curriculum discussion march 2012

Santa Clara University English DepartmentCurriculum Discussion

March 5, 2012

Time Line

May 2009 informal conversations on the subject of writing in the curriculum & the English studies model.

Various faculty read McComiskey & other scholars on the subject.

Sep 2009-May 2010 Terry & Eileen ask CC to investigate English studies model & viability of tracks versus concentrations. Written feedback on possible concentrations is solicited from two dozen faculty, concentration proposal outline approved by EC and department in sense of meeting conversation.

By May 2010, we agreed on the desirability of changing the curriculum in connection with real

concerns:

Currency, Enrollment, Hiring, Student Need.

Disciplinary currency: integrated English studies model with literature, cultural studies, and writing in positive, productive relationship.

1. Disciplinary Currency

2. Institutionally Appropriate Offerings

Offerings appropriate to SCU, a regional comprehensive with a social justice mission

(literature and cultural studies, wgst, multi-ethnic and global literatures)

3. Offerings Appropriate to Location

Silicon Valley location: new media, science, technology and society, document design and

technical communication. Information literacy=digital content production.

SCU Strategic Plan 2B: “Strengthen distinctive academic niches that will allow us to meet the needs of Silicon Valley, both locally and in its

global outreach."

4) Grow enrollment & communicate offerings better

A) We might grow the major and minor by making them simpler, more appealing and less arduous for students and faculty.

B) 1st survey suggests that elective enrollment might grow with clearer communication of offerings

This could mean: fewer courses overall fewer requirements more choices better communication

of opportunities offerings framed to

address student concerns about careers and postgraduate life.

4a. Address Student Need

Grad school in LCS/GRE readinessGrad school in writing/digital composition

Employment involving writing/digital compositionOther kinds of graduate/professional school

5. Balance Reading and Writing.

The curriculum is one location to help us address issues of department culture, power and

resource allocation.

It can help reflect our commitment to balance between literary consumption and analysis (reading) and textual production (writing).

Bracketed Questions

• How does our vision of the renovated curriculum relate to our hopes to establish a writing program?

• In what ways can/should CTW classes serve as an introduction to the possibilities of the renovated major and minor?

• How can we support greater integration of digital literacy in first-year writing?

Again: these are questions that we might have addressed, but ARE NOT addressing at this

time.

Key Thought

We didn't go looking for the most radical solution; we went looking for the most conservative

solution that was still a solution.

Our proposal combines the virtues of the one-department solution with some of the

nimbleness of the 2-department solutions.

Our ambitions are exclusively additive: we do not want to alienate any part of our current clientele. We want to serve them better and attract some

new students as well.

Tracks

• Few, large, aggregative, stable.• More like mini-majors with required courses.• Changing course requires substantial effort.• Tend to brand students: "I'm in the writing

track.”• The agglomeration of items in big tracks is

only modestly effective at communicating the full range of possibility and choice, esp. in evolving fields.

Concentrations

Many, small, flexible. New concentrations easily added; failing

concentrations easily pruned. Work well with changing menus of courses. Similar to the current system of crafting an

individual concentration, but communicates those possibilities to students in advance.

Concentrations

Would not prevent students from crafting an entirely unique concentration with an advisor.

Allow students to be interested equally in LCS and writing. (A very substantial benefit for students as well as faculty, not to mention administration.)

Time Line, 2010-11

September-October: fog of confusion

November: Formal presentation of framework agreed to in April-May 2010, together with survey data; highly positive reception. Open invitation for changes to framework issued.

January: Revisions based on written and verbal feedback; survey data from English majors.

February-March; more fog of confusion

April: Department formally endorses framework by a vote of 23 to 4.

Non-English Majors: Serious Interest in All Writing Fields

Out of 181 respondents, Career value in most fields: 30-50

Possible minor in most fields: 10-20Possible major in most fields: about 10

Nearly across the board, writing concentrations attract at least 2-3 times the expression of

interest in the top four LCS concentrations.

Survey of Junior and Senior English Majors, January 2011

Many, possibly most students would take more than the minimum number of courses and/or additional concentrations.

Student interest remained diverse across LCS and Writing fields, including historical literary fields.

Students showed substantial interest in the ability to feature writing and employment-relevant concentrations on transcripts and in recs.

Survey 100% of respondents would voluntarily elect a

Writing concentration.

37% would choose 2 LCS concentrations and 1 Writing concentration.

23% would choose 2 Writing and 1 LCS.

16% would choose 1 of each.

Time Line, Fall 2011September: Retreat features in-depth discussion

of proposal within framework & dept agrees to staged discussion of a) foundation courses and b) concentration viability, plus any remaining concerns leading to a final proposal & vote in Winter or Spring, saving time for workshopping syllabi, etc, as proposed by Burnham & Elrod

December: Dept workshops three-course foundation, and requests prompt vote by margin of 26-1. English 14, 15, 16 approved by paper ballot 27-7.

Time Line, Winter 2011January: Further comments on concentrations solicited;

revisions; viability of concentrations confirmed; six additional course descriptions approved by CC (phase-in 2-3 per year over 2-3 years).

February: CC discusses framework & remaining concerns about limited reqs for literary history, diversity.

