Students interested in learning about social networking, the stock market or the threat of asteroid impacts will be able to starting in the spring thanks to 24 new general education courses that were unveiled to the university yesterday.
The General Education Task Force, charged with overhauling the CORE system, selected the courses from more than 50 submitted earlier this month to pilot the “I” series of courses, which will form the centerpiece of a new general education curriculum that will take effect next year.
The “I”-series courses — so called because they are intended to emphasize issues, imagination, intellect, investigation, inspiration and implementation — are designed to focus on “big” questions rather than the introductory material traditionally found in CORE courses.
“I think this university has the opportunity to differentiate itself from the rest of the world,” Provost Nariman Farvardin said to faculty during a short gathering to introduce the courses yesterday.
The new “I”-series courses span topics ranging from Shakespeare to the Chesapeake Bay ecosystem to homophobia. Instructors of the courses will challenge students to think, task force members said, rather than memorize material.
In one course, students will examine how people share information. In another, they will investigate the physical activity of Baltimore residents.
“If you can’t get excited about courses like this, I don’t know what you can get excited about,” task force chairman Ira Berlin said.
The task force selected at least one course submitted by each of the 13 university colleges. Four marquee courses — science courses designed for non-science majors that inspired the “I”-series model — were also added to the list.
The introduction of the “I” series was the first step in overhauling CORE, which the task force will continue to revamp in line with the Strategic Plan, the university’s 10-year roadmap to increasing its prominence, throughout the year.
Earlier this month, Berlin said the committee would consider probable student interest the most important factor in selecting “I”-series courses, while also considering intellectual “weight” and opportunities for student involvement.
“We turned down a lot of really good courses,” Berlin said, pointing to courses on Rwanda and metaphysics as examples of promising courses that didn’t make the final cut.
Professors whose courses were selected said they were excited but also aware of the challenges ahead.
“I really have to blow the students away with what they’re hearing about and who they’re hearing it from,” said engineering professor David Lovell, who will teach a course called “Engineering in the Developing World.”
“I was excited and then immediately panicked by the amount of work I’m going to have to do to pull this off,” he said.
“I’m really interested in seeing if the students can live up to the expectations of the class,” said urban forestry professor Marla McIntosh, adding some students might become frustrated with her class, which focuses on environmental issues in urban environments, because it has no right answers.
Professor Eric Wish said he is interested in teaching an “I”-series course because it gives him the opportunity to expand a course he has taught as an honors seminar. Students in his course, which he will teach with psychology professor Carl Lejuez, will manage a virtual $100,000 stock portfolio and learn about risk tolerance.
Farvardin and faculty members in attendance said they thought all the courses sounded interesting and were excited to see them unfold.
“I wish I had the time to attend every single one of these courses,” Farvardin said.
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