PSU Magazine Fall 1994

of the way, and will incorporate numbers and images in their papers. "If you take graphics away from verbal teaching, the learning process can be more laborious," says art professor Emily Young, who will be teaching Ways of Knowing Home. Each segment will be taught in a team approach by faculty and student mentors who, together, will help students to see the connection between a variety of subjects. More importantly, their mission will be to help students learn to think critically about ideas rather than to simply regurgitate facts on a test. They will learn that many "facts" are debat– able, depending on your point of view. "We want them to become life- long learners," says Charles White, chair of the General Education Working Group that wrote the reform. Finding connections between subjects is one of the keys. Embracing Einstein's Universe, for example, will look at the political and social environ– ment of Europe during the turn of the century; assumptions scientists had about space and time, and how they changed with Einstein; art and literature of the early 20th Century, and how they changed with the new scientific revolution. Students won't be the only ones enjoying the meld of subjects. Each faculty member will be expected to step outside his or her discipline to take on other subjects. Tony Wolk has taught English at PSU for nearly 30 years, but also has a background in history, and will be teaching mostly historical background in the Einstein segment. "The traditional walls of the disci– plines are down," he says. "We're not just anthropologists, historians, English teachers, or whatever. It's very freeing: here's a program where the teachers are very much like the students." Math and education professor Ron Narode says "What I think this will do is make students equally as willing to reach into areas that they wouldn't normally go." Sophomores, juniors and seniors will continue with this clustered approach to learning for a portion of each term while they work on their majors. It will culminate in a six-credit "Senior 10 PSU Magazine Capstone Experience" in which student teams will apply what they've learned in their majors to a community project somewhere in the Portland metropolitan area. The Senior Capstone idea has excited many faculty and terrified others, some of whom see the idea of coming up with hundreds of community projects to satisfy each senior as a logistical nightmare. But White is confident it can be done. First of all, the projects will be performed by teams, not individuals, which will reduce the number of projects. Secondly, PSU can link up with foundations and organizations that specialize in community projects that, in fact, need help. Couple that with the fact that the metro area has, according to the report that White and his group issued on the new curriculum, "some 55,000 busines– ses, more than 60 governments with their attendant agencies and bureaus, and uncounted non-profit groups, neighborhood and community groups, and private associations." Quickly, the notion of 200 senior projects a year becomes feasible. Learning to work in teams, along with the critical thinking skills the program intends to build, will be important tools for preparing tudents for the work force, White says.