March: CC presents revised concentrations and proposed solution to concerns about limited reqs; takes verbal and written response; circulates final best compromise for up or down vote.

Time Line, Spring 2011

April-May

If proposal rejected; all options open for new curriculum committee, which should be composed of persons with a compelling alternate vision.

If accepted; syllabus workshops, fine-tuning concentrations, development of communications, & implementation. Planning for assessment & more intentional course offerings.

Approved Framework

Concentrations in Two Groups:

Literature and Cultural Studies

Writing, including Creative Writing

Major in English

A minimum of 12 courses beyond CTW, including 3 foundation classes: English 14, 15, 16.

From the available electives: Choose at least one course before 1800, a senior seminar, and at least two concentrations.

Recommended but not required: Choose one concentration from LCS and one from Writing.

Minor in English

A minimum of 5 classes, including one foundation course

At least one concentration

Minor in Creative Writing

Unchanged.

Approved Foundations

Literature and our understanding of it are constantly changing. This course surveys

canonical and marginalized works in cultural and historical context. It examines the way texts shape and reference each other, and the consequences

of technological change. Readings are chosen from literatures available in English in various

genres and periods.

ENGL 14. Introduction to Literary History and Interpretation.

Exploration of ways to think about the relationships among literature, culture, and

society. Students will experiment with techniques of reading, interpretation, and intervention -- with

particular emphasis on those methods drawn from critical theory, studies in colonialism, cultural

anthropology, feminism, semiotics, gay/lesbian studies, historicism, and psychoanalytic theory.

ENGL 15. Introduction to Cultural Studies and Literary Theory.

Introduction to current scholarship and major issues in writing studies, including digital literacy and publication. Readings will cover such topics as: civic discourse and rhetorics of social justice; composition and multiliteracies; argumentation

and logic; visual rhetoric and principles of design. Participants will publish their coursework in an

electronic portfolio.

ENGL 16. Introduction to Writing and Digital Publication.

“Straw poll” on literary history requirement:

25 Votes: 9 @ 1 course before 180011 @More than 1 course before18005 @ Other

Smaller concerns regarding particular diversity requirements, an additional theory course, etc.

Remaining Concerns

The Curriculum Committee recommends that we attempt to resolve these 2 remaining concerns

about distribution requirements with recommendations to students,

rather than requirements.

Recommendation

1. We might have many recommendations: about diversity, periodization, genres, attention to theory, even taking more than the minimum number of courses (“The minimum is 12, but many will take 15 or more. The registrar can feature as many as 3 concentrations on your transcript.”)

2. We might have all faculty communicate individual recommendations on the website. (“Don't graduate without reading Milton!”)

Ways to Recommend

3. In advising and meetings of majors & minors. 4. On a department blog to which majors and minors can contribute.

5. Each concentration will have groups of affiliated faculty and its own web page. The page, and the faculty contributing to it can provide individualized detailed suggestions.

6. A real or virtual bookshelf of must-read texts.

Ways to Recommend

Choice: Recommending vs Requiring

Advantages of requiring: more coherent experience, easier to predict/ensure head count

in some classes; more likely to succeed at particular goals (eg gre readiness/prep for

certain grad programs).

Choice: Recommending vs Requiring

Disadvantages of requiring: more coherent experience—ie, some students will experience

as irrelevant or an imposition, because the particular goals won't apply). Fewer electives for

students=fewer non-survey courses can be offered. Less flexibility for individual students;

advising can become about reqs and/or working around them, not student needs & development.

Appeal of the major and minor drops.

Choice: Recommending vs Requiring

As a choice, recommending is not just the absence of requirements. It's a positive choice fostering good matches between faculty and student interests, placing individual student needs and the learning relationship at the

center. Overall it's potentially a very welcome culture choice.

Choice: Recommending vs Requiring

3. Survey: Are requirements necessary? Can advising address issues for individual students

(Concentrations provide better matches.)

4. Are required courses the only or best solution to all of our concerns—eg GRE readiness, grad

school in LCS? What about other forms of support for students with those interests?

5. Annual assessments: If a recommendation scenario isn't working, we can always adjust

and add requirements later.

Phyllis Brown, Remarks on Literature & Literary History

Changing away from a coverage model and: • From an undergraduate literature major to an

English Studies major• From an understanding of literature as serving

representational functions to serving socially formative functions.

Question: What role should literary history play in what students are required to know? Should the writing of literary history be something they learn to do?

Terry Beers, Revised List of LCS Concentrations

• American Literature and Culture

• Literary and Cultural Theory

• British Literature and Culture

• Literary History

• Literature and Social Change

• Literature and Writing for Young Readers

• Race, Ethnicity and Culture

• Cinema

• Women, Sex, & Gender

• Literature of the Americas

• Classical and Contemporary Rhetoric

• Medieval, Renaissance & Early Modern Studies

• Spirituality and Literature

• Literature and the Environment

• World Literature

• Genre

Revised List of Writing Concentrations

Writing in Digital EnvironmentsBusiness CommunicationAdvocacy, Public Discourse & Social ChangeEnglish Education and PedagogyScience and Technical CommunicationCreative WritingLiteracy and CommunityLegal and Medical CommunicationLanguage and Linguistics

Contact: Marc Bousquet

pmbousquet (at) gmail.com