2008 Woodie Awards
Curriculum Review Taking Shape
Asher Morris
Issue date: 9/4/07 Section: News
- Page 1 of 1
While the Wilf campus has been relatively quiet this summer, the Yeshiva College Curriculum Review, led by Joanne Jacobson, Professor of English and Dean of Academic Affairs for Yeshiva College, has been hard at work and deep in thought.
The review has taken on added steam after this past May, when six faculty members from across Yeshiva College's curriculum spent five days at the Association of American Colleges and Universities' General Education Institute curriculum review workshops in Newport, Rhode Island. Although YC faculty has never participated in this organization's review workshops, the college previously underwent a similar curriculum review in 1985.
According to Dean Jacobson, the curriculum review offers "an important chance to ask ourselves: What are we doing well and what can we do better? What goals really matter to us as an educational institution, and how can we make sure that we are achieving those goals?" In addition, "it is an important opportunity to do some dreaming about what we can be" as an academic institution, said Dean Jacobson.
Now, at the beginning of YC's second full year of the review, the College is piloting a number of First-Year Seminar courses and, according to Dean Jacobson, "we will move forward more aggressively in making key decisions as a faculty about what student learning outcomes we are most deeply committed to and then how the curriculum should be reshaped around those outcomes."
In addition to faculty participation, a student advisory board for the curriculum review has been established to promote student involvement and input in the prospective new curricula. Also, this fall there will be an open meeting for all students to state their opinions regarding the current curriculum, and to voice their hopes for the future curriculum.
Dean Jacobson told The Commentator that the most important tool gained by the YC faculty who attended the recent conference was a language to use in future discussions regarding YC's own curriculum review. "While YC is in some ways unique, in other important ways we can benefit from what other colleges have learned in performing their own curriculum reviews" said Dean Jacobson.
Additionally, the AACU workshops reminded the YC faculty of the responsibility to help its students recognize that their general education requirements are not merely a checklist to be completed prior to graduation. To accomplish this goal, the AACU workshops suggested that faculty think about the general education requirements "as integrated throughout the curriculum; as integrated with their work in majors, and as transparnent, so that students should know why they are taking what they are taking," surmised Dean Jacobson. In a word, Dean Jacobson defined this process as giving the students' education "intentionality."
Among the many goals for the curriculum review, Dean Jacobson stated that "our fundamental hope in performing a curriculum review is to make the College as intellectually exciting as it can be-to make education here everything that our students deserve." Further, the curriculum review will help to create a curriculum with a "clearer, more coherent shape," and help to attain a sense that every aspect of the curriculum is intentional and deliberate, and "aimed at meeting specific educational goals," said Dean Jacobson.
In order to accomplish a thorough and precise curriculum review, the members of the review are examining the entire curriculum, including writing and general education courses in humanities, sciences, social sciences and Jewish studies. The goal of performing an all-inclusive review is to produce students who are "proficient writers, Jewishly literate, and ultimately, to instill a sense of intellectual curiosity in all of Yeshiva College's students," affirmed Dean Jacobson.
Dean Jacobson told The Commentator that this two to three year "evaluation process belongs to the entire faculty, not just a small number of committee members or administrators. Each new element in the curriculum will be brought up for a faculty vote over the next two years, beginning hopefully in Spring 2007."
Dean Jacobson is proud that the review has included a collaborative effort from many facets of the university including involvement from certain key "stakeholders" like President Richard M. Joel, several RIETS-MYP Roshei Yeshiva, representatives from the Admissions office, and members of the Academic Advisory Committee of the YC Board of Directors.
The purpose of including the entire College is to "build faculty consensus on every element in the review so that we are prepared as a community to make commitments together by the time voting takes place," explained Dean Jacobson.
The Yeshiva College curriculum review hopes to complete the review by the release of the Spring 2009 catalog so that "students matriculating at Yeshiva College in Fall 2009 can be the first beneficiaries of the new curriculum," asserted Dean Jacobson.
The review has taken on added steam after this past May, when six faculty members from across Yeshiva College's curriculum spent five days at the Association of American Colleges and Universities' General Education Institute curriculum review workshops in Newport, Rhode Island. Although YC faculty has never participated in this organization's review workshops, the college previously underwent a similar curriculum review in 1985.
According to Dean Jacobson, the curriculum review offers "an important chance to ask ourselves: What are we doing well and what can we do better? What goals really matter to us as an educational institution, and how can we make sure that we are achieving those goals?" In addition, "it is an important opportunity to do some dreaming about what we can be" as an academic institution, said Dean Jacobson.
Now, at the beginning of YC's second full year of the review, the College is piloting a number of First-Year Seminar courses and, according to Dean Jacobson, "we will move forward more aggressively in making key decisions as a faculty about what student learning outcomes we are most deeply committed to and then how the curriculum should be reshaped around those outcomes."
In addition to faculty participation, a student advisory board for the curriculum review has been established to promote student involvement and input in the prospective new curricula. Also, this fall there will be an open meeting for all students to state their opinions regarding the current curriculum, and to voice their hopes for the future curriculum.
Dean Jacobson told The Commentator that the most important tool gained by the YC faculty who attended the recent conference was a language to use in future discussions regarding YC's own curriculum review. "While YC is in some ways unique, in other important ways we can benefit from what other colleges have learned in performing their own curriculum reviews" said Dean Jacobson.
Additionally, the AACU workshops reminded the YC faculty of the responsibility to help its students recognize that their general education requirements are not merely a checklist to be completed prior to graduation. To accomplish this goal, the AACU workshops suggested that faculty think about the general education requirements "as integrated throughout the curriculum; as integrated with their work in majors, and as transparnent, so that students should know why they are taking what they are taking," surmised Dean Jacobson. In a word, Dean Jacobson defined this process as giving the students' education "intentionality."
Among the many goals for the curriculum review, Dean Jacobson stated that "our fundamental hope in performing a curriculum review is to make the College as intellectually exciting as it can be-to make education here everything that our students deserve." Further, the curriculum review will help to create a curriculum with a "clearer, more coherent shape," and help to attain a sense that every aspect of the curriculum is intentional and deliberate, and "aimed at meeting specific educational goals," said Dean Jacobson.
In order to accomplish a thorough and precise curriculum review, the members of the review are examining the entire curriculum, including writing and general education courses in humanities, sciences, social sciences and Jewish studies. The goal of performing an all-inclusive review is to produce students who are "proficient writers, Jewishly literate, and ultimately, to instill a sense of intellectual curiosity in all of Yeshiva College's students," affirmed Dean Jacobson.
Dean Jacobson told The Commentator that this two to three year "evaluation process belongs to the entire faculty, not just a small number of committee members or administrators. Each new element in the curriculum will be brought up for a faculty vote over the next two years, beginning hopefully in Spring 2007."
Dean Jacobson is proud that the review has included a collaborative effort from many facets of the university including involvement from certain key "stakeholders" like President Richard M. Joel, several RIETS-MYP Roshei Yeshiva, representatives from the Admissions office, and members of the Academic Advisory Committee of the YC Board of Directors.
The purpose of including the entire College is to "build faculty consensus on every element in the review so that we are prepared as a community to make commitments together by the time voting takes place," explained Dean Jacobson.
The Yeshiva College curriculum review hopes to complete the review by the release of the Spring 2009 catalog so that "students matriculating at Yeshiva College in Fall 2009 can be the first beneficiaries of the new curriculum," asserted Dean Jacobson.