University of Virginia Library

Curriculum Study
Urges 'Evolution'

dimension

The faculty Curriculum Committee will
continue its work with a meeting on Thursday,
November 6, with Student Council and the
faculty Committee on Educational Policy. "The
primary purpose of this meeting will be to
discuss the views of the Student Council," says
John T. Moore, chairman of the Curriculum
Committee. The following week will see an
open meeting between members of the
Committee and any interested students or
faculty members who wish to present their
views on the proposed changes. This open
discussion will be held in the Wilson Hall
Auditorium on Tuesday, November 11 at 4

In many respects the proposal is an
extended modification of the present
curriculum — one step, as we see it, in a
continuing evolution. We have sought to
maintain the standards enforced by the
present curriculum while reducing its
inflexibility. The proposal is quite frankly
a compromise between an education
dictated by the faculty and one chosen
entirely by the students, but we have
provided many new options and opportunities
for student choice. With one
exception, area requirements have replaced
specific course requirements. In
accordance with the traditional values of
liberal education, we are asking students
to study natural science, social science,
and the humanities, but within those
broad areas the choice of courses is open
and requirements may be satisfied any
time in the first three years. The
proposed new undergraduate curriculum
retains English 1 as a degree requirement
upon the virtually unanimous recommendations
of all departments in the College.
It retains the traditional major but
provides a new University major for
students who do not wish to specialize in
a single department. The proposal offers
the students a choice between foreign
language and foreign culture. It allows a
comprehensive examination, adding a
provision for a senior thesis (with degree
credit) as a substitute for the comprehensive
examination, but authorizes a department
to omit both. The new curriculum
recommends the institution of a pass/fail
grade, the use of fractions of grade-points
for plus and minus grades, the limitation
of hours taken for degree credit in ROTC,
the recommendation (but not the requirement)
of physical education courses, the
elimination of required related courses,
and the option to declare a major any
time in the first two years. Our faith,
finally, is with our students. Given the
opportunity to choose, we believe they
will choose wisely.

After many months of study, the
Committee has become convinced that
curriculum evaluation and revision are
too important to the continued vitality of
the College to be relegated to ad hoc
committees, constituted only at infrequent
intervals. Curricular revision should
be a continual affair and we thus
recommend that the Committee on
Educational Policy and the Budget or
another permanent committee of the
Faculty, including student representation,
be charged with the responsibility of
evaluating the curriculum, studying possible
revisions, and making recommendations.
Such a committee might well begin
with some of the proposals which the
present Committee considered but judged
to be outside the scope of its purpose as
well as beyond its resources for analysis.
These proposals include the improvement
of the College advising system, the study
of the impact of the admission of
undergraduate women upon the curriculum,
the reduction of the student course
load, the restructuring of the academic
calendar, the institution of residence
colleges with individual curricula, the
revision of the Echols Scholar program,
the expansion of independent study,
tutorial, and seminar experience, the
improvement of the summer curriculum,
the elimination of grades for first-year
men, the evaluation of and reward for
undergraduate teaching, the development
of further opportunities for off-Grounds
academic experience for degree credit,
the possibility of an interdisciplinary
problems of inquiry program for first-year
men which would combine practical
and theoretical experience in the sciences
and the humanities in the exploration of
individual topics in depth, and the
development of a program of statistical
evaluation of the curriculum.

The Committee also believes that its
mandate extended only to the curriculum
of the College considered as a whole and
that the organization and content of
specific courses lay beyond our prerogatives.
In the end, however, the quality of
education depends on individual courses
and instructors. We hope that the
proposal will challenge us all to consider
new ways of reaching the minds and
interests of our students and that
departments will view the proposal as a
stimulus to improvements and innovations
of their own. Specifically, we would
recommend to departments the expan- |