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The Curricular Innovation Process
PHASE I: Campus-Wide Solicitation and Generation of Ideas on the Current Curriculum and Ideas for Innovation (September - October 2000)
- Curricular Innovation planning project announced in September Faculty Meeting, 9/20.
- CALL FOR IDEAS sent out 9/25 by memo to faculty and staff.
- Similar CALL published in The Williams Record
- CEP members attended forums such as: Gaudino Forum 9/27, an open forum for students 9/27, and Project for Effective Teaching (PET) Lunch 10/10, Phi Beta Kappa students' dinner, meeting with CRAAS (Critical Reasoning and Analytic Skills) faculty, meeting with the Committee on Community and Diversity.
Over 150 different proposals or memos were sent to the CEP by faculty, staff, and students, and many of those contained multiple ideas. Several proposals have been multi-authored and several of those have been from faculty across divisions and from faculty-staff pairs. Ideas were sent by faculty in all three divisions, and by tenured as well as untenured faculty. Some new faculty and visiting faculty suggested curricular innovations based on models from other institutions. The Williams Record ran several articles and editorials in the fall semester, after the CALL went out. The forums and meetings mentioned above were well attended and also generated new ideas.
Click here for a complete list of idea "titles" and a brief description of each of these ideas.
PHASE II: Focused Campus Discussion of Working Papers on the Curriculum (December 2000 - March 2001)
Throughout October and November, the CEP digested, discussed, and evaluated these ideas and other ideas as they arose out of our discussions. We considered the current state of the curriculum, what is working and what is not, and how the curriculum and the Williams educational experience might not only be "better," but the best that we can provide for our students. We identified common themes or major areas of curricular change that could be discussed as a coherent package, and this led to the issue of working papers on four broad topics: 1) Interdisciplinary Studies; 2) Competencies and Requirements; 3) Formats of Instruction; and 4) Year-by-Year Innovations. These were not the only issues the CEP considered, but they represented a significant portion of the corpus of ideas sent to us.
Working Papers #1 and #2 were circulated in early December 2000, and Working Papers #3 and #4 were circulated in early January 2001. These were discussed widely in the college community in the following forums:
- December Faculty Meeting, Working Papers #1 and #2.
- January Faculty Meeting, Working Papers #3 and #4.
- Interdepartmental Cluster Meetings. The CEP invited two to four academic departments at a time to discuss the ideas and proposals. Six such meetings were held, beginning in late November and continuing into mid-January. They were very well attended and provided for lively discussions that allowed faculty to think through ideas with their departmental colleagues and with colleagues from other departments.
- President's Advisory Group (PAG) discussion, held on Friday February 2.
- Student members of the CEP attended two College Council Meetings in January to brief them and hear their opinions.
- Student members of the CEP ran two open forums for students in January.
- Strategic Planning Retreat in Annapolis, MD -- January 19-21, 2001. The retreat brought together Williams trustees and administration with faculty and staff members of the Strategic Planning Coordinating Committee.
- The Working Papers were posted on this website, which contains an email link that readers can use to send their responses directly to all CEP members. Updates to the website have been announced via the Daily Messages and the Daily Advisor.
- Information was provided to The Williams Record, which published articles in January about the curricular innovation process and invited students to express their opinions.
PHASE III: Initial Curricular Proposals (March - April 2001)
In March 2001, the CEP articulated a set of initial curricular proposals and brought them to the community for continued discussion. These initial curricular proposals were vetted widely in the same types of forums that were useful in Phase II (open meetings, faculty meetings, student forums, and so on). They were then revised, refined, or supplemented as needed during the period from early March to late April. At the same time, the CEP worked together with other college committees and the administration to answer questions about the implications of each proposal for such important considerations as class size, faculty teaching load, and admissions.
PHASE IV: Final Curricular Proposals (May 2001)
Four final proposals, based on revisions and refinements of the initial proposals, were issued by the CEP in early May. The proposals were discussed and put to a vote at the May faculty meeting.
PHASE V: Implementation (2001-2002)
In the academic year 2001-2002 the CEP and other college committees worked to implement those proposals that received at least 60% faculty endorsement.