The Ad Hoc Committee for General Education Review is proposing five changes to CCSU’s general education requirements, including a Writing in the Discipline requirement.
The proposal would require all students to take a course that teaches the writing required by their area of study. The course is not an additional general education requirement and will be a part of the curriculum in students’ given major.
“Each (WID) course would prepare students to do the sort of writing they’ll be expected to do to succeed in their major and their career path,” Stephen Cohen, chair of the English department, said.
Cohen said he has been advocating for this change for over a decade and has learned two things.
“First, CCSU is the only school in the Connecticut State Colleges and Universities system, including the CT State Community College, that requires only one writing course,” Cohen said. “This puts our students at a disadvantage when competing with other students in the state for jobs and other opportunities. Second, our assessment data consistently shows that our students do not write as well as they could or should.”
Seniors at CCSU have 65.9 pages of assigned writing and students at other New England public schools have 84 pages of assigned writing, according to the National Survey of Student Engagement report.
Cohen said that CCSU’s First Year Writing Program students score well, but seniors do not score as well in writing as the national average.
“Of the five Gen Ed skills we assess, our students show the least improvement in writing from freshman to senior year,” Cohen said. “We can do better.”
Cohen said the development of writing skills is important to students of all majors despite their area of study, which is why the WID requirement will be unique to each major.
“Every discipline, STEM or otherwise, requires writing, as do the careers those disciplines prepare students to pursue,” Cohen said. “They don’t all require the same kind of writing. A Biology student may need to learn to write lab reports, a business major may need to learn to write business plans, and a nursing student may need to learn to write patient charts—but they all need writing. That’s why we’re advocating a WID requirement: to prepare every major for the kind of writing they need.”
This proposal will be voted on by the general education subcommittee at the main meeting. Then, it will move up to be voted on in the senate.
