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May 16, 2012
“CBS This Morning” Interviews W&M Chancellor in the Wren Building
Today “CBS This Morning” aired an interview between Emmy Award-winning co-host Charlie Rose and former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates ’65, L.H.D. '98, who last weekend was on campus to take part in Commencement activities. The interview, which was filmed in the historic Wren Building, covers international affairs and the Navy SEAL raid in which Osama Bin Laden was killed. During the interview, Rose notes that W&M is the second-oldest university in the country and "full of history."
Gates was invested as W&M Chancellor in February, replacing former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor and adding to a long line of distinguished individuals, including Henry Kissinger, Margaret Thatcher, and Warren Burger.
Watch the full interview at CBS.
Faculty Committee Proposal a Setback for W&M Curriculum
Read the Curriculum Review Steering Committee document HERE
Read reactions from Susan Eley, B.A. '57, M.A. '62; Karla Bruno '81; Interim Dean of Arts & Sciences Eugene Tracy; and Elizabeth Gibbons, M.A. '71.
The College of William and Mary is on the verge of taking a big step in the wrong direction on basic undergraduate curriculum requirements.
William and Mary’s Curriculum Review Steering Committee, a panel constituted in December 2010 to examine the school’s undergraduate curriculum requirements, has prepared a yet-undisclosed overhaul to the school’s basic education requirements. The proposal, a draft of which is linked to above, scraps the College’s current General Education Requirements system, replacing it with watered-down core college curriculum system, or COLL. The Society for the College is concerned that this proposal is geared toward allowing faculty and students to teach and take what they want rather than boosting academic requirements. The committee touts the COLL system for having "more flexibility," requiring "far fewer courses"...relative to the current system," and for not being "overly demanding in the junior and senior years."
The proposal lacks a specific writing requirement; fails to mandate that students take a history course; and would only require a single course in scientific and quantitative reasoning. These are among several changes that would setback the school’s current curriculum standards, and are far from improving the rigor and rich liberal arts traditions that have defined William and Mary - traditions that the Society wants to bolster.
If enacted, the COLL system would cut required classes by about half and credit hours by one third relative to current undergraduate curriculum requirements.
Furthermore, at a time of heightened attention on higher education spending, the proposal raises questions about university administrative expenses by creating a new curriculum center. According to a recent report by the American Council for Trustees and Alumni, the College raised tuition by 49 percent from 2004 through 2011 while increasing administrative costs by 61 percent and only raising instructional spending by 42 percent from 2002 to 2009.
The Society has provided input to the faculty steering committee throughout its yearlong review, hosting three on-campus discussions on curriculum reform in addition to publishing its own comprehensive curriculum reform white paper. In the Society’s third event, which was held on March 14, members of the College administration and the curriculum committee were invited to present their findings on the status of College curriculum reform. The Society is concerned that the faculty and administration declined to participate, and that such a refusal runs counter to basic accountability and transparency.
In anticipation of a faculty vote on the new curriculum requirements at the start of the 2012-2013 academic year, the Society encourages alumni and anyone with a love for William and Mary to contact the school’s Board of Visitors, President Taylor Reveley and members of the steering committee to tell them what you think about this proposal to water down William and Mary's mandatory academic requirements.
... Read More ...
March 24, 2012
Society for the College: Big Disconnect at W&M
By Andrew McRoberts
Note: The following letter appeared in the March 24 edition of The Virginia Gazette.
The College of William & Mary is at an academic and fiscal crossroads.
If the Board of Visitors agrees with a faculty committee, the basic curriculum or General Education Requirements (GERs) would be scrapped in favor of a new approach with half as many required classes and one-third fewer credit hours.
The specific course requirements across the liberal arts spectrum would be weakened. Future W&M students could be able to graduate by taking no more than four courses per semester. The faculty committee touts its proposal as having “more flexibility,” requiring “far fewer courses ...relative to the current [GER] system,” and for not being “overly demanding in the junior and senior years.” (See www.SocietyfortheCollege.org.)
In contrast, the Society for the College proposes that the GERs be strengthened. At the top of our suggestions, we call for more focused writing composition and history requirements.
... Read More ...
March 20, 2012
VA Informer: W&M’s GER Revision Criticized by Alumni Organization
By Luke Nicastro
On Wednesday, March 14, the Society for the College held an open panel discussion on the future of William & Mary’s core liberal arts curriculum. The Society for the College is an independent 501 (c) organization dedicated to promoting good governance, preserving history and tradition, and fostering academic excellence at William & Mary. Comprised of alumni, faculty, students, and friends, the Society attempts to serve as a voice for what it perceives as the interests of the greater William & Mary community.
Debate over those interests formed the basis of Wednesday’s panel discussion, which saw presentations from three representatives of the Society – Anne Neal, President of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni; Matt Ames ’80, attorney; and W&M Professor Paul Davies. These presentations revolved around the College’s current effort to redesign its core curriculum, and featured trenchant criticism of both current and proposed general education requirements (GERs).
... Read more ...
March 21, 2012
VA Gazette: Untenured Professors Make Up Half the Faculty
By Susan Robertson
In a slowly evolving trend, the College of William & Mary is employing more adjunct instructors who are ineligible for tenure.
