<p>I have not seen anything about it but there is a major change, for the better I believe, in W&M GER (General Education Requirements) starting for incoming Freshman.</p>
<p>As the father of a senior he is unaffected, but I have heard about this change at parents' weekend and read about it on the website.</p>
<p>It is very interesting as my daughter is a Freshman at Boston University in their Liberal Arts college, CGS, and the new W&M program mirrors that one. BUs program focuses on dialogue and integrated study in small teams that are lead by a faculty member adviser who gets to know the students deeply. She is growing enormously, her writing has blossomed and she is becoming a critical thinker, something I thought she would never do.</p>
<p>A couple of things that our experience there has taught us is AP credits may be affected since it is hard to map those credits into a Rhetoric/Integrative Curriculum. One of the reasons my son chose to attend W&M instead of one of the 2 Ivys he was accepted to was that W&M would take many of his AP courses and allow him to dual major in 2 very different topics and do several research projects (instead of graduating early and saving me a heap of cash)</p>
<p>Perhaps the W&M Admin Moderators can comment on how they see the new curriculum will affect AP credit acceptance and the program in general.</p>
<p>“A current general education course in 18th-century American history, which now concentrates on primary historical sources, might be adapted into a new COLL 200 course by drawing in addition on geological, marine science or epidemiological studies to explore how the environment affected the communities of Tidewater Virginia. The history professor teaching the course would consult with his or her science colleagues on campus, and the history students would be introduced to different questions, materials and methods drawing on those other disciplines. Or, using another example, instead of taking a course on Greek tragedy, a student might study fifth-century Athens through art, religion, anthropology and literature.”</p>
<p>“Jim Whittenburg, Pullen Professor of History, often brings students to the Jamestown Settlement as part of his course, “From the Founding of Jamestown through the American Revolution,” which is offered as a history elective, shown here, and as a Freshman Seminar that combines explorations of museums, archaeological excavations and historic places with critical reading of literature on early America, weekly writing assignments and lengthy course discussions. The new College