文章基本信息

标题：Co-learners and Core: Education reform at Saint Joseph's College.
本地全文：下载
作者：Hall, Eric A.
期刊名称：International Social Science Review
印刷版ISSN：0278-2308
出版年度：2014
期号：May
出版社：Pi Gamma Mu
摘要：On June 6, 1980, educational sciences professor Malcolm Parlett sent a memorandum to Saint Joseph's College administrator John Nichols commenting on his recent visit to the school. Nichols had asked Parlett to observe the college's reformed general education curriculum and offer suggestions for its improvement. When Parlett submitted his findings, the report was filled overwhelmingly with high praise and little criticism. He wrote that Saint Joseph's College's Core Curriculum presented "flexibility that provides for replenishment of energy and interest." (1) Parlett noted that Core faculty "are encouraged to think in interdisciplinary terms; to read books outside of their own subject; to realize the limitations of their own disciplinary perspective...to teach in front of colleagues; and to collaborate with their peers in talking through, and worrying over, the overall structure of each Core segment." (2) In reference to the college's general education curriculum, Parlett recognized that "St. Joseph's was ahead of the rest of the country--Harvard in this respect can be thought of as a 'Johnny-come-lately.'" (3)

In the fall of 1969, Saint Joseph's College, a small, Catholic, liberal arts institution 90 miles from Chicago in Rensselaer, Indiana, replaced its traditional 54-credit general education program with a new curriculum that included interdisciplinary studies, non-Western requirements, and coursework requiring faculty to lead discussion sections outside of their fields of expertise. The college's president, Father Charles Banet, used the Second Vatican Council, which ran from 1962 to 1965, and new national literature on curriculum revision as an impetus for education reform. The college's interpretation of Vatican II, coupled with its approach to skeptical students and faculty, allowed administrators to achieve their primary goal: to alter the college's curriculum in a way that clearly distinguished it from the state's other colleges and universities. Once Saint Joseph's College implemented the new program, it quickly became a prominent model for institutions of higher education.