10/21/2015
The Campanil - Mills College Mail - Fwd: Curricular Transformation
Curricular Transformation Wed, Oct 21, 2015 at 11:55 AM
Dear Faculty: I have tried to post the message, below, from the FEC to faculty, students, and staff using the groups the president's memo went to. However, those groups are not open to us to post on. I am sending this to you. Do you have ideas about how to get this to students? Thank you, Sabrina
October 21, 2015
Dear Faculty, Students, Staff, Alumnae, and Other Interested Persons:
As the elected members of the Faculty Executive Committee, we are writing both in response to recent proposals by the Provost and President of Mills and in support of the students and faculty across the College.
Until Monday’s faculty meeting, we had not been aware of any formal proposals to eliminate majors or to cut back our curriculum. We believe that the proposals announced at the faculty meeting and sent out to the Mills community
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10/21/2015
The Campanil - Mills College Mail - Fwd: Curricular Transformation
that evening are premature and not yet fully developed. The process for moving any of these ideas forward for consideration would be to develop a formal proposal that would outline the rationale, costs, and benefits of such a change, and to present that to the Educational Policy Subcommittee of the Faculty Executive Committee. Any such proposals to change the curriculum can only be approved after careful, responsible consideration by the Educational Policy Subcommittee of the Faculty Executive Committee, the faculty in each respective division, and a vote of the full faculty. At this time, we have seen no concrete evidence of the need to eliminate programs – indeed, we see many opportunities for new majors and expanded programs to better serve students.
Given the responsibility of the FEC to lead the process for curricular revision and development at Mills, we have participated in implementing a number of exciting new ideas which members of the faculty put forward to revise our curriculum and to expand the number and range of majors offered to our students. Most notable among these are the new Academic Core curriculum that was approved last spring and the MFA in Translation that was approved by faculty last month. At our faculty meeting on Monday, we also approved a revision (and modernization) of the Ethnic Studies major, and new minors in Creative Writing and the History of Philosophy. Finally, we have seen and support several proposals for innovative and valuable new graduate programs and new interdisciplinary majors that are presently at different stages of the approval process.
We support students and faculty across the College, and have no doubt that a careful financial analysis will lead Mills in this positive direction of growth.
Faculty Executive Committee:
Elizabeth Bachen, Psychology Chris Brown, Music Wah Cheng, History Diane Ketelle, Education 2/3
10/21/2015
The Campanil - Mills College Mail - Fwd: Curricular Transformation
Patricia Powell, English Stephen Ratcliffe, English Roger Sparks, Economics Sabrina Zirkel, Education, Chair ____________________________________________________________ ______________________ Sabrina Zirkel, PhD Associate Dean Quigley Fellow Abbie Valley Professor of Education School of Education Mills College Oakland, CA 94613 szirkel@mills.edu (510) 4303380 www.educationandidentity.com
Dean Morier, Ph.D. Esther Lee Mirmow Professor of Psychology Mills College Oakland, CA 94613 dean@mills.edu Wed, Oct 21, 2015 at 1:09 PM
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