{"id":296362,"date":"2018-02-15T11:23:09","date_gmt":"2018-02-15T16:23:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/?p=296362"},"modified":"2018-02-21T14:08:44","modified_gmt":"2018-02-21T19:08:44","slug":"rochester-curriculum-green-slattery-296362","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/rochester-curriculum-green-slattery-296362\/","title":{"rendered":"The Rochester Curriculum: \u2018How come nobody else is doing this?\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"logo<\/a>Twenty-five years ago, the chairs of religion and classics and of physics and astronomy at the University of Rochester reached beyond their disparate disciplines to unite in a common cause. Their goal:<\/p>\n

To rid the undergraduate curriculum of mandatory courses that were no longer achieving their purpose and that students didn\u2019t want to take.\u00a0 To instead give students the freedom to delve more deeply into the subjects they wanted to pursue\u2014so they would better understand how discovery and problem solving vary from one discipline to another.<\/p>\n

The distinctive Rochester Curriculum that William Green and Paul Slattery helped spearhead\u2014with input and support from a wide range of faculty and administrators\u2014resonated with students then, and continues to do so now.<\/p>\n

With the exception of a first-year writing class, it dispenses with required courses. Instead, it lets students choose from among some 250 so-called clusters\u2014sets of three related courses in one of three areas of learning: arts and humanities; social sciences; and math, natural sciences, and engineering. A student majoring in one area takes a cluster in each of the other two. (Engineering students, whose major programs are tightly prescribed by an accrediting institution, can choose one.)<\/p>\n

The Rochester Curriculum became a key component of then President Thomas Jackson\u2019s ambitious Renaissance Plan, introduced in 1995. The plan sought to address fiscal challenges but also introduce positive changes in the undergraduate experience.<\/p>\n

The Rochester Curriculum \u201cjust struck me as so logical,\u201d Jackson recalls. \u201cSo much so, I wondered: How come nobody else is doing this?\u201d<\/p>\n

Overcoming \u00a0\u2018a kind of superficiality\u2019<\/strong><\/h2>\n

For a quarter century before the introduction of the Rochester Curriculum, Rochester\u2019s undergraduate students, like those at many other colleges and universities, made their way through \u201cdistribution requirements.\u201d To amass the 128 credit hours required for graduation, students completed the requirements of a major, but also met a foreign language requirement, satisfied a somewhat different writing requirement, and took mandatory classes in other subjects as well.<\/p>\n

The object was to give students a broad base of knowledge. By the 1990s, however, it was becoming apparent that the mandatory classes \u201cfostered a kind of superficiality, where you did an introductory thing here and there, checking off a list,\u201d says Richard Feldman, then chair of philosophy. \u201cStudents would ask, \u2018What do I have to do to be done with this?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Green, then chair of religion and classics, and Slattery, the chair of physics, shared those concerns regarding a checklist mentality. They had met at department chair meetings, and struck up a friendship. When Green became dean of undergraduate studies, he made the curriculum his top priority. And he asked Slattery to chair a faculty committee whose members would be charged with developing the proposed curricular changes. Slattery was \u201can exceptionally powerful advocate,\u201d Green says.<\/p>\n

Despite already heavy commitments of running both the physics and astronomy department and a major multi-institution research project at the Fermi National Lab in Illinois, Slattery agreed.<\/p>\n

\u201cBill was the true driver of this,\u201d Slattery says. \u201cMy major contribution was to work with the faculty to get their buy in.\u201d<\/p>\n

Learning that mirrors research<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Several key arguments helped pave the way:<\/p>\n

    \n
  • Green and Slattery believed that doing away with the foreign language requirement\u2014one of the more controversial parts of the plan\u2014would actually benefit foreign language study, because students would now be taking courses because they really wanted to, improving the experience for instructors and students alike.<\/li>\n
  • Clusters would be a \u201cwhole greater than the sum of its parts,\u201d as Slattery put it. The result would be a \u201cmore intellectually vibrant\u201d experience than what students would find in mandatory introductory courses.<\/li>\n
  • Faculty\u2014legitimately\u2014understand their fields to be fundamentally interesting and important, but it is impossible for students to study every subject the University offers. By letting students delve more deeply into topics of their choosing, the students would \u201cnot just be dabbling, but understanding how scholars and researchers in a given field think and reason,\u201d Jackson notes.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    The result is a curriculum that mirrors research as a way of learning. \u201cIt breaks down the barrier between the way faculty at a research university learn, and the way students learn,\u201d says Green, now senior vice provost and dean of undergraduate studies at the University of Miami.<\/p>\n

    \u201cResearchers learn from the heart, and that\u2019s why the learning is consequential. We thought our students should learn as much like we do as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

    Awards and a glowing endorsement<\/strong><\/h2>\n

    In 1997 both Green and the Undergraduate Curriculum Committee won separate Goergen Awards for Distinguished Contributions to Undergraduate Learning in recognition for having introduced the Rochester Curriculum.<\/p>\n

    In 2016, the Rochester Curriculum received a glowing endorsement from a University Curriculum Review Committee. The 16 faculty, staff, and student members concluded that the curriculum remains a \u201csingularly robust framework\u201d that gives students the \u201cfreedom to select areas of study that interest them, the ability to pursue those interests with passion, and requires of them the discipline to design their course of study.\u201d<\/p>\n

    Several factors contributed to the acceptance of the new curriculum.<\/p>\n

    \u201cWe didn\u2019t try to rush the process,\u201d Slattery says. \u201cThe Faculty Council that ultimately endorsed our plan, consisting of a representative from each College department and some at large members, had ample time\u2014two years\u2014to weigh the pros and cons of what we were proposing.\u201d<\/p>\n

    Green credits the strong leadership of Slattery and of key administrators, particularly Deans Richard Aslin and Thomas LeBlanc, and Elissa Newport, chair of the College Curriculum Committee who oversaw implementation of the plan. \u201cIt was a team effort,\u201d Green says.<\/p>\n

    Jackson believes the relatively small size of the University helped the curriculum be well received. \u201cThe departments are not so huge that faculty members become isolated,\u201d he says. \u201cThey find colleagues outside of their own department.\u201d<\/p>\n

    As a result, \u201cyou had a collaboration between a professor in religion and a professor in physics who put this together. You don\u2019t see that happening very often where people from vastly different disciplines sit down and design something together.\u201d<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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