Integrations Curriculum undergoes changes

The Joint Faculty Senate (JFS) enacted significant changes to the Integrations Curriculum this past week.

A total of seven motions were voted on and passed during two separate meetings on Feb. 8 and Feb. 14. This comes at the heels of the JFS suspending both the Benedictine Raven and Global requirements for the classes of 2024 and 2025 in December.

“There are positive changes that we can make now to ease the burden on students, maintain the principles of the curriculum for which the faculty voted, ease implementation on faculty and programs and improve the curriculum in the process…the [Integrations Curriculum] as currently structured is not doing what we had hoped it would it is not allowing for student exploration and engagement in a way that helps their study of the liberal arts,” a JFS document titled “Rationale for GECC Motions to the JFS: Changes to the Integrations Curriculum,” said.

Impacted most drastically is the Theme requirement. Effective immediately, students are required to take a Thematic Focus Course and any other two Themes Courses in two or more departments, a transformational structure change from the previous requirement. Themes courses have also been disassociated from the Ways of Thinking.

The changes were primarily prompted by student and faculty feedback. The General Education Curriculum Committee, which is focused on implementing the general education curriculum, has spent the school year engaging with department chairs through a comprehensive survey and attending department meetings. After reviewing collected data and responses, the committee began drafting alterations to the curriculum that focused specifically on two categories: size and complexity.

“One of the challenges with rolling out a new general education curriculum is that implementing curriculums can be messy, and sometimes we don’t know how things are going to work until we actually start trying them,” said Emily Berg Paup, communication professor and co-chair of the General Education Curriculum Committee.

Some of pathways in the curriculum and the way the curriculum was working were preventing barriers for some students, according to Paup.

The committee focused on creating changes that either solve a short-term problem or entail more permanent ramifications. For example, waiving the Benedictine Raven and Global requirements for students who entered in 2020 and 2021 but still including them in the curriculum for future classes allows for more courses to receive those and other designations, a short-term solution.

The Integrations Curriculum has earned a polarizing reputation among students, but SJU sophomore Nick Trucke appreciates the adjustments.

“I spend a lot of time, especially before registration, trying to understand and schedule my classes within the Integrations Curriculum. I think these changes are super positive,” Trucke said.

CSB sophomore Haiden Haws agrees.

“I’m in the process of deciding on a major, and oftentimes I felt pressure to declare earlier due to how big the Integrations Curriculum seems. If these changes help alleviate some of those worries for other students, that’s a win,” Haws said.

This doesn’t appear to be the last of changes to the Integrations Curriculum either.

“We’re still talking about further adjustments that might need to be made…but we have not come to any consensus about what those solutions might be. We might be going back to the [Joint Faculty Senate] in March or April, but we’re also not sure about that,” Berg Paup said.