October 5, 2007 minutes

Minutes of the LPWG
Curriculum Discussion
Friday October 5, 2007 – 3 p.m.
McNeill 109

In Attendance: Mark Gammon (representing the summer 2007 GEC committee), Lydia Sinapova, Lora Friedrich, Patti Young, Bill Friedricks, Murphy Waggoner, Kedron Bardwell, Steve Griffith, Nancy St. Clair, Walter Pearson, Maria DiPalma

Dean Griffith called the meeting to order. He explained that today the group would talk about the summer process and the roles that the models developed during the summer meetings played in that process. The meeting today was more about getting people caught up with discussion to date regarding curriculum. With that missive to the group and with the note that there were other voices from the summer committee not able to attend today (i.e. John Pauley and Sal Meyers) he turned much of the discussion over to Murphy Waggoner and Mark Gammon (both members from the summer GEC group)

Murphy began saying that the process from the summer is well outlined in the report that John Pauley gave.     Out of that conversation GEC came up with a list of what we wanted students to get. These are:     Critical and Creative Thinking Competency
                                    Quantitative Reasoning and Thinking Competency
                                    Writing Competency
                                    Oral Communication Competency
                                    Experiential/Service Learning
                                    Civic Knowledge and Engagement (local and global)
                                    Information and Technological Literacy
                                    Teamwork and Problem Solving
                                    Interdisciplinary Competence
                                    Knowledge of Disciplinary Traditions and Human Cultures
                                    Knowledge and Experience of Diversity
                                    The Development of Character and Leadership

“This list of goals that we intended was formed first” said Murphy. “It came from a discussion about what we wanted students to gain from an education here”. “We looked at different schools other than Simpson to find different approaches and interesting things that we can learn a lot from. We spent three meetings looking at models, discussing and reformulating to meet the goals from our primary list”.

Mark Gammon then interjected that the various models don’t vary greatly in learning outcomes, but they did vary in priorities and practices.

Murphy said that the GEC looked at what a liberal arts college should look like in the 21st century. She noted it was understood by the group that while there is value in having to come up with new courses that there is also a cost. However, the group did not want to limit itself and was willing to think big – beyond the cost. She noted that some schools the committee looked at had recently made changes (i.e. Wartburg modeled after the AACU recommended model) Similar to Simpson College, there were schools found with our current model; and then to the other extreme, there were schools found with no requirements. Murphy said that there was a general agreement in the GEC this past summer that we didn’t want to go to the extreme of no requirements. One idea proposed was a model of six courses that would all look at a single subject theme (i.e. Poverty, or Educational Reform, or Changing Health Issues in the World, etc) and then students would have to choose two programs and that is how a student’s general education would be fulfilled. Murphy noted that in Mark’s model that content and disciplinary perspective were treated differently.

Mark said that he found it hard to identify trends – or clones – when researching these models. He didn’t see similarities.

Murphy disagreed and said that she did see trends. She said that her selection of schools to look at was random.

Murphy then asked about Gustavus Adolphus as she thought it looked like they had 2 choices of a general education curriculum. Dean Griffith affirmed that this is the case and said that in good faculty fashion (because they could not agree) there are 2 types of curriculum approach – C1 and C2 – and students choose one path upon entry to the college. He commented that many institutions have multiple gen ed programs to choose from and hopefully these have been made for better reasons than “we can’t agree”.

Nancy St. Clair brought up the “portfolio approach”. She thought this was done at Evergreen and maybe Reed. They do concentrations and are team taught. Nancy was also puzzled by the skills vs. content and felt that this is a “false dichotomy”. She asked, “Don’t you need to tie skills to some sort of content?”

Mark said that he assumed that all of our classes at Simpson College ought to be teaching skills. He asked, “Is there some sort of framework for why we do civic engagement?”

Murphy noted that many schools require experiential/service learning. She also asked if it was specific content they needed or just some content in some area.

Mark then said that we struggled to balance flexibility and choice. He felt we have a good practice here that seems to work. He also noted that he didn’t understand skill instruction as a common intellectual experience. Mark said “GEC also struggled with what is a curriculum issue – in some instances, it’s pedagogy. We also talked a lot about the idea of a symposium to present student work.”

Dean Griffith said that writing could be across the curriculum rather than English 101.

Mark noted that the committee had gone round and round on foreign language competency.

Murphy agreed with that assessment and said “There was a lot of disagreement so we avoided it because of the larger picture of competencies/goals/being more”.

Kedron Bardwell then posed the question, “Where would our expertise come from to be able to discern what’s important for crafting a gen ed program – would it be possible to bring in Simpson College professors/depts. to talk to us about their respective areas?”

