By Kassondra Granata
CCSU’s Faculty Senate endorsed The Student Government Association’s resolution in response to the Board of Regent’s Proposal on the House Bill #5030.
Candace Barrington, an English professor and Faculty Senate President believes that this proposal gives faculty an opportunity.
“What the proposal does in essence is that there will be a core curriculum across all four institutions,” Barrington said. “It will not be measured by class, but by competencies. This core curriculum will amend department by department, major by major, and program by program to make the transition from community college to a CSU school easier. There is hope out there, we can make a change.”
According to Barrington, the systems office has created a steering committee where two provosts from the CSU schools and four academic deans from the community colleges will be charged with shepherding this proposal in response to the House Bill #5030. In parallel to that, the four CSU provosts, the four CSU senate presidents, the 4 CSU AUP presidents, as well as the faculty advisory committee representatives and the curriculum chairs will be meeting on Wednesday to look at the house bill.
Under the Board of Regents policy, if a transfer student has 60-64 credits, equivalent to an associate’s degree, then at least 36 credits will be transferred. According to the policy, there will be a core curriculum in each undergraduate program with the goal to have students be competent in skills such as communication, quantitative and statistical reasoning, critical thinking, empirical problem solving, and personal and social responsibility.
Senator Chris Marcelli of the Student Government presented a resolution opposing the Board of Regents proposal early Feb., which President Eric Bergenn agreed to bring to the faculty senate for their support.
“I think it’s a really bad idea,” Marcelli said of the proposal at an SGA meeting in Feb. “I like the goals that they are trying to reach with it; I don’t think anyone disagrees with the goal of making it easier to transfer your credits, but to me what this proposal is going to do is limit the freedom of the individual institutions to decide on their own curriculums.”
Professor of the Communication Department, Cindy White, does not agree with the Board of Regent’s proposal for core curriculum for General Education. White said that the four CSU schools are all different ranging from their departments as well as applications and practicalities.
“If you look across the four campuses you are looking at four different, philosophical approaches to the field of education. One of the things I hear and see from the legislation is that this proposal is all about efficiency and articulating transfer policies,” White said. “What is being lost in all of this is the content of all the programs. It seems to me that we are framing general education as something that needs to be gotten through in order to pursue what your education is presumably about. This takes the whole point out of general education.”
Mary Ann Mahony, Assistant Professor of History Coordinator said that she thinks that the proposal is a great idea in order to get communities together to try and develop different proposals for the universities. Her only concern is that she is unsure whether the Board of Regents is aware that the fall courses are already set.
“In terms of general education, many majors, especially large ones, have specific required courses in their general education,” said Mahony. “There is a big difference between articulation, showing students what to take. Different departments have difference sizes, no amount of standardization will change it.”
Barrington said that the faculty should see it as a benefit and that they have a say on what classes are required for departments and majors.
Student Government Association Eric Bergenn was pleased that the Faculty Senate approved Marcelli’s resolution.
“I am happy with this for two reasons,” Bergenn said. “One, it definitely helps the relationship between our senate and faculty senate, which I see as a bonus; I mainly have hoped for collaboration between the two. In terms of what the resolution means to the board of regents, we are the biggest group of students and the biggest group of faculty and since were on the same page and I think that will be a great factor.”