Changes in the Curriculum




  • In Archive
  • 2013-02-21 18:42:21
  • By
  • 185 Views
Undergraduate Course Catalog is likely to have some changes by the beginning of the Fall 2013 semester. Two American Studies courses will have ENG 102 - Persuasion added to their prerequisites, as was approved by the Curriculum Committee. It is only one step left: Faculty Assembly has to vote for the changes to be official. [caption id="attachment_12286" align="alignleft" width="190" caption="From Wallace's Personal Archive"][/caption] Now only few English Department courses state Persuasion as a prerequisite. However, more and more courses tend to add ENG 102 to the requirements. “It’s standard in the States, as a matter of fact. You need to take all the composition courses before you move on.” said David Wallace, Assistant Professor at the Arts, Languages and Literature Department. “I thought that was the rule here.” He believes students should first complete both writing courses to move on and take courses that require research papers. “I do have students in my American Literature class who have not had the research experience, and I believe it’s going to be very difficult for them,” he said. Professors can decide whether or not to put a research paper in the syllabus, but stating the prerequisites to the courses is not in their charge.  Still they can encourage the process and bring up the problem. Robert Phillips, Associate Professor and Head of the Political Science Department, said that when he started teaching POS 202, the Foreign Police Analysis course, it did not have Persuasion as a prerequisite. “There were a couple of students who were taking the course at the same time [with Persuasion], and they did badly,” he said. According to Phillips, to make a change in the prerequisites, a professor needs to make a motion, and then present it to the department. After the department approves the motion, it goes to the Curriculum Committee, the Committee votes, then it goes to the Faculty Assembly, and only after the Assembly casts their vote, the changes can be applied. From Fall 2013, ENG 102 - Persuasion will be added as a prerequisite to the two courses in the American Studies major: AMS 201 North American Cultural Studies: An Introduction, taught by Sean Homer, and 301 America in a Global Perspective, taught by Pierangelo Castagneto. “I guess it’s pretty important,” said Castagneto, Assistant Professor at the Department of History and Civilizations. “We don’t want to lower the quality of our teaching.” “You have to be able to discuss things that require proper terminology, and this is, I think, the task of Persuasion – to train, the best way as possible, our students to be ready to take philosophical questions or issues. And for my course it is an essential requirement,” Castagneto concluded.