by Erica Jordan
edited by Kevin Flanders

Students may be seeing a change to the Individual and Community curriculum as early as Fall 2011.

The Institutional Research Department has been working this year to update the IC curriculum by polling and surveying the students of Franklin Pierce.  Dawn Stevenson is the Director of Institutional Research at Franklin Pierce.  “The curriculum is under review and is going to be updated,” said Stevenson. “We are seeing if the required courses are fitting for what students say they want to get out of the Franklin Pierce experience.”

Research is being done about what student’s goals are coming into Franklin Pierce.  Part of the review is to look at whether required classes students take are meaningful to them.  “We want to learn how the curriculum is preparing students for advanced goals they have in their life,” Stevenson explained.

Surveys conducted by the Department of Institutional Research showed positive results of the IC curriculum.  Students were given surveys in the glass foyer and asked to share which classes they enjoyed, which professors they liked the best and what changes they would like to see in the curriculum.  The survey showed that there was a big desire for more flexibility in course choices.  Students wished there were better ways to link IC courses with their majors.  “Students want more space to explore other majors,” said Stevenson. “By the time students are done with the current IC curriculum, they’re well into their junior year and there isn’t enough time to explore other majors in case they want to switch.”

Students expressed their opinions on the curriculum in a variety of ways.  There was a lot of positive feedback about certain faculty members and the way they teach their classes.  “It led us to the idea of, wow, there is a lot of good here in the curriculum that we can salvage,” Stevenson said. “We definitely have some real winners within our faculty.” Other students said that the curriculum isn’t really prepared well.  Kaitlyn Driggs is a senior and finds some of the core classes difficult.  “If you aren’t a history major and are thrown into 20^th Century, American Experience and Ancient and Medieval, it’s really difficult no matter how much effort you put into it,” Driggs said.  “I’d rather see the IC classes molded for a general audience as opposed to an audience directed only towards certain majors.”

Stevenson also sees changes in the future for the curriculum.  “I’m not sure if we’ve done a good job of explaining and tying together all of the subjects and why we feel that it’s an important foundation of the liberal arts,” she said.  The IC101 freshman seminar class seems to be struggling the most according to Stevenson.  “What do we want to do with the very first experience to make it the best for students and to help them get engaged, committed and able to get their feet on the ground?” she said.  Some IC101 students are writing long research papers while others get breakfast with their professors.  It’s all a matter of which faculty members are letting students become more actively engaged in the learning process.

The revision plans were started in September of 2009 but things are still being talked about.  Karen Brown is the Assistant Dean of Academic Affairs and has a big part in the IC curriculum revision.  There is a group of faculty and staff called the General Education Review Committee (GERC) that has been meeting to talk about the curriculum.  “We’ve been looking at best practices and things happening at other schools with their core curriculums,” said Brown, “We’ve also been speaking with students about goals of the IC curriculum and how we want to deliver these goals.”

Franklin Pierce is a member of the American Association of Colleges and Universities (ACCU) and has applied for a spot in the AACU Summer Institute on General Education.  If Franklin Pierce got into the program, it would help formulate what the new curriculum might look like.

When Franklin Pierce first opened, there were certain requirements for classes like humanities and behavioral science classes.  Students chose from a list of classes that were not specifically designed for certain majors.  According to Joan Epro, Associate Dean of Academic Affairs, the IC curriculum started in 1992 and was first revised between the years 1999 and 2000.  “When it first started in 1992, we had a portfolio assessment class, a course called Science of Society 2 and a Liberal Arts seminar,” Epro said, “When we revised in 1999, those classes went away and we added the Challenge of Business and Music in Our World.”

Epro believes that this revision that is going to occur is appropriate to do because the current one has been there for about 20 years and it’s time for a change.  “Big curriculum, changes take time,” she said. “It has to be approved by the Board of Trustees, Senior Staff and faculty; it’s a really important project.”

It’s still unknown if the curriculum will still be called the Individual and Community curriculum.  With a new program in the works, the General Education Review Committee must make sure it meshes with the students who are already here so they can finish without having missing requirements and it also needs to be ready for students coming in to start.  If students have any questions about the changes, contact Dawn Stevenson at Stevensond@franklinpierce.edu or Karen Brown at Brownk@franklinpierce.edu.