At the same time our general education is structured around disciplines and ways of knowing, we have a long tradition of interdisciplinary innovation. The W Program mentioned above; the Women's Studies program, which now offers an interdisciplinary option within our general education program; our tandem courses, in which a student signs up for two courses in tandem designed and taught in collaboration by two faculty yet grounded in different disciplines - all demonstrate faculty interest in interdisciplinary possibilities. In addition, a new program drawing on common themes to engage the curricular and co-curricular experience of first year students and the P (for pedagogy) Lunches, in which faculty discuss goals and purposes for general education and possibilities for collaboration, offer evidence of interest in interdisciplinary connections beyond the formal curriculum.
With the establishment of the Center for Academic Innovation in 1994, new programs have supported teaching and research development with a particular emphasis on collaboration between student and teachers and among faculty. The Center for Academic Innovation Fellow's programs enable faculty to engage one another in exploration and planning on such issues as service learning, the nature of the church-related college, and diversity. Two FIPSE-supported projects have engaged student intellectual life and leadership among faculty and student development professionals and developed Community Leadership Teams of students, faculty, and student development professionals to explore such issues as the first year experience and intercultural studies.
For fifteen years Saint Mary's College has been engaged in efforts to increase diversity among faculty and students and to respond to the need to prepare all students to live in a more diverse world. Faculty and curricular development have resulted in new courses, an InterCultural Studies minor, and many new components within courses.
Saint Mary's has made a substantial investment in instructional technology over the last decade. Through our Teaching and Learning Through Technology Community Leadership Team and its successor the TLT Roundtable, we are working to make the best use of technology as a learning tool and to understand its role as subject and means for general education.
Changes across campus have been accomplished by many different faculty and administrators prompted by the issues outlined above and more. The Curriculum Committee, the Assessment Committee, the W Program, the Women's Studies Program, multiple Community Leadership Teams, and Center for Academic Innovation programs have addressed various parts of general education. As a college, we must now develop a more comprehensive vision of where we are and where we want to move in this crucial area. It is as though we have a number of disparate snapshots of general education. We have even at times put these in albums for examination, but we want to construct a more comprehensive, vivid, and moving picture that can engage faculty and students in the possibilities and promise of general education at Saint Mary's College. In the fall of 1999, President Marilou Eldred appointed a study group to begin a process called "Jubilee Community Commitment: A Step Forward in Strategic Planning." The study group recommendations include calls to conduct a comprehensive review of the curriculum and "to integrate the curriculum."
Saint Mary's has long recognized that the fundamental units of its academic program are the discipline-based departments. The strong departments represent one of our major assets, but we struggle to value the integrity of disciplinary ways of knowing while fostering interdisciplinary possibilities in programming. In rethinking general education, we need to reexamine departmental structure and alliances and facilitate perhaps more flexible understanding of appointments and responsibilities. Resources for change are always an issue, though Saint Mary's has been successful in garnering support for innovation from the College's own alumnae, friends, and external foundations.