Dean Griffith then said that we all agree that we want LAS – we just aren’t sure what it will look like. All we need to do this year is come up with the shape of the program. The specifics and details would be worked out next year. He then also reiterated that an earlier point that he thinks important is the need to have an assessment mechanism built in to know we are succeeding, to review periodically to know if we’re successful.

Maria DiPalma said that another wrinkle in this discussion is can we have a curriculum that doesn’t include foreign language competency and still have global fluency.

Dean Griffith said that perhaps the foreign language competency should be campus wide including all faculty to give credibility and to show Simpson students campus wide commitment to global fluency.

Dean Griffith then commented, “50 years ago it was exposure, 20 years ago it was ways of knowing, did you talk about that?”

Nancy St. Clair said, “That was what Simpson had with Cornerstone – it was never intended to be a gen ed curriculum. They specifically articulated it was not to be an exposure model, but rather a way of knowing.”

Maria then added, “And over the years, in some departments, almost every course became a Cornerstone course.”

Nancy said that Cornerstone fit in with the mission statement of the college because the courses looked at the world through the eyes of the oppressed. This is a historical aspect that we should keep in mind.

Bill Friedricks said that in Mary Berry the professors were taught the ways of knowing model very carefully. He said, “Humanities had the focus impressed upon us perhaps more than the general campus.”

Murphy asked Dean Griffith, “Isn’t it true that in describing the two models at Gustavus Adolphus – one is an exposure model and one is a way of knowing model?”

He replied, “Yes, absolutely.”

Murphy then said, “The question is now – what do we want now? Our departments are fracturing, becoming fragmented by specialty.”

Lydia Sinapova surmised, “True - the departments are becoming more fragmented, but at the same time, they are also becoming more inter-disciplinary.”

Nancy said that her understanding of the history of education is that up until the 20th century you saw more intermingling. Then in the 20th century and definitely today it has become more compartmentalized.

Dean Griffith said that then there is the model of the “big question”. Many different courses could address a big question.

Mark Gammon added that he didn’t think a “big question” model is the same as addressing “the big questions”.

Lydia interjected that it’s equally important to be able to teach the students to ask questions.

Lora Friedrich agreed and said it’s also about critical thinking.

Kedron pondered that at the pinnacle of specialties today, should we be pushing students to be able to function in a fragmented, specialized society or teach them to function in an inter-disciplinary manner.

Bill Friedricks said, “In essence, the senior colloquium students have been building skills throughout the disciplines and then, as seniors, have an inter-disciplinary course that they can experience and practice critical thinking skills.”

Mark Gammon said that taking Cornerstone 1 as juniors and seniors should not happen.

Bill said that he thinks everyone agrees that Cornerstone is not functioning as well as it was intended. But, bottom line, it does work.

Dean Griffith said, “There’s no evidence.”

Nancy St. Clair said that Simpson has done assessing of the Cornerstone courses. Students were asked to do the survey.

Patti then asked if there was ever a survey done of the graduated students at any point.

Nancy said that Simpson had talked about it, but we have not done this – we do have a lot of past data – we just need to collect it and take a look at it.

Patti Young then stated, “The liberal arts are supposed to be the liberating arts. And I would hope that our students would say that Cornerstone changed the way that they (the graduates) look at the world.”

Dean Griffith told the group that we do need to know what we’ve done in the past so we don’t make any mistakes, but that we first need to say this is the way we want to go and then we can look at the history and move forward – perhaps that will be a tweaking of the current system – perhaps it will be an overhaul.

Maria said that we need to know the final goal before we determine our path.

Walter Pearson said, “I found it incredibly hopeful that you all were in agreement with the learning outcomes or goals”.

Maria said, “Yes, the points of contention are how do we get to these goals.”

Mark said he would be a bit more pessimistic about agreement of the list of goals. There was a general agreement of the list up on the board, but, beyond that (priorities, etc.) there was not much agreement. He noted that one of the dangers you could fall into is course counting so that we all feel valued. He said he lost his temper this summer when he questioned why was the group counting courses.

Maria said that learning doesn’t correlate to hours in a seat. She noted that we all have peculiarities based on who we are.

Mark noted that some things you want people to learn require more seat time.

Nancy St Clair said that she thought we needed to revisit and revise, but she cautioned the group as we go through the process to be very careful with the language we use. The faculty dug in their heels after the faculty meeting presentation because the language used was very critical of the Cornerstone program. She felt people would be more receptive with a more careful delivery of the message of needed change. Therefore we need to be very careful in our use of language.

Lydia Sinapova also said that we should focus objectively on what we want for our students rather than on our own personal passions/areas.

Kedron Bardwell said that there are several model programs on the AACU site and that he would send the link to these out to the group.

