Well, I almost hate to say this, but I'm having fun at the AAC&U "Gen Ed Boot Camp." It's interesting to learn about the latest trends and best practices in higher education and/though also intimidating to realize how late we are in the game. For various reasons (not all of them bad) New School has managed to avoid articulating general education aims, let alone implementing a curriculum to help students achieve them. Most of the other teams are in the process of revising quarter-century-old regimes, and come battle-scarred from years of struggling to get buy-in from departments, faculty unions, administrators of every stripe, alumni, legislators... We don't have all of those ducks to line up, but it would clearly be a big deal to move from our laid back reliance on "implicit" learning to the kind of articulated and assessable programs everyone else is working on. Would be? Will be! Our accrediting body mandates it!Sunday, June 03, 2012
Getting with the program
Well, I almost hate to say this, but I'm having fun at the AAC&U "Gen Ed Boot Camp." It's interesting to learn about the latest trends and best practices in higher education and/though also intimidating to realize how late we are in the game. For various reasons (not all of them bad) New School has managed to avoid articulating general education aims, let alone implementing a curriculum to help students achieve them. Most of the other teams are in the process of revising quarter-century-old regimes, and come battle-scarred from years of struggling to get buy-in from departments, faculty unions, administrators of every stripe, alumni, legislators... We don't have all of those ducks to line up, but it would clearly be a big deal to move from our laid back reliance on "implicit" learning to the kind of articulated and assessable programs everyone else is working on. Would be? Will be! Our accrediting body mandates it!
