Spent a long day at two poorly-structured "visioning sessions" for the turbocharged devising of new degree programs we're told we need pronto if we are to right the foundering ship of the liberal arts at The New School.
The first was billed as regarding "humanities and social sciences" across the university but managed not to mention humanities once. Our specific focus was to be the space of history, sociology and anthropology (whose majors are among the "credentials" marked for "indefinite discontinuance for redesign" in our restructuring plan), but our breakout discussions wound up reinventing the wheel of general education.
The other brought together faculty in the "discontinuance for redesign" programs in urban, environmental, and global studies (one of our curricular strengths but one few students choose as majors), who were invited to come up with "concepts" for new degree programs, what one wag called "new bottles for old wine." We think the old wine is excellent, but both of these exercises were haunted by the likelihood that the restructurers are looking for new wine - and will refer to these "visioning" sessions as proof that faculty sommeliers had a say.
