In 2011 we were, um, approached by Middle States with some concerns around our General
Studies program. Those concerns addressed the rigor of the program, the cohesion of
the program, and the ability to assess the program. And in our review, we recognized
that we weren't necessarily serving students the best way possible, so there's a couple
of very concrete changes. Instead of 24 open elective credits, students will take 15-18
credits out of a selected core area. Those core areas are aligned with a variety of interdisciplinary
pathways, and there are four core areas. The first core is Humanities, Arts, Communications,
and Languages; the second core is called STEM: Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics;
the third core is Social Sciences, Administration, and Health; and the final core is an Integrated
Studies core which allows students to select from two different areas. In the first three
they select 15 credits. In the final Integrated Studies core they take nine and nine from
two separate cores. Students also have to take 15 credits at the 200 level, with at
least three of those being in their selected core area. Those are the primary big changes
that we made. The other piece is creating a leadership team that can oversee and
coordinate the activity that we're doing to support students around the General Studies
program, both inside and outside the classroom. As part of the change to the degree program,
we created a leadership team that incorporates both counseling and advising
as well as instructional faculty.
It's important to us that this be a collaboration
between instructional faculty and counseling faculty, and that we're working together
throughout the students' academic career to support them best that we can.
What has changed is that the academic silos at Montgomery College have been dramatically
reduced. There is cross-fertilization, if you will, of instructional faculty and counseling
faculty. That's one of the true benefits of the new General Studies curriculum.
The faculty members bring expertise of their individual field and that area, and can think
about in their classroom how that course ties to what else that student was focusing on,
and the counseling members can help from a transfer perspective and think about the large
variety of options students have of where they can transfer
and what programs they might do.
Students are teamed and paired with instructional
faculty who have backgrounds that better match, if you will, what the students might be pursuing.
We're combining skill-sets to help students build a success network, that they better
understand that, although we do different jobs, we're partnered together to help them
be more successful and to help them better blend what they learn so that as they leave
us, they'll be even better prepared to handle the rigors at a university.
We also recognize the importance of counseling and advising in this particular program and
with this particular population of students.
What makes General Studies students as a whole different than other students
is that they have such a wide variety of interests after college.
They need, um, maybe some more support or
more opportunities to explicitly consider what their goals are. We wanted to make sure
that both areas had responsibility and input into what we're doing with the degree.
Under the new program, students still have the flexibility
that they've always had in General Studies so that they can explore
a wide range of different majors when they transfer.
It minimizes the number of options and allows
students to be more targeted and more focused in what they select.
It gives them the rigor through the 200 level course requirements, as well as the cohesiveness
by having a core area of focus. Students will be able to integrate and relate
what they're studying across different themes.
By asking students to make some intentional choices
we think it'll increase success, we think it'll increase retention,
and we think that it will help them transfer more effectively
and be more successful even further along.
This is probably the most dramatic academic
change the College has undertaken that I can recall in the 25 years I've been here, because
it affects so many students. I hope that with the new changes to the General Studies curriculum,
that our students are even more prepared and thrive at a better and higher rate
once they get to the university.
We believe that the way that we've revised
this program, a student really will have more ownership in it.
That's what we really hope, is that students go from sort of feeling ashamed about being
a General Studies - or like something's wrong with them because they haven't made
a decision yet - to knowing exactly what they've put together and how that fits and
how that connects to their goals and to their future.