By Julia Mericle and Rachel Konieczny
News Assignment Editor/ Assistant News Editor
St. Bonaventure University recently received a grant from the Teagle Foundation, an organization established in 1944 that focuses on the advancement of institutions of higher learning, for a project titled “A New Structure for General Education.”
At Bonaventure, this project will focus on Clare College requirements.
The $230,000 grant will be split among Bonaventure, Hilbert College, Erie Community College (ECC) and Jamestown Community College (JCC) and funded over a three-year span.
The project aims to revise general education requirements in an effort to create a set of common learning outcomes for all students. The grant money will go toward compensating faculty for their time on the project or toward hiring new faculty to replace those working on the project.
“The purpose of the grant is to enable faculty in the schools to investigate how we might mesh our curriculum better so that it would be easier to come from JCC or ECC to Hilbert College or Bonaventure,” Dr. Barry Gan, president of the faculty senate, said. “So we see this as an opportunity for smoother transitions and thereby perhaps greater enrollment in Bonaventure in the long term.”
Gan has scheduled a series of discussions focused on the new look of Clare College. He hopes to talk about ways to make the process of transferring courses from other colleges simpler.
Each school in the university will elect a representative. These representatives, along with the interim dean of Clare College, Dr. Guy Imhoff, will come together to form a committee that will participate in the project. The elected group of faculty will meet with the whole university faculty once a semester to report how decisions are coming along.
“What we do in terms of curriculum revision here will, in all likelihood, be independent of what the Teagle people come up with. We don’t want our curriculum here to be dictated by ECC or JCC or Hilbert,” Gan said.
According to Gan, students will have the chance to offer their input regarding their likes and dislikes of the current general education requirements.
However, Gan said Clare College cannot compromise on certain aspects.
“My own opinions are that the departments and the students need greater flexibility,” Gan said. “But I don’t think the flexibility should come at the expense of a certain basic knowledge and skill set that students should have when leaving here.”
Gan said that Catholic Franciscan influence could potentially be incorporated through either the delivery of one or two courses or through a more expansive number of courses within more schools of the university.
Gan said, “There will certainly be a strong presence of Catholic and Franciscan traditions in our general curriculum, but how that will be accomplished remains to be seen.”