Adjuncts cost less and pose no long-term financial or political burden. W&M officials insist they’re hired for their professionalism, not just savings.
For some years, half the staff have been adjuncts, according to a report issued to the Faculty Assembly last month by Provost Michael Halleran. That reflects a national trend over more than three decades of colleges exploiting non-tenured instructors for significantly lower salaries and benefits.
Tenured faculty now make up 49.3% of the faculty.
... Read More ...
March 16, 2012
The Flat Hat: Rearranging the books
By Ken Lin
The College of William and Mary may have educated Presidents of the United States in the past, but a panel involved with higher education, organized by the Society for the College, indicated that the College’s current curriculum fails to prepare graduates to be the nation’s future leaders.
The panel’s featured speaker, American Council of Trustees and Alumni President Anne Neal, spoke about the Council’s recent finding that a staggering proportion of college graduates failed to learn anything in college, and many took courses that required little writing and composition. Neal decried the fact that so many recent college graduates in the United States remain unemployed or underemployed, tying the phenomenon to a failure of universities to provide them with the necessary and practical skills that would allow them to be productive members of society.
... Read More ...
The Virginian-Pilot: Following ACTA Study, Major Grant-Giving Foundation Seeks Curriculum Reforms
Grant-giving group finds Virginia colleges lacking
By Janie Bryant
© The Virginian-Pilot February 17, 2012
PORTSMOUTH
For more than half a century, the Beazley Foundation has invested millions of dollars into college-bound students and the Virginia colleges and universities they attend.
Last year, the foundation's trustees commissioned a study to check on their investment. What they learned troubled them.
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Forbes: Executives say new grads ill-prepared for job market
FORTUNE -- Note to recent college grads and the Class of 2012: You may not be as ready for the working world as you think you are. At least, that's the opinion of about 500 senior managers and C-suite executives in a study by Global Strategy Group, on behalf of worldwide architectural firm Woods Bagot.
In all, a 65% majority of business leaders say young people applying for jobs at their companies right out of college are only "somewhat" prepared for success in business, with 40% of C-suite executives saying they are "not prepared at all." Not only that, but even those who get hired anyway may not rise very far. Almost half (47%) of C-suite executives believe that fewer than one-quarter (21%) of new grads have the skills they'll need to advance past entry-level jobs.
... Read More ...
W&M Disappoints on Core Academic Requirements, Affordability in New Study
In a timely release to the Society’s own core curriculum recommendations for the College of William and Mary, the American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA) has published a report outlining challenges in general education requirements, cost effectiveness and governance at Virginia’s 39 public and private four-year institutions. The report, 'The Diffusion of Light and Education," is ACTA’s ninth in a series of state evaluations.
The College came up short on four of the seven criteria ACTA evaluated. On undergraduate course requirements, the College only requires three of seven key subjects - foreign language, math, and science are mandated while composition, literature, U.S. government or history, and economics aren’t necessary to graduate. These shortcomings further highlighted ACTA’s annual ranking studies of major colleges and universities, "What Will They Learn?," which awards William and Mary a mere C grade.
The price of attending the College has exploded by 49 percent over the past six years - the second highest tuition increase among Virginia public institutions - while the College's tuition and fees as a percentage of median household income have had the highest jump among all Virginia public schools. Along with these cost increases, the College’s administration grew by 61 percent while funds spent on instruction rose by only 42 percent between 2002-03 and 2008-09.
But a testament to the College’s enduring draw and academic focus, freshmen retention and on-time student graduation are among the best in the state.
To help address these issues, ACTA calls for the State Council of Higher Education of Virginia, a higher education public policy body that makes recommendations to the governor and the state legislatures, to take a more assertive stance, seeking closure of superfluous academic programs and encouraging those that produce greater effectiveness. Greater adoption of outside measures of student growth in core skills, is another option where school governance structures can play a key role, ACTA says.
The Liberal Arts at The College of William and Mary:
A Common Curriculum For 21st Century LeadersThe mission of the College is to prepare young men and women to assume positions of leadership at the highest levels of our society..
The undergraduate curriculum at the College must be designed to ensure the accomplishment of that mission
The Society for the CollegeJanuary 29, 2012
www.societyforthecollege.org Executive SummaryThe College has recently gone through an exercise in asking itself what it means to be a liberal arts institution in today’s world and is now evaluating its curriculum to incorporate that discussion. The Society for the College offers here a proposal for fundamental reform of the curriculum intended to preserve and advance the idea of a liberal arts education. Our proposal further provides the College an opportunity to distinguish itself from other institutions by offering a curriculum designed to ensure that students graduate with the kind of comprehensive understanding of the world necessary for them to assume leadership roles in society at large.
We begin with a traditional definition of the liberal arts: that form of education that is worthy of a free person. Translated into terms applicable in today’s society, we conclude that a liberal arts education should provide a solid grounding in the skills and knowledge necessary to assume a practical and effective leadership role in public and private life. Students at William & Mary expect to become leaders, persons of consequence, and the College’s mission is to prepare them for that role.
... Read More ...
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