Tuesday, August 23, 2011

One Of These Things Is Not Like The Others

It is not much of an overstatement to say that I spent twenty-five percent of my time as the Founding Dean of General Studies trying to explain what a General Studies course was and how it was different, say, from an introductory course in a traditional discipline.

I interviewed every candidate we brought to the campus including those we didn’t hire. This was my primary chance to explain what I had in mind about General Studies and how they would participate in that curriculum. I also inquired about courses that they wanted to teach but, for a variety of reasons, had not done so. Not wanting to seem too radical most suggested courses in their disciplines but for a general audience. Having gotten that out of the way, I then asked about what courses outside of their field they felt qualified to teach.

At this point they usually tried to escape my probing by saying that they hadn’t given such courses much thought. This response usually caused me to question whether they should be hired.

Those who had thought about such courses responded eagerly giving me four or five examples of courses they “had always wanted to teach”. These were the excited – and exciting – candidates who got a strong, positive response from me.

This was, of course, only one of the criteria that I used to make judgments about candidates. Some of the ones who hadn’t thought about such courses responded when I made suggestions. Some of those who had such courses in mind faded when I asked questions about resources they would need, about assignments, about how the course might be structured and about what sorts of students they imagined taking the course.

Interviewing for an non-existent college was complex, lengthy, sometimes contentious, always probing and I absolutely assumed that if a candidate had been invited to the campus she was worthy of my respect and support.

Keep in mind that candidates coming to the campus had already been showered with our position papers, Academic Working Papers and any other writings we had produced. We did this, of course, so they wouldn’t be under any false expectations about what we were, what we expected of them and what they could expect from us.

One of my favorite approaches was the “Year” course. If candidates were stumped about what to teach as a General Studies course, I would suggest that they think of a year significant in their field or to them and design a course around that year as a theme. This comes from a very old desire on my part to teach a course called “1381”. For England, this is a critical year. For example, it is the year of the Peasant’s Revolt so there are economic and political issues that could be investigated. It is also a significant year for architecture in that Richard II rebuilt Westminster Hall, supported all of the arts which environment, in turn, gave Geoffrey Chaucer opportunities to write his later works. Two issues about which historians have argued since the 19 c. are Richard’s concept of kingship and his fragile mental state.

Under the theme of a single year, then, my course in 1381 might contain political, historical, artistic, literary and psychological issues. Such a course could be designed on almost any year.

It would be a suitable General Studies course because it would be interdisciplinary, unlike most courses in the disciplines, precisely focused, introductory and would permit the faculty member to teach a bit outside of her comfort zone.

The Definitions of a General Studies Course

So the simplest definition is that a General Studies course is interdisciplinary, not a traditional introduction, can be outside of the instructor’s disciplinary training, can be current and involves risk on both the faculty’s and student’s part.

Saying this does not make creating such a course easy, however.

Imagine that I am a young medievalist just hired by Stockton to teach medieval literature. I have taught – or would know how to design and teach – the following medieval courses:

1. A survey of medieval literature
2. A course in the writings of Chaucer
3. A course on Beowulf and Old English
4. A course on medieval romance
5. A course on minor works of the Middle Ages

This is wonderful for the Literature Program; these courses are exactly what I was hired to teach.

What, however, can I teach in General Studies. I can’t simply teach an introduction to Chaucer or Beowulf using translations. The minor works are too specialized for a general audience. I might be able to design a course using medieval romances in translation especially if I organized it thematically. But I am still limited by concepts of discipline, my graduate experience and what’s appropriate for literature majors.

Students in a General Studies class will not all be literature majors; as a matter of fact, frequently few of them are. This means that they have little experience with the conceptual basis of literature – genres, symbols, criticisms, characterization, plot structure, etc. – so the instructor cannot assume they do. Another way of looking at the type of student is to understand that a General Studies course – unlike a course for literature majors – is not open-ended.

When I teach literature majors I assume that they have had some exposure to this conceptual basis and that they will have more and different exposure to it in the literature courses of my colleagues. General Studies students, on the other hand, may only take my General Studies course and never again take another literature course. If I am going to prepare them to read literature carefully and sensitively, I have to do it in this one course.

I am not, of course, suggesting that a conceptual basis not be part of a General Studies course. In some ways, it is an even more important part given that such information will be often repeated in a course for majors. For example, I always review the Five Act structure that Shakespeare used in all of his plays though I understand that some of my students will have covered it in other courses in the major. It is, in my opinion, a central issue in General Studies courses.

The idea of a set of concepts underlying and/or preceding the content of a course has become a problem over the forty years of General Studies. As the leadership and acculturation of what a General Studies course has declined, young faculty increasingly imported introductory courses from the major into their contributions to the General Studies curriculum. If I am a young, rising faculty striving to get tenure and a promotion and believing that that tenure and promotion depends almost totally on the teaching I do for majors and the research I do in my discipline, what I do in General Studies seems vastly less important. Generating and teaching new courses is hard work so, many of these young faculty seem to conclude, why not teach a watered down version of what I teach to beginning majors? Unfortunately, General Studies teaching has not always been viewed as an important element in decisions about promotion and tenure.

How Is the General Studies Student Viewed?

When I was the Dean, I had clear ideas about how students taking General Studies courses should be viewed:

1. We did not need a college-wide requirements for General Studies courses.
2. We did not see ourselves as “redeeming” the student.
3. We did not see ourselves and our work as the beginning of education.
4. The General Studies experience was not a foundation for the major.
5. General Studies courses were to be taken throughout the student’s stay at the College.

College-wide Requirements

Frankly, I have never seen a need for college-wide requirements in general education. What sorts of requirements specific disciplines create is their business. We all assume they know the field and can match requirements for majors to their field.

But general education need not be so restrictive.

Such requirements are the result of attitudes about students (“they are unformed clay and desperately need shaping by elders”); (“they are dolts who need ‘redeeming’ from their doltish state); and (“they are at the beginning of education and, thus, need introductions to as many of the traditional disciplines as can be crammed into the first two years”). I reject and rejected forty years ago all of these assumptions.

Students came to Stockton forty years ago – and today as well – having all sorts of preferences and opinions about their futures. These were not and are not always correct but they had information about what they wanted to do.

What they needed – as we viewed students forty years ago – was to be challenged with other information, other opinions, other facts. That was the fundamental role of the preceptor as we originally conceived of that person.

Advising was, then, teaching. An advisor would meet with the student and begin the long process of uncovering what the student knew and had experienced. On the basis of these facts, the advisor would suggest gaps in the student’s thinking (“perhaps you should find an American History course that would give you a clearer understanding of 20 c. wars and how they have shaped all of modern life”).

There is, admittedly, a thin line between requiring and advising. To require means that all students have the same needs and that, left to their own devices, would continue in their ignorant bliss. Requirements also assume that all students need, say, a biology or math course and that all students learn the same way.

Advising personalizes and tailors the curriculum to the student’s past and future (“I never like studying a language but I want to be a public school teacher in New Jersey”). It is based on face to face contact and not some list of required courses on a sheet of paper.

Introductions

I also rejected the assumption that beginning students needed introductions. All courses are “introductions” to students. In one sense, all General Studies courses are introductions for the students. They were not and should not be today deliberately designed as introductions.

The course in “1381” that I described above will certainly be an introduction. Almost all students don’t know a single fact about that year. But my design of the course would be radically different from a traditional Introduction to the Middle Ages. First of all, such an introduction would include works from Anglo-Saxon texts through Malory in the 14 c. The course in 1381 would, per force, only include works from that year. Such an introduction would include the major genres of literature; my course would probably not include them. An introduction would probably offer texts in translation; mine would be read in the original Middle-English. An introduction might not offer contextual/ancillary readings at all; mine would be full of them. An introduction might not include definitions of terms; mine would be filled with such definitions.

Faculty, generally, would prefer to teach traditional introductions in General Studies because that is the easiest route. I rejected this desire and urged/forced faculty to teach new courses that were not easy or cut-and-dried. From the beginning, I saw the General Studies curriculum as a powerful way for faculty to grow; as powerful as it was for students.

Taken Each Term For Four Years

Because I rejected these assumptions, it became clear that students should take General Studies courses throughout their four years at Stockton. If one conceives of general education as a foundation for all other disciplinary courses, then it makes sense to take up the first four terms with general education. After this probationary period students can go on to the major of their choice.

But, once all this traditional underbrush is cut away, it becomes clear that they should take General Studies course throughout their work at Stockton.

To conclude, then, a General Studies course at Stockton should fit the following criteria:

1. It is not an “introduction” brought into General Studies from a disciplinary major.
2. It is a fabulous opportunity for faculty to try new courses, new pedagogical techniques and new approaches to old material.
3. It is a “closed experience” in that faculty must not assume students will build on a single course.
4. It is a course that includes all sorts of contextual content.
5. It is not a course that will lead to specialized knowledge, a job or eternal happiness. It is its own justification.
6. Good General Studies courses show relationships, continuities, connections. Other courses MAY do these things but General Studies courses do them deliberately.
7. A General Studies course makes few assumptions about the students in the course.
8. A General Studies course is a time for both faculty and student to “try” something.

I can’t say that, on the many, many occasions when I was asked to define a General Studies course, I was very successful. Over the months, however, I did develop what I felt then and feel now was a successful way of talking about these courses. I argued that the curriculum of a major would prepare a student for a career in that discipline. Thus, the Literature faculty would offer courses that would make it possible for students to teach literature in high school.

General Studies courses, I argued, were for all of the other “identities” we carry with us: the spouse, the lover, the citizen, the tax-payer, the consumer, the parent, etc. What part of the college experience educates those folks? That’s the role of the General Studies curriculum.

I believed that forty years ago and I believe it even more intensely now.