YC Alterations Hinge Upon Review

Yeshiva College has completed the first stage of its curriculum review, said YC Associate Dean for Academic Affairs Joanne Jacobson, chair of the curriculum review steering committee.

The review's first phase, which took place last semester, aimed "to structure the curriculum review, to strategize for the curriculum, and to try to articulate the major questions and goals that the curriculum review is going to take up," said Dean Jacobson. "Rather than immediately appointing committees and sub-committees, what we decided to do first was think about what curriculum review meant, what were some of the questions we might not have thought about."

Curriculum review is a standard process that colleges and universities undergo periodically. It has been 22 years since the last such review at YC, and the findings of this review could alter the YC curriculum significantly.

"A chance like this only comes once in a generation," said Dean Jacobson. "Our goal is to create a kind of dream model."

Changes made to the curriculum since the last curriculum review have been largely patchwork, said Dean Jacobson. "There hasn't been an effort to think of curriculum as a whole."

The committee is conducting the review in several stages. "We've been trying not to rush into this, but to meet with as many people as we can who have something to tell us, and to then see what priorities emerge from those conversations," said Dean Jacobson.

What the Committee Has Done

Dean Jacobson and YC Dean David Srolovitz created a steering committee to complete the review's initial phase. "We appointed a small group of faculty from fields across the curriculum who've met basically once a week for the whole semester," she said. "What we tried to do was to get a range of faculty - a couple of faculty from humanities and social sciences, a couple of faculty from sciences, someone from Jewish studies. We were looking for that kind of spread."

The committee featured other forms of diversity as well. "We were also looking for faculty whose experience being involved in a lot of committees was also varied," said Dean Jacobson. "Some of them are at home in the beis medrash. Some of them probably had never set foot there."

The steering committee included Dr. Ellen Schrecker of the history department; Dr. Ruth Bevan, political science; Dr. Thomas Otway, mathematics; Dr. Fredy Zypman, physics; and Dr. Steven Fine, Jewish studies.

The committee members explored curricular issues by speaking with people "representing the morning program, representing the goals of the university at large, the administration, people whose job it was to do curriculum review at schools across the country, and Yeshiva College faculty," said Dean Jacobson.

One of these people was Rabbi Yitzchak Blau, mashgiach ruchani at RIETS, who led the committee on a tour of the beit midrash and then shared his thoughts on what YC students' major curricular issues are. The committee also met with President Joel to hear his thoughts on curricular issues.

These conversations revealed major aspects of the YC student experience, said Dean Jacobson. "Both of them put a lot of emphasis on how difficult the transition for our students from Israel to college is," she said, "how often that feels like a very hard transition to make, how idyllic and compelling the year in Israel is, and how coming to college often feels like a let-down or like being put back into a very constraining environment."

These talks generated "a realization that we need to be putting a lot more emphasis on what happens to students in their first year here, and on making that a satisfying transition - introducing them to liberal arts, making being here feel compelling as well," she said.

The steering committee also gathered input through a survey distributed among faculty members asking what each one views as the curriculum's strengths and weaknesses.

The review also featured a set of focus groups that met November 14-16. The groups, each consisting of about 15 faculty members, were led by Dr. Craig Dreilinger, a licensed psychologist and behavioral-sciences management consultant, who facilitated discussion about the curriculum's strengths and weaknesses. "He asked the question: imagine that it's the year 2009 and we have our first set of graduates of this new curriculum," Dean Jacobson recounted. "What do we feel especially proud of? What do we feel needs more attending to?"

The steering committee also met with Dr. Lee Knefelkamp, a consultant from Columbia Teachers College who specializes in curriculum review. "We asked her to look over the curriculum we have and asked her how to think about curriculum."

The steering committee considered several issues, including the "potential tensions between the yeshiva and liberal arts education in the College," said Dean Jacobson. The committee, she said, also asked itself: "What's interesting and strong about our students? What's it like for them to be here? And what do they know that other students don't?"

In particular, said Dean Jacobson, the committee considered what students gain from their Jewish studies by asking: "What about what happens in the morning makes our students really great readers of texts? What do our students bring to class in the afternoon that's a result of the training they've had?"

By examining these questions, the committee hopes to create a curriculum that makes students' experiences at Yeshiva College more holistic. "We want a curriculum that isn't just going to separate all of the turf sections of the college. We want to think about how this experience can be as meaningful educationally as possible."

