Faculty meetings are often characterized by posturing and excessive debate, said one veteran faculty member. When this happens, he said, "Sometimes, you just have to put the smack down!"
And that's just what Curriculum Review Committee chair Peter Lange, also chair of the political science department, did at last Thursday's meeting of the Arts and Sciences Council. During what one observer called a "psychodrama," Lange passionately responded to a surprise presentation by Stuart Rojstaczer, associate professor of earth and ocean sciences and civil and environmental engineering.
Rojstaczer, who is not a member of the council, delivered a passionate presentation complete with overhead slides to the crowd of 50. "What they're proposing to do is create more hoops to send our students through," Rojstaczer said.
He implored the council to examine the policies of other comparable schools, presenting a slide depicting the approximate distribution of requirements at more than ten other peer institutions. "Other universities make lots of disciplines and skills mandatory," he said. "A couple require some sort of inquiries... zero, one or two. But we're requiring four or five."
Rojstaczer then posted a slide categorizing his Geology 123 course into the several inquiries and competency categories which he labeled "useless boxes."
"Faculty are going to game to find which categories will sell" and will tailor courses to those areas, he said. "They will devolve these requirements into what becomes a meaningless bureaucratic exercise."
Clearly very frustrated, Lange took an opportunity to counter Rojstaczer's claims later in the meeting. "When you talk about all the [inquiries and competencies], you look at all the 'boxes,'" he said. "'Yes, they are more complicated than what we have now. They provide Ethics, Science, Technology, and Society and Cross Cultural Inquiry exposures-concepts which we as a committee think are central to the world which students are about to enter. If you read the newspaper, you can't deny it."
Also, James B. Duke Professor of Economics Allen Kelley and his colleague, Professor Roy Weintraub, raised concerns about the logistics of providing their 200 majors with an intimate, quality research experience.
At that, Lange, dubbed "Matrix Man" by several colleagues, rose in defense of his proposal. Lange explained that the Research competency could be met by a large course which requires a research paper at the end of a semester, and does not need to be a one-on-one or one-on-two independent study experience. "If you read the research criteria, it says you shouldn't graduate from Duke without one sustained research experience in your major. Is that too unreasonable to ask?" he said.
Members of the biology department, however, continued to argue that their department would not be able to accommodate the mandatory in-major research requirement-or provide additional Science, Technology and Society courses-with their current faculty. Twenty percent of all undergraduates major in biology, but the department boasts only 10 percent of the College's regular faculty.
Accordingly, Professor of Zoology Steven Vogel challenged William Chafe, dean of Trinity College and dean of the faculty of arts and sciences, to promise to increase the number of biology faculty. "This is an elegant, clever, wonderful curriculum, but I will not vote for it in the absence of a written statement of promises," Vogel said. "I don't want pious statements of resources," he said, looking directly at Chafe. "I've heard 20 years of pious statements."
After some hesitation, Chafe gave a verbal commitment. "We will find whatever resources we need in order to make this a viable curriculum. We have already made significant commitments to economics."
Furthermore, Stephanie Sieburth, associate professor of Romance studies, criticized the existence of the Interpretive and Aesthetic Approaches mode of inquiry-the same category her department invented and pushed into the matrix two weeks ago. "If you define IAA restrictively, not many courses will qualify. You will create a huge bureaucracy," she said. "Why don't we just get rid of the horizontal part of the matrix?"
Associate Professor of Political Science Peter Feaver quickly responded by noting the irony of Sieburth's statement. "Why don't we just eliminate IAA altogether, then," he quipped.
The meeting closed with a formal motion to consider the proposal, which permits the council to vote on Curriculum 2000 at its next meeting January 14. During the coming month, faculty representatives may submit amendments to the Executive Committee of the Arts and Sciences Council.
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