New core alters offerings
By Winston Yu
The implementation of the new core curriculum starting this coming fall has affected course schedules for spring quarter.
The English department recently released plans to ensure that individuals will have completed their basic English 1 and English 2 requirements from the old core before fall.
Professor John Hawley, chair of the English department, sent an e-mail to senior English majors that said the department would be canceling several upper-division classes that had originally been on the spring schedule.
They will instead offer a greater number of English 1 and English 2 classes.
"The courses in the spring that are going to be added are going to be taught by the English faculty who would otherwise be teaching the upper-division literature classes that are going to be canceled," said Hawley.
Hawley emphasized that the system used to decide which classes to cancel was based on a survey of senior English majors.
The department has "determined that all graduating senior English majors will be able to take courses still needed by them to complete their major in the spring quarter," he said.
Paul Fitzgerald, S.J., senior associate dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, said he believes seniors will still be able to finish major, minor and core requirements.
"We are still offering a great slate of upper-division literature courses, and we have taken special care not to impede any seniors who are getting ready to graduate," he said.
For non-seniors, the department plans to offer a greater number of English 1 and English 2 classes in the summer.
This will include several online courses for those students who may be unable to complete their requirements by the end of the year.
To make room for the new core, English 1 and English 2 classes will be phased out. The new Creative Thinking and Writing 1 and CTW 2 courses will replace them.
"In the new core, English 1 and English 2 are now considered to be sequential and thematic," Hawley said.
"Most people who take the first course will be enrolled automatically with the same group of students and the same teacher in the second course."
He said this will allow the professor to treat the classes as one twenty-week course. Hawley said that this way, "you can have a more sophisticated and more complicated theme."
The new CTW courses will also be smaller than current English classes, said Hawley. Classes now have about 22 students; that number will be reduced to 19.
This transition to the new English courses raises the question of what will occur with students who have not yet completed their basic English class requirements.
Hawley and Atom Yee, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, are working on what will happen for "those few who just cannot finish by the end of the summer," Hawley said.
Several ideas are still on the table, said Hawley. One option is to offer one English 1 and one English 2 course in the fall and winter quarters for those who may not have finished their requirements.
Another is to have individuals who have completed English 1 take CTW 2, although this may create an awkward situation due to the thematic and unified system of the CTW courses.
An additional possibility is to have students who have not completed their basic English requirements take the entire CTW track, which includes CTW 1 and CTW 2.
Hawley stressed that all ideas are still under discussion and nothing has been decided yet.
He said the new core will affect students' western culture requirements as well.
"We would strongly urge anyone who needs to complete their western culture sequence to do so in the spring," he said.
Contact Winston Yu at (408) 554-4546 or wyu1@scu.edu.