Dean Griffith closed the meeting.

Respectfully submitted,
Shelly Priebe


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10/05/07 minutes Minutes of the LPWG Curriculum Discussion Friday October 5, 2007 – 3 p.m. McNeill 109 In Attendance: Mark Gammon (representing the summer 2007 GEC committee), Lydia Sinapova, Lora Friedrich, Patti Young, Bill Friedricks, Murphy Waggoner, Kedron Bardwell, Steve Griffith, Nancy St. Clair, Walter Pearson, Maria DiPalma Dean Griffith called the meeting to order. He explained that today the group would talk about the summer process and the roles that the models developed during the summer meetings played in that process. The meeting today was more about getting people caught up with discussion to date regarding curriculum. With that missive to the group and with the note that there were other voices from the summer committee not able to attend today (i.e. John Pauley and Sal Meyers) he turned much of the discussion over to Murphy Waggoner and Mark Gammon (both members from the summer GEC group) Murphy began saying that the process from the summer is well outlined in the report that John Pauley gave. Out of that conversation GEC came up with a list of what we wanted students to get. These are: Critical and Creative Thinking Competency Quantitative Reasoning and Thinking Competency Writing Competency Oral Communication Competency Experiential/Service Learning Civic Knowledge and Engagement (local and global) Information and Technological Literacy Teamwork and Problem Solving Interdisciplinary Competence Knowledge of Disciplinary Traditions and Human Cultures Knowledge and Experience of Diversity The Development of Character and Leadership “This list of goals that we intended was formed first” said Murphy. “It came from a discussion about what we wanted students to gain from an education here”. “We looked at different schools other than Simpson to find different approaches and interesting things that we can learn a lot from. We spent three meetings looking at models, discussing and reformulating to meet the goals from our primary list”. Mark Gammon then interjected that the various models don’t vary greatly in learning outcomes, but they did vary in priorities and practices. Murphy said that the GEC looked at what a liberal arts college should look like in the 21st century. She noted it was understood by the group that while there is value in having to come up with new courses that there is also a cost. However, the group did not want to limit itself and was willing to think big – beyond the cost. She noted that some schools the committee looked at had recently made changes (i.e. Wartburg modeled after the AACU recommended model) Similar to Simpson College, there were schools found with our current model; and then to the other extreme, there were schools found with no requirements. Murphy said that there was a general agreement in the GEC this past summer that we didn’t want to go to the extreme of no requirements. One idea proposed was a model of six courses that would all look at a single subject theme (i.e. Poverty, or Educational Reform, or Changing Health Issues in the World, etc) and then students would have to choose two programs and that is how a student’s general education would be fulfilled. Murphy noted that in Mark’s model that content and disciplinary perspective were treated differently. Mark said that he found it hard to identify trends – or clones – when researching these models. He didn’t see similarities. Murphy disagreed and said that she did see trends. She said that her selection of schools to look at was random. Murphy then asked about Gustavus Adolphus as she thought it looked like they had 2 choices of a general education curriculum. Dean Griffith affirmed that this is the case and said that in good faculty fashion (because they could not agree) there are 2 types of curriculum approach – C1 and C2 – and students choose one path upon entry to the college. He commented that many institutions have multiple gen ed programs to choose from and hopefully these have been made for better reasons than “we can’t agree”. Nancy St. Clair brought up the “portfolio approach”. She thought this was done at Evergreen and maybe Reed. They do concentrations and are team taught. Nancy was also puzzled by the skills vs. content and felt that this is a “false dichotomy”. She asked, “Don’t you need to tie skills to some sort of content?” Mark said that he assumed that all of our classes at Simpson College ought to be teaching skills. He asked, “Is there some sort of framework for why we do civic engagement?” Murphy noted that many schools require experiential/service learning. She also asked if it was specific content they needed or just some content in some area. Mark then said that we struggled to balance flexibility and choice. He felt we have a good practice here that seems to work. He also noted that he didn’t understand skill instruction as a common intellectual experience. Mark said “GEC also struggled with what is a curriculum issue – in some instances, it’s pedagogy. We also talked a lot about the idea of a symposium to present student work.” Dean Griffith said that writing could be across the curriculum rather than English 101. Mark noted that the committee had gone round and round on foreign language competency. Murphy agreed with that assessment and said “There was a lot of disagreement so we avoided it because of the larger picture of competencies/goals/being more”. Kedron Bardwell then posed the question, “Where would our expertise come from to be able to discern what’s important for crafting a gen ed program – would it be possible to bring in Simpson College professors/depts. to talk to us about their respective areas?” Dean Griffith then said that we all agree that we want LAS – we just aren’t sure what it will look like. All we need to do this year is come up with the