The core curriculum at St. Thomas could look very different in the next few years.

During summer break last year, a committee of faculty members from different parts of the university was formed to overhaul the core curriculum. Now, nearly half a year later, four new proposals for the core have emerged.

This isn’t the first time that there have been talks of a new core. Elizabeth Welsh, an associate management professor and one of the lead members of the committee, believes this time is different.

“We’re not trying to fix one part of the curriculum. We’re looking at everything,” Welsh said. “When President Sullivan came in, she said we need to reconsider our curriculum. That’s what makes this time unique.”

The Process

Despite a focused effort from university administrators, the earliest that changes could be implemented would be 2018 according to Welsh. Right now, Welsh and a couple of other professors are gathering the opinions of faculty and administration on the new proposals.

Once they collect sufficient data, the committee will condense the four models into one master plan. “We don’t have to choose one of the existing models in its entirety,” Welsh said. “We can make a sort of Frankenstein core using the best parts from each of the models.”

After the committee creates its version of the perfect core, they will submit the proposal to all schools in the university. Each school has its own curriculum committee, and while they cannot vote on the proposal, they provide additional critiques and concerns about the proposal.

Using each of the school’s suggestions for the core, Welsh and the rest of the curriculum-forming committee will revise and add a few changes to the proposal.

Once their edited version is completed, the proposal then goes to the university’s Undergraduate Curriculum Committee. This committee will offer further suggestions and edits to the proposal and will vote whether to accept or reject it.

If the proposal is accepted, then it will pass through to the final stage of ratification: the university senate. The senate, like all other committees that evaluated the proposal, will make further edits and will take a vote. If the core is approved by the senate, it becomes the official core curriculum and will be implemented.

If at any point in the process the core is rejected, the current core stays in place and the committee must revise the proposal as much as needed until it is approved. Welsh said it is highly unlikely that the proposal will remain unchanged throughout the process.

“Think of the U.S. government,” Welsh said. “A bill rarely finishes the process exactly like it started.”

Welsh explained that the senate could combine the new proposal with the current core or other proposals.

“We’re hopeful that some of our (original) ideas continue on, and we’re working hard to make sure the proposal moves forward,” she said.

The Classes

While none of the four current proposals have been shown in their entirety, several classes from the four tracks were presented to student focus groups through the month of October.

Calling Courses

The first set of classes proposed are calling courses. These are meant to help incoming students who don’t know what field they would like to go into find majors that suit their strengths and interests.

The Calling Courses would be a series of one 100-level and two 200-level courses. Every student would be required to take this series, with the 100-level eventually counting toward a selected major.

The 100-level would replace intro-level courses and the 200-level courses would count as out-of-major electives, which will count for overall credits. Students would not be able to opt out of the classes, but all three would count toward the new core’s requirements.

During a series of student panels, students said that they liked the idea of having courses that encouraged exploration with requiring too high of a commitment to a major, but they expressed concern over the lack of an option to not participate if a student knew what they would like to major in.

First Year Experience Courses

First Year Experience would either be a set of two one-credit courses taken over the duration of a student’s first year at St. Thomas, or it would be a two-credit, two-week January term course.

Acting as an intro-to-college course, the First Year Experience would cover skills necessary for a successful college career like how to maintain a healthy lifestyle, how to study and vocational support among others.

Many students on the panel liked that this would allow new students another opportunity to connect with other first-years and access to resources that would otherwise go unnoticed. However, many said that this could be seen as just another class to get out of the way and that it would take away from highly-valued study and relaxation time.

First Year Paired Courses

St. Thomas already has something similar to this proposal. Rather than having four separate classes in a student’s first year, two connected classes would share the same group of students. Professors of the paired courses would work together to make sure that both classes relate to each other.

While this could help students select a major, many on the panel expressed concern that it might take a lot of work for all first-year students to be able to participate. It would seem that many new classes would need to be created to link two different majors like engineering and English, math and COJO and so on.

Exploratories

Exploratory courses would serve as mandatory, out-of-major electives. These electives extend from the idea that students need to gain as many different perspectives as possible and that they should be able to choose these perspectives.

The required number of exploratories is still undecided, but students would be able to choose a course in any discipline outside of the students’ majors. This flexibility would allow for a reduced core by replacing current elective requirements, though it would still ensure a wide-ranging body of coursework for students.

Common Good Sequence

The largest class proposal shown at the first student focus group was the Common Good Sequence. As the name implies, this sequence would focus on furthering the university’s mission by dedicating three classes to the topic.

The sequence would be three classes long, one for each key element of the university’s mission: Think, Act and Work. To make room for the track in the core, the current theology and philosophy requirements would be reduced. One class from each discipline at the 100 level and another from either at a higher level would still be required.

The first class of the sequence would be the “Think” class. At the 200 level, this class would be would be taught by professors in the Catholic studies, theology and philosophy departments, and it would emphasize thinking about the common good. It would be a wide-ranging class, covering topics such as human rights, liberty, social justice, sustainability, power and privilege and more.

“Act,” the 300-level class of the sequence, would be taught in-major to make the information learned in “Think” more applicable to every student. Students would focus on historical and contemporary issues within their majors and learn how they might apply their skills toward the common good. One step above its 200-level counterpart, “Act” would contain something like a community engagement or research component to the class.

To round out the sequence, the 400-level class, “Work,” is a proposed two-unit senior capstone that further connects the common good to a student’s major. Students in the “Work” capstone would work with other students in the same major on a project in the community that would help advance the common good.

As it stands, the four curriculum tracks proposed would either keep the core around 64 credits — its current size — or reduce it to as low as 50 credits. In addition, all four models have a flat, per-semester tuition rate instead of the current per-class system. The new rate would be in the range of what 12-16 credits costs now.

The main purpose of the restructuring is to make sure that the classes offered better relate to a student’s major.

“When we talk to students, that’s what they want. When we talk to employers, that’s what they need,” Welsh said. “The world is interconnected. It’s a skill to make those connections, so we need to figure out how get students that skill.”

Student Involvement

Members of the curriculum development committee have emphasized that the primary goal of the overhaul is to better equip students to handle the real world. Throughout the process, Welsh said that student opinion has been valued and sought after.

Three student focus groups were held to gather student input. Each group was comprised of 10-12 students and met once a week for three weeks through the month of October. However, other than these groups, no other formal student input has been gathered.

Welsh believes that while student input is valuable, the effort it would take to gather and sort through a larger campus-wide survey wouldn’t yield useful results.

“If we were to open the proposals campus-wide, some of the nuances would be lost and there would be countless questions,” she said. “It’s complex enough to where a simple powerpoint won’t work.”

In order for students “to contribute significant feedback,” Welsh said they would need to be familiar with all four proposals.

“I don’t think it would be a good use of their time,” she said. “It’s not that we’re not open to more student input, it’s just…what’s the right way to get that input?”

Despite the lack of student input, Welsh believes that students will accept the new curriculum whenever it is implemented. She highlighted the diversity of St. Thomas as a key selling point.

“We are a Catholic institution, we are liberal arts and we are professional schools,” she said. “That’s an interesting challenge to get all three of those together, but if we can combine those three together well, it will be really cool.”

Noah Brown can be contacted at brow7736@stthomas.edu