A controversial plan to expand the curriculum of TCD's undergraduate degree programmes has been approved by the college's council and the board.
The "broad curriculum", previously known as the "core curriculum", is the brainchild of the provost, Dr Tom Mitchell. The plan to introduce a core curriculum raised hackles among staff and students when it was first reported by E&L in March of last year. The broad curriculum is intended to give "added value" to the TCD degree, give graduates a more rounded education and develop broad intellectual skills.
Mitchell is concerned, he says, that the State's obsession with supplying trained personnel to industry could inhibit our future development.
According to a policy document produced by the college, Trinity graduates should be "inquisitive, analytical, reflective, creative, adaptable, widely read and ethically responsible, with an independent mind and international outlook". They should also be articulate, literate and numerate to a high level. In order to achieve these ends, changes may be necessary. Students should be presented with challenges and problems in their courses; spoon-feeding is out, independent study is in. Intellectual environments which are inflexible and hostile to creativity must be avoided.
"This may well imply an explicit policy on the assessment of work that represents a `creative failure' to the solution of a particular problem as opposed to that which successfully applies a received wisdom," the document says. Curriculum overload is ruled out and sufficient time is to be allowed for student reflection. Students must be given the opportunity to synthesise material already assimilated - rather than be under pressure to assimilate more information, the document declares.
Structured opportunities to read widely outside their areas of specialisation are to be offered to students. The curriculum should also ensure that students are given "a sense of ethical responsibility" - so that when they leave college, they are able to take responsibility for their own actions and choices. Overseas student exchanges are to be encouraged and students are to be given the chance to develop foreign languages skills. Extra-curricular activities play an important role in student development, and TCD should consider ways of recognising "significant and well-documented extra-curricular activities", the policy document recommends.
Clearly, in some cases teaching methodology rather than course content can be used to implement aspects of this curriculum policy. Regular class presentations by students will improve articulacy, while writing skills are to be developed via "regular discursive pieces in [students'] areas of specialisation on which they will be assessed". Faculties may even be required to offer writing workshops.
Students will also be required to understand information presented in numerical and statistical form. All TCD departments are now to examine the policy statement, show how they are fulfilling its goals and outline what needs to be done to meet policy requirements. "What it will take to implement the policy won't be fully revealed until we get more feedback," Mitchell says. "We are determined to go through with it. We have made a lot of progress and we want real change."
