A-Senate looking into restructuring master course syllabi
Academic Senate began discussions regarding a restructuring of the Master Course Syllabi used to create course outlines and guidelines for faculty and students Tuesday.
"Some departments have thousands of master course syllabi they have to review and update," said George Ronan, director of general education and chairman of certificates and degrees (CAD) review committee. "We recommend a master course description."
The master course description entails 26 different elements, including bulletin descriptions, pre-requisites, student learning objectives and a course format.
"The goal is for each curriculum committee to go back and figure out what they need to do," Ronan said. "They can include more material than just this, but they don't have to. We want it to reflect what they think they should be doing."
Some senators were opposed to the idea of restructuring. Jim Hill, a political science professor, said this could harm CMU's Global Campus courses.
"Global Campus checks the syllabi (of faculty) by the master course syllabus," he said. "It's become a watchdog to make sure a weak course doesn't slip by."
David Smith, a philosophy and religion faculty member, agreed with Hill, and said he wonders how it would affect other parts of the campus as well.
"How will they affect the Global Campus, the accreditation, how transfer credits are handled?" Smith asked. "There's a whole list of things."
Sociology, anthropology and social work faculty member, Mary Senter, said her department uses the master course syllabi to evaluate faculty and to keep expectations of their courses high.
"We denote expectations on the master course syllabi," she said. "The readings (and) levels of difficulty, that not only tells the people teaching the course what we want, it also tells them what we need."
Senter said she believes taking the master course syllabi away or restructuring them would lessen the outward expectations of the department.
Others took the side of the committee looking into restructuring, saying they wanted a change in the master course syllabi to make things easier on faculty and staff.
Maureen Eke, an English language and literature faculty member, agreed with changing the syllabi adding that the master course syllabi limits the faculty on what they can teach and how they can teach.
"They're so prescribed to a straight jacket in what's in the master course syllabus," Eke said. "The master course syllabus to me is not a teaching syllabus. You have your methodology. Should it not be up to the faculty as to what book they use?"
Benjamin Heumann, a geography professor, said he agrees that the master course syllabus needs to be refined.
"I think this isn't a perfect way forward," he said. "But it addresses the issues that are clogging us up."
Ronan said they are trying to restructure the master course syllabi and not get rid of them entirely.
"No one is trying to minimize this," he said. "We've taken out the dated material. Often times, they don't represent (the course) well. As information changes more quickly, we need to change our information."
A-Senate plans to discuss the restructuring of the master course syllabi once the entirety of the Senate membership have a chance to sit down with their departments and constituencies to see what they think is the best route to move forward.
