Keeping Faith

A Plan to Strengthen the University Core Curriculum at Southern Illinois University Carbondale, 2001-2006

March 30, 2000

Executive Summary

The Plan

The University Core Curriculum at Southern Illinois University Carbondale provides the foundation for a quality undergraduate education. A model of its kind, SIUC's Core is entirely consistent with national, state, and local initiatives in higher education, including the Boyer Commission's report on Educating

Undergraduates in the Research University (1998), the Illinois Board of Higher Education's Illinois Commitment (1999), and Interim Chancellor John S. Jackson's plan for "Entering the New Millennium" (1999).

Since the Core's inception in 1996, it has structured general education developmentally, building on "Foundation Skills" in mathematics, writing, and speech during the freshman year (12 hours), in preparation for subsequent courses in "Disciplinary Knowledge" (23 hours) and "Integrative Studies" (6 hours). Moreover, the program established an administrative mechanism for on-going course review, program assessment, and curricular reform. The responsibility for these activities lies with the office of its director and its two advisory committees, the Core Curriculum Executive Council and the Core Curriculum Advisory Representatives.

The past four years have demonstrated the Core's many virtues, namely, its well-focused inventory of smaller classes to achieve six specific learning goals: (1) to expose students to the universe of human knowledge, (2) to improve their communication and numerical literacies, (3) to develop their critical and analytical abilities, (4) to encourage interaction between students and their instructors, (5) to enhance students' understanding of diverse cultures, and (6) to prepare them for ethical and responsible citizenship.

In Spring 2000, the program provided 25,272 seats in 100 different courses delivered in 853 sections. Enrollment was 22,043 and credit-hour production 64,711, the largest figures ever for a Spring semester. Representing seven different colleges, the Core's instructional staff exceeded 750 tenured, tenure-track, and term faculty and graduate teaching assistants (fully half of all GTAs are at the Ph.D. level). The average class size is only 26, because most large lecture classes of 80 or more students have discussion sections or laboratories of fewer than 25 students. Contrary to conventional wisdom, the average g.p.a. is modest, just 2.5. Clearly the Core Curriculum is vital to undergraduate education at SIUC.

This much we know. But the past four years have also brought to light some obvious problems. What follows is an overview of the program's most pressing needs and a series of specific recommendations appropriate to addressing each one of them. Although new resources are essential, they are not the only concern. To strengthen the University Core Curriculum, we need to recruit and to retain a larger cadre of committed faculty, whose participation in the program is more carefully coordinated and who can make better use of the new interactive-learning technologies.

This five-year plan is not a blueprint for a new Core. Far from it. Rather, it is an affirmation of the program's vigor and its value to the undergraduate experience at SIUC. It is in keeping with earlier innovations, such as the Core's annual assessment, Writing Literacy Project, and Block/Saluki Advantage programs in the dormitories, as well as on-going efforts in Problem-Based Learning. Thanks to these initiatives, as consultants from Noel-Levitz have suggested recently, a stronger Core promises better recruitment and retention of undergraduate students.

Fifty years ago the late SIU President Delyte Morris reaffirmed his ideal of a research faculty teaching in the undergraduate classroom. That ideal still lives at SIUC. For the sake of our students, we need to "keep faith" with Morris's vision. Doing so will ensure that the University Core Curriculum receives the institutional support and national recognition that it deserves. The entire University community will be the better for it.

Core Problem 1: Budgetary Resources

Core Problem 2: Course Sufficiency

Core Problem 3: Instructional Quality

Core Problem 4: Learning Technology

Conclusion

Acknowledgment

The generous assistance of Todd Bernhardt and Brenda Yucas in the Core Curriculum office is gratefully acknowledged.