PSU Magazine Winter 1994

"What do our students need to know? They need to know how to learn." PROF. CHARLES R. WHITE, CHAIR GE ERAL EDUCATION W ORKING GROUP want to tell you about some of the ground breaking and exciting work under way in our academic programs at Portland State. For the past 40 years, PSU has used a traditional general education requirement for undegra– duate degrees-so many hours of science or social science, of English and so on, selected from a vast menu of courses. However, students entering PSU as freshmen in fall 1994 will encounter a general education program that is significantly different from our current model. The product of months of study and discussion by the General Education Working Group, the new curriculum responds to Professor White's rhetorical question- to teach students how to learn for a life time and how to use continuous learning to develop both context and solutions for real life issues. The base of the new program is a series of three 5-credit courses required of all entering freshmen called, Freshmen Inquiry. The Freshmen Inquiry courses will be taught by a team of faculty from various disciplines, assisted by five student mentors. Each member of the faculty team will explore the perspectives and insights offered by their discipline using the specific topics under consideration. Inquiry students will have frequent assignments and immediate feedback. Each class session will include an assignment that involves research or communications skills, or requires students to consider a problem from a different perspective. The result will be that, in addition to learning a great deal about the topic under consider– ation, students will have become more sophisticated in their ability to learn through almost daily assignments structured to develop these skills. Another hoped for outcome of the Inquiry sequence will be a sense of community and involvement among the students and faculty. This is a deliberate attempt to deal with a feeling of isolation experienced by many students who must work, commute and shoulder family responsi– bilities outside the University. The program for sophomore level students (beginning in 1995) will continue to include small group, mentored sessions as introductions to more specialized junior and senior level interdisciplinary courses, beginning in 1996 and 1997. Beginning in 1997, all seniors will participate in a Senior Capstone Experience, designed to take advantage of the metropolitan area as a learning laboratory. The capstone will actively involve students in their community as a member of a team addressing a specific community issue. This is a direct response to comments from both the public and private sector that, while most students are well prepared in their disciplines, they have had little experience working in a group context addressing problems and goals collectively. The community involvement component of this program puts Portland State at the forefront of the service learning move– ment in American higher education. This new General Education propo– sal reduces by more than one-fourth the number of credits required in "general education" while providing a more structured context for meeting that requirement. At the same time, we will retain the program flexibility that is so important to many PSU students. For example, we are considering the possibility that the entire 15-credit freshmen core could be completed during one extended summer term. The new General Education proposal is by no means the only good news concerning PSU's academic programs. We recently won approval for two new degree programs: a Masters of Public Health, a collaborative program with Oregon Health Sciences University and Oregon State Univer– sity which will be interactive with the new Health Policy Institute; and, a bachelor's in Child and Family Studies, a multidisciplinary preparation program for professionals who will provide services to children and families. In addition, our faculty is develop– ing new interdisciplinary and collabora– tive courses such as "Science in the Liberal Arts" and the "Culture of the Professions." At the graduate level, planning is under way for a Portland– based joint graduate degree in architecture with the University of Oregon, and for a proposed Masters of Manufacturing Engineering. At PSU, we continually challenge ourselves to look beyond the tradi– tional ways of doing things, whether in academic programs, student services, campus operations or in our relation– ship with the community. And, we are establishing benchmarks to measure our success. Rest assured, I will keep you apprised of our progress in these areas. Judith A. Ramaley President