Last week, both the student and faculty senates heard from some of the members of the Task Force on Undergraduate Communication presenting information about the proposed communication requirement. Both senates debated on the merits of the task force’s recommendations; the Student Senate resolved to fully endorse them, while the Faculty Senate was waiting to hear from Prabhat Hajela, vice provost and dean for undergraduate education, before taking any action.
As previously reported, the suggested changes would eliminate the current writing requirement and replace it with a communication intensive requirement. In addition, the recommendations of the task force also call for a regular review of syllabi to determine which classes are defined as communication intensive based on outlined criteria, for supporting the writing center, and for feedback on communication assignments to come from professors as opposed to teaching assistants.
Members of the Faculty Senate seemed divided on some of the recommendations. Many said that they agreed with the ideas behind the proposal but were not fully behind the way its implementation was outlined.
One specific complaint that some faculty senators had was over the renaming of the requirement from “writing” to “communication.” Even though one member of the Senate said, “I think the committee does not want to take anything away from writing,” another said that “we may be sending the wrong message by changing the name,” and encouraged the renaming of the requirement to be reconsidered.
The recommendations specifically call for students in communication intensive classes to “be required to complete at least three graded assignments that result in formal presentations in written, oral, and/or visual media,” and some faculty senators expressed that they thought stressing written communication was more important than someone’s ability to throw together a PowerPoint presentation. On the other hand, one member pointed out that there is more to making an effective PowerPoint presentation than just technical know-how.
President of the Faculty Senate Bruce Nauman said that he felt the proposals in their current form may not be strong enough to bring about change. He felt as though the current status quo would meet the requirements outlined in the new proposal and asked, “Why not have one writing intensive class taught by writers?” He also suggested that there might be one class, required of all incoming freshmen entitled “freshman essays” which would focus on how to write research essays.
The task force chair, Lee Odell, associate dean and professor in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, said that the last thing he would want is for things to remain unchanged. He also said that there would not be enough resources for the writing department to teach a class to all incoming freshmen. He and some others held that the recommendations would indeed change things.
According to Odell, our current requirement is very limited when compared to the communication/writing requirements at schools RPI often compares itself to. He said that Carnegie Mellon University requires that everyone take one such class, but that there was no idea of testing out of the requirement via the SAT as there is here. He also mentioned that Cornell University requires at least two and sometimes three such classes and that the Massachusetts Institute of Technology requires its undergraduates to take one writing intensive class every year.
Provost G. P. “Bud” Peterson told the Faculty Senate he was “pleased to see [them] tackling these issues.” This sentiment seemed to be echoed by the Student Senate when they heard from three faculty members last Friday, including Odell.
While some student senators questioned how these new requirements could be implemented without adding new course burdens to undergraduates or taking away from the technical emphasis in some classes, many felt that the recommendations were very good ideas.
The Student Senate voted 15-2-0 to “resolve to fully endorse the recommendations of the Task Force on Undergraduate Communication in regards to the ‘communication intensive’ courses.” Some student senators told Odell and the two other faculty members present that they felt the new requirements should be more stringent than outlined in the recommendations.
According to a memo sent to Peterson and Nauman from Grand Marshal Mike Dillon, “It was the outspoken shared sentiment at that meeting that these recommendations are not simply a place to stop, but one that Faculty should be prepared to build upon in the future.” The memo called on both recipients to “take any and all action” within their power to see the recommendations implemented.
The GM also weighed in on the issue saying, “it’s definitely a step in the right direction that students will be in communication intensive classes as opposed to writing intensive classes, since there’s much more to expressing yourself than writing a paper.”
If and when the faculty Senate approves the recommendations as a possible change to the core curriculum, the changes would have to be voted on by the full faculty. This would probably occur during the next general faculty election later this spring.
