Senators: Please Provide Input-Forensic Discussion on One Penn State 2025’s Goal of Curricular Coherence

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SENATE COMMITTEE ON CURRICULAR AFFAIRS

Senate Input on One Penn State 2025’s Goal of Curricular Coherence

(Forensic)

The University Faculty Senate Committee on Curricular Affairs (SCCA) acknowledges that faculty expertise and resulting academic scholarship are essential to the development and delivery of outstanding curricula. As elected representatives of the faculty, University Faculty Senate has primary responsibility for the undergraduate curriculum, broadly defined as the courses required of our students to earn an undergraduate degree (University Faculty Senate has delegated responsibility for the graduate, medical, and law curricula to those schools, respectfully). In their role in the Senate, SCCA is responsible for the review, recommendation, and implementation of curriculum proposals. SCCA’s procedures are based on the committee’s understanding of Penn State’s unique structure and our policies guiding curricular development at the University, policies developed and refined over several decades in the Senate.

For the 2019-2020 academic year, SCCA is charged to consider improvements to curricular processes at Penn State. To this end, a Curricular Reform Task Force was formed to liaise with SCCA on future curricular development. SCCA also seeks general input from members of the Senate, and their home caucuses, on One Penn State 2025’s guiding principle of “achieving curricular coherence.”

Broad input from our university community, including faculty, students, staff, alumni, and external stakeholders is important for all discussions about curriculum. So that our committee can make progress on its charge, SCCA is first requesting Senate input and guidance on the following questions:

  1. What does a coherent curriculum mean to you?
  2. How is our curriculum broadly serving our undergraduate students?
  3. What are faculty doing well to support faculty engagement in curriculum?
  4. What are the barriers to faculty engagement in curricular processes? What are the limitations or barriers to curricular coherence?
  5. What would help support faculty to fully engage in curricular design, review, innovation etc.?

9 thoughts on “Senators: Please Provide Input-Forensic Discussion on One Penn State 2025’s Goal of Curricular Coherence

  1. Anonymous

    The DLC, a good example of what One Penn State 2025 could look like, is a logistical nightmare for instructors. I teach several classes for the DLC and what happens is that each campus creates its own section for the same course to enroll their students. Then, when I go to prepare the content for the class in Canvas, I merge the sections. However, if students are added to a section created after the merge or in some cases added after the merge to one of the existing sections, they do NOT appear in the Canvas merged class where the course content resides. If we are going to be One Penn State, have all students added into ONE and ONLY ONE section of the course. DO NOT ALLOW CAMPUSES TO CREATE A NEW SECTION FOR THE COURSE.

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  2. Wendy

    We need to have a process in place to ensure the 80/20 is not just being followed but also a process for enforcement. It makes no sense having a policy if there is no clear process for enforcement and/or process to remedy the situation when it is found that an instructor, program and/or campus is not following 80/20.

    Clearer language of what 80/20 actually means and who determines if 80/20 is being followed in specific courses and by what criteria? How often should this be reviewed and by whom? What is the process of identifying if 80/20 is followed for courses and if not then what?

    Need to ensure quality of instructors across campuses and subject knowledge requirements for courses taught. There should be guidance for hiring of instructors for specific courses to ensure they have the basic knowledge/degree requirements in order to be teaching that course. We find that there may be an instructor teaching a vast number of courses but there is no consult with developers of that course to discuss what the faculty should know before teaching it to others.

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