shape of the program. The specifics and details would be worked out next year. He then also reiterated that an earlier point that he thinks important is the need to have an assessment mechanism built in to know we are succeeding, to review periodically to know if we’re successful. Maria DiPalma said that another wrinkle in this discussion is can we have a curriculum that doesn’t include foreign language competency and still have global fluency. Dean Griffith said that perhaps the foreign language competency should be campus wide including all faculty to give credibility and to show Simpson students campus wide commitment to global fluency. Dean Griffith then commented, “50 years ago it was exposure, 20 years ago it was ways of knowing, did you talk about that?” Nancy St. Clair said, “That was what Simpson had with Cornerstone – it was never intended to be a gen ed curriculum. They specifically articulated it was not to be an exposure model, but rather a way of knowing.” Maria then added, “And over the years, in some departments, almost every course became a Cornerstone course.” Nancy said that Cornerstone fit in with the mission statement of the college because the courses looked at the world through the eyes of the oppressed. This is a historical aspect that we should keep in mind. Bill Friedricks said that in Mary Berry the professors were taught the ways of knowing model very carefully. He said, “Humanities had the focus impressed upon us perhaps more than the general campus.” Murphy asked Dean Griffith, “Isn’t it true that in describing the two models at Gustavus Adolphus – one is an exposure model and one is a way of knowing model?” He replied, “Yes, absolutely.” Murphy then said, “The question is now – what do we want now? Our departments are fracturing, becoming fragmented by specialty.” Lydia Sinapova surmised, “True - the departments are becoming more fragmented, but at the same time, they are also becoming more inter-disciplinary.” Nancy said that her understanding of the history of education is that up until the 20th century you saw more intermingling. Then in the 20th century and definitely today it has become more compartmentalized. Dean Griffith said that then there is the model of the “big question”. Many different courses could address a big question. Mark Gammon added that he didn’t think a “big question” model is the same as addressing “the big questions”. Lydia interjected that it’s equally important to be able to teach the students to ask questions. Lora Friedrich agreed and said it’s also about critical thinking. Kedron pondered that at the pinnacle of specialties today, should we be pushing students to be able to function in a fragmented, specialized society or teach them to function in an inter-disciplinary manner. Bill Friedricks said, “In essence, the senior colloquium students have been building skills throughout the disciplines and then, as seniors, have an inter-disciplinary course that they can experience and practice critical thinking skills.” Mark Gammon said that taking Cornerstone 1 as juniors and seniors should not happen. Bill said that he thinks everyone agrees that Cornerstone is not functioning as well as it was intended. But, bottom line, it does work. Dean Griffith said, “There’s no evidence.” Nancy St. Clair said that Simpson has done assessing of the Cornerstone courses. Students were asked to do the survey. Patti then asked if there was ever a survey done of the graduated students at any point. Nancy said that Simpson had talked about it, but we have not done this – we do have a lot of past data – we just need to collect it and take a look at it. Patti Young then stated, “The liberal arts are supposed to be the liberating arts. And I would hope that our students would say that Cornerstone changed the way that they (the graduates) look at the world.” Dean Griffith told the group that we do need to know what we’ve done in the past so we don’t make any mistakes, but that we first need to say this is the way we want to go and then we can look at the history and move forward – perhaps that will be a tweaking of the current system – perhaps it will be an overhaul. Maria said that we need to know the final goal before we determine our path. Walter Pearson said, “I found it incredibly hopeful that you all were in agreement with the learning outcomes or goals”. Maria said, “Yes, the points of contention are how do we get to these goals.” Mark said he would be a bit more pessimistic about agreement of the list of goals. There was a general agreement of the list up on the board, but, beyond that (priorities, etc.) there was not much agreement. He noted that one of the dangers you could fall into is course counting so that we all feel valued. He said he lost his temper this summer when he questioned why was the group counting courses. Maria said that learning doesn’t correlate to hours in a seat. She noted that we all have peculiarities based on who we are. Mark noted that some things you want people to learn require more seat time. Nancy St Clair said that she thought we needed to revisit and revise, but she cautioned the group as we go through the process to be very careful with the language we use. The faculty dug in their heels after the faculty meeting presentation because the language used was very critical of the Cornerstone program. She felt people would be more receptive with a more careful delivery of the message of needed change. Therefore we need to be very careful in our use of language. Lydia Sinapova also said that we should focus objectively on what we want for our students rather than on our own personal passions/areas. Kedron Bardwell said that there are several model programs on the AACU site and that he would send the link to these out to the group. Dean Griffith closed the meeting. Respectfully submitted, Shelly Priebe
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