Making Sense of the College Curriculum: Faculty Stories of Change, Conflict, and Accommodation

by Robert Zemsky, Gregory R Wegner, Ann J. Duffield

Overview

Readers of Making Sense of the College Curriculum expecting a traditional academic publication full of numeric and related data will likely be disappointed with this volume, which is based on stories rather than numbers. The contributors include over 185 faculty members from eleven colleges and universities, representing all sectors of higher education, who share personal, humorous, powerful, and poignant stories about their experiences in a life that is more a calling than a profession. Collectively, these accounts help to answer the question of why developing a coherent undergraduate curriculum is so vexing to colleges and universities. Their stories also belie the public’s and policymakers’ belief that faculty members care more about their scholarship and research than their students and work far less than most people.  

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780813595023
Publisher:	Rutgers University Press
Publication date:	06/08/2018
Edition description:	First Edition, First Edition
Pages:	200
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.90(d)
Age Range:	16 - 18 Years

About the Author

ROBERT ZEMSKY currently serves as the chair of the Learning Alliance and was a member of the U.S. Secretary of Education’s Commission on The Future of Higher Education. He is the author of several books, including Checklist for Change: Making American Higher Education a Sustainable Enterprise (Rutgers University Press). 

GREGORY R. WEGNER is the director of program development at the Great Lakes Colleges Association. 

ANN J. DUFFIELD is a strategic planning and communications consultant to colleges and universities and serves on the board of trustees of The Sage Colleges in Troy and Albany, New York.

Table of Contents

Preface:  An Exercise in Sense Making 
Section I: Defining the Task
Introduction:  It's a Riddle After All 
Faculty Voice:  Hard Conversations

Section II:   Passions
1    I Am a Bridge 
Faculty Voice:  Taking Ownership
2     Why We Do What We Do 
Faculty Voice:  Hidden among the Artifacts 
Faculty Voice:  An Experiment in Experiential Learning 

Section III:  Adaptations
3           Flying Solo
Faculty Voice:  Practice Makes Perfect 
Faculty Voice:  Being a Doula 
4     Change Is All About Us 
Faculty Voice:  Nope, Too Busy 
5      Losses and the Calculus of Subtraction 
Faculty Voice:  Look, It’s a Course…It’s a Major…No, It’s SUPERMAJOR! 

Section IV:  Frustrations

6     The Cost Conundrum 
Faculty Voice:  Forty Years in the Desert 
Faculty Voice:  Touching the Third Rail 
7     Barriers
Faculty Voice:  Stepping into the Fray 

Section V:  Conclusions
8     The Road Not Traveled 

References


 

Editorial Reviews

Interviews of nearly 180 faculty at a diverse range of colleges and universities demonstrate an inspiring commitment to teaching and to doing whatever it takes to improve student learning. Yet this commitment has not translated into the kind of curricular reform our colleges and our society need if higher education is to be more accessible and effective. The authors, in candidly recounting faculty stories of frustrating failure as well as joyful success, provide important new insights into the many exasperating barriers to broader curricular change; impediments which can only be overcome by a new kind of partnership among faculty, institutional decision makers, and education leaders.

President, Great Lakes Colleges Association - Richard Detweiler

"Making Sense of The College Curriculum is a useful start about how to make a coherent college curriculum."

VoegelinView

"Panicked universities in search of students are adding thousands of new majors" by Jon Marcus

Washington Post

There has been an on-going national conversation about what is taught in the higher education classroom and how much it matters. Making Sense of the College Curriculum responds strongly and directly to the conversation by offering a critical assessment of what some of the most committed teachers in higher education aspire to do in modernizing the curriculum.  It places balanced emphasis on matters of racial and other social differences, the influence of social media, and the existence of instructional and other technology that have shaped the contemporary challenge of higher education teaching. It also delivers a clear message to faculty that thinking in much the same way over time about pedagogy is perilous because students are coming to the classroom each semester, academic year, and decade with different interests, capacities, and expectations about what higher educational learning is all about. Hence, for dedicated instructors sensitivity, self-awareness, and preparedness for adaption must be the constants.

co-editor, Faculty Social Identity and the Challenges of Diversity: Reflections on Teaching in Highe - Alford A. Young

"Selected New Books in Higher Education," compiled by Ruth Hammond

Chronicle of Higher Education

"‘Making Sense of the College Curriculum’: Authors discuss new book examining the faculty role — and how professors view their responsibilities" by Scott Jaschik

Inside Higher Education

"Colleges Nationwide Hope New Majors Will Attract Students," Robert Zemsky interview with Lauren Gilger

KJZZ

"Panicked universities in search of students are adding thousands of new majors" by Jon Marcus

Washington Post

"Not Just for Video Games: Virtual Reality Joins the Classroom" article in Teaching Newsletter

From the Publisher