The Findings

Dean Jacobson identified several observations that emerged from last semester's work, including the benefits of an extended education. "It's really better to go to school longer than most of our students do," she said.

Dean Jacobson stressed that the committee does not plan simply to require that all Yeshiva College students spend eight semesters on campus. "There's no point in saying that you must stay here for four years after Israel, or you can't go to Yeshiva College," she said. "Our goal is to create a curriculum that will make students want to be here, and ideally for four years. The bottom line is: we want Yeshiva College to shine, and we want a Yeshiva College education to be everything it can be for all of our students."

The committee also found problems in the curriculum's structure. "It doesn't have a lot of shape," said Dean Jacobson, who explained the consequences of an unstructured curriculum: "There's little about the first year that feels like a 'first' year. And there's not much sense when you're here of progressing from a clearly marked transition year into a period in which students develop expertise in a major and grow intellectually through general ed. requirements, and then move into a final culminating, or 'capstone,' experience based on the skills and knowledge that they have acquired in college."

The committee identified issues not only in the curriculum's structure but also in its content. Dean Jacobson cited "the importance of students' learning to write better and the importance of students' broadening their cultural horizons" as key concerns.

What's Being Done

To address these issues, the curriculum review committee is going to appoint several task forces. "This committee's work is not to do the curriculum review; this committee's work is to figure out how to do the curriculum review," said Dean Jacobson. "So we'll be breaking it down into a series of task forces," three of which are currently being assembled, with more to be formed later, when more issues emerge.

Of the initial three task forces, one will develop a curricular structure and then draft general education requirements. Dean Jacobson described some of the questions the committee will try to investigate: "What would the first-year requirements look like? What would be the number of courses for majors? The number of courses for Jewish studies requirements? What should be requirements that everyone has? How many and what kinds of writing courses should we have? What other needs (analytical skills, oral expression, cultural breadth, research experience) do we need to address?"

Another task force will focus on the first-year program. Its goal is "to help make the transition from Israel to YU and to liberal arts learning satisfying, to make the first year read a lot more like it's an experience in and of itself," said Dean Jacobson.

The task force will then "propose curricular innovations like, perhaps, a set of topical freshman seminars, or perhaps a freshman core curriculum in which there would be a set of courses that most first-year students would take," she said.

Restructuring the first-year program will also involve a reassessment of the YC Book Project. "We have to ask questions: Should we be continuing [the book project]m and should we maybe have some kind of text that's common for the entire first-year experience?" said Dean Jacobson. "Maybe a text that would be assigned in all of the freshman seminars, if that's the way we decide to go, or in freshman Comp. courses."

The task force will also consider how to draw from New York City's resources in the first-year experience, which "is really part of a process of getting students excited about being here," said Dean Jacobson. "It shouldn't feel as though New York is a dark backdrop to education at YU, or even an obstacle. It should feel as though New York is a fantastic resource that we can call on."

Dean Jacobson also encouraged hosting New York's intellectual personalities. "We should be bringing people in. This is the publishing capital of the United States, maybe the world. We really have fantastic chance to bring people in who might not be willing to be full-time faculty here, but could come in for one night or to teach one course."

The remaining task force for the Spring 2007 semester will examine ways in which departments can revise their own curricula. "It's going to produce a set of guidelines for departments to self-evaluate their majors, to think about revising them, and to think about providing some kind of capstone," said Dean Jacobson.

What To Expect

"The main work of the Spring 2007 term, then," Dean Jacobson said, "will be in the hands of these first three curriculum review taskforces. By mid-spring we are hoping that departments will have a set of guidelines to use to begin the self-evaluation process for their majors, and that an initial proposal for important elements of the overall curriculum structure can come up for a faculty vote. We also hope that the taskforce on the First-Year Program can proceed far enough to pilot a small number of new first-year courses for Fall 2007 as well, perhaps a common text for first-year writing courses (a revision of the Book Project) and a more intellectually meaningful freshman orientation."

At this point, Dean Jacobson said, it is time to invite student input. She will soon be contacting student organizations and YC department chairs to ask for the names of students who might be especially interested in becoming involved in the curriculum review. The steering committee is hoping that students can participate in the taskforces that are currently being appointed, and that they can also suggest other avenues for student input on the curriculum review process.

Dean Jacobson and the steering committee will be hosting an open forum for students early in the Spring 2007 semester, to present the curriculum review as it stands so far, answer student questions about it, and invite student input.