By
The first tangible results of Boston College’s three-year effort to renew and strengthen its undergraduate core curriculum will emerge shortly, as the Core Foundations Task Force (CFTF) prepares to evaluate faculty proposals for pilot courses that characterize the renewed core.
Proposals are due this Monday, and the task force expects to make selections in mid-November, according to College of Arts and Sciences Interim Dean Gregory Kalscheur, SJ, who chairs the CFTF.
The task force will work next spring and summer with faculty participating in the pilot phase to fine-tune content, structure and other details to ensure the proposed courses meet the criteria spelled out by the CFTF in two foundational documents, “Toward a Renewed Core” and “The Vision Animating the Boston College Core Curriculum.” The pilot courses would then be introduced beginning in the 2015-16 academic year.
Fr. Kalscheur and CFTF members Rattigan Professor of English Mary Crane, director of the Institute for the Liberal Arts, and Associate Professor of History Julian Bourg – who are project managers for the core renewal’s implementation phase – offered an overview of the call for proposals and other aspects of the core renewal process at a town hall event Oct. 15 in Fulton 511. The three also answered questions from the audience.
As Fr. Kalscheur explained, the envisioned course proposals would be built around two models for interdisciplinary collaboration outlined by the CFTF: “Complex Problems,” team-taught, six-credit classes of 75-100 students that address a contemporary problem; “Enduring Questions,” linked pairs of distinct three-credit classes of 25 students that meet separately – each taught by a faculty member from a different department – but connected by a common topic and set of questions, and with some shared readings and assignments.
Both Complex Problems and Enduring Questions courses would involve structured reflection and activities outside the classroom, he noted. Faculty would work with University Mission and Ministry and Student Affairs to develop programming that deepen academic exploration and provide opportunities for exploration and growth.
Courses constructed in this way, Fr. Kalscheur said, would “introduce first-year students to a rigorous schedule of learning, and help them develop habits of the mind and heart” that make their experience at BC more fulfilling.
“This first year of college is so critical, and we want to get them started early,” he said. “We want to help them learn to ask questions in this conversational way that is integral to Jesuit education.”
Fr. Kalscheur acknowledged that the labor-intensive nature of the Complex Problems/Enduring Questions models would have implications for faculty time and resources, but emphasized that the pilot phase offered a chance to address such issues. “We know there will be a number of questions – about schedules, course loads, the potential role of existing interdisciplinary courses in the renewed core – that will have to be explored as the piloting process goes forward.”
Bourg added, “Each department will have to assess how the core will affect them, and consider their needs. Starting the implementation slowly and on a relatively small scale will make it easier to do that.”
Underscoring the interdisciplinary accent of the core renewal, Provost and Dean of Faculties David Quigley said the pilot phase offered faculty the chance to use their creativity in seeking collaborations that produce imaginative concepts for core courses.
“One of the markers for success for the core renewal will be ‘interesting failures,’” he said. “Core programs are stronger than before, but the general feeling is that we’re missing opportunities to work across disciplines. Some of the pairings won’t work out, but they can still be instructive. So this process should encourage people to try new things.”
For more about the core renewal project, including the call for proposals, see www.bc.edu/offices/avp/core-renewal.html.