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Date: Wed, 26 Feb 1997 12:27:00 -0400 (EDT)
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From: heldrichr@cofc.edu (Rick Heldrich)
Subject: Group 17 Responses to Question II
X-Sender: heldrichr@ashley.cofc.edu
To: GENED@cofc.edu
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Reply-to: GENED@cofc.edu
Summary of Group 17 Responses to Question I
Group 17 lists the following responses to questions II 2a and II 2b for
each of the newly stated Gen. Ed Goals 1-9.
1. acquire basic knowledge of the arts, humanities, mathematics, and the
natural and social sciences, the languages which define and convey this
knowledge, and the relationship among these branches of knowledge.
Supported by: Current Gen. Ed core courses, outdoor sculpture area/park,
departmental clubs, invited lecturers, strength of academic departments on
our campus, performances in Fine Arts, Special Days on campus.
Insufficient Support: lack of interdisciplinary relationships in courses,
non-uniform or lack of advanced planning/announcement of activities, dearth
of special opportunities like French dorm, low student attendance at seminars
2. acquire an interdisciplinary understanding of major contemporary ethical,
political, economic, social and scientific issues and movements including
their origins, implications and interrelationships.
Supported by: Hist 101/102, some other core courses, Miscellany, Research
Poster day, Spoletto/Maymester, proliferation of minors & focus studies,
general philosophy that we
"lay the hay down where the goats can get it"
i.e. we offer many opportunities for students to learn through the courses
they choose to take and the extracurricular activites we sponsor. We do not
insist that students take advantage of these opportunities.
Insufficient Support: interdisciplinary aspects of the core curriculum may
not be apparent, no unifying interdisciplinary course at the beginning,
middle or end of the experience, under utilization of Maymester grazing
opportunities and other extracurricular activities. WAC programs and
interdisciplinary "days" have been very successful but do not have
sufficient institutional support.
3. develop a knowledge of diverse cultures, natural and human-made
environments, and their global interrelationships.
Supported by: lots of courses, Foreign Lang. requirement or substitute
courses, International Program, Minority program, Study Abroad.
Insufficient Support: not compulsory, more efforts needed, study abroad
cost prohibitive, lack of scholarships for study abroad, need more exchange
students on our campus.
4. develop effective reading, writing, and oral communication skills in
English, and basic communication skills in a language other than English.
Supported by: 2 semester Eng. 101/102, 4 Semester Foreign language, faculty
work hard on student development, public speaking course, forums for student
writing, Toastmasters chapter activities, SGA oral presentations for
funding, faculty-student joint presentations.
Insufficient Support: No measure or inspection for premise that Eng.
101/102 or Foreign Lang. for 4 semesters leads to proficiency, need more
writing across the curriculum, apprehension that writing skills and reading
comprehension are lower than we would like, not enough recognition that a
"graded paper is dead" i.e. not much in the way of skills development is
manifest by having a end of course writing task, not enough departmental
efforts to publicly display student writing projects, more oral
presentations in classes, more regular, recurrent evaluation of
communication skills in most classes. Two major causes of this lack of
instructional emphasis: outside of their discispline, many faculty may not
feel qualified enough to teach writing, and don't have enough time to cover
what they ARE good at teaching. Faculty may not be sufficiently trained to
teach writing in their disciplines and the college has not supported the WAC
efforts on this campus much at all. Another major cause is that this work
is individualized, complex, and hence labor-intensive. Since professors
have other demands on their time (i.e., research, teaching evaluations which
do not measure what students learned, FTE's) which carry more weight with
administrators, chairs, and T & P committees, it is very difficult for them
to take it on in addition to these other duties. Also, the development of
writing and oral skills is labor intensive and severly limited - if
possible at all - in large classes.
5. develop skills in the methods and technologies of inquiry, critical
thinking, problem solving, scientific research, quantitative and historical
analysis.
Supported by upper level courses in each major, already covered in goal 1.
Insufficient Support: no guarantees that it occurs, no measure of effectiveness
6. employ the available resources to retrieve, use and evaluate information
from a variety of sources.
Supported by: occurs within majors, good central library facility, course
in topic by library faculty, superior quality library faculty and staff.
There's a good campus network but there are still not nearly enough
terminals available to students to give them full access to all the
information and technology that are out there.
Insufficient Support: within disciplines limited by facilities access,
disciplinary course for each major, not enough library faculty and staff to
accommodate demand, need School or departmental branch libraries, staffed by
professional librarians, e.g. Science & Math library in Science Center, Fine
Arts library in Simons Center, branch libraries will also foster
student-faculty interactions within disciplines and among allied disciplines.
7. set and achieve personal goals.
Supported by: Counseling center, Health services.
Insufficient Support: FRS does not meet its potential here. Huge growth of
the C of C in past six years directly discourages students from feeling part
of a community, as there are so very many of them and such a large number of
them are new. Staff support (RAs, Student Affairs staff, advisors, Student
Wellness professionals) has not grown in proportion to our increased number
of students. Growing emphasis on the North Area campus, where parctically
none of these services are available, would make this goal even more
difficult for students who are enrolled only at those classes, paying the
same tuition but getting much less.
8. work and interact effectively with others.
Supported by: formal interactions in classes, group projects etc., SGA,
CAB, crowed campus forces comprehension and interaction.
Insufficient Support: limited by space and design, most students do not
have personal space on campus to call home, campus coffee house, lounges,
parks; need a free hour in weekly schedule, more community activities like
basketball games, plays, concerts; more activities needed outside of
departments, better linkage of Academics and Student Affairs.
9. foster intellectual honesty and curiosity, a commitment to lifelong
learning, a sense of personal responsibility, and informed, active,
responsible citizenship in a climate of civility where dialogue about
intellectual debates and controversies can occur.
Supported by: student-faculty interactions, advising of majors/non-majors
Insufficient Support: not enough opportunity for student-faculty
interactions, forums for student and faculty public debates, Cougar Pause
needs a lot more support and improvement, advising of majors/non-majors
should involve more tenured/tenure track faculty, rewards for service are
minimal, little chance for penalty if service is not part of someone's
activities (small carrot, no stick syndrome) It would seem problematic
that at a certain point the institution collapses of its own wieght--that
the bigger the school gets, the harder it is to deliver an educational
experience that emphasizes these qualities. Mentoring requires
faculty/students to build relationships over time. Intellectual debate and
civility require the space, time, and forum for students to hear differing
views and see respectful debate. When
the population grows immensely and the size of the facility and number of
faculty does not, these things become more and more diffcult to accomplish.
F. J. Heldrich
Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry
College of Charleston
Charleston, SC 29424
phone: (803) 953-5515
fax: (803) 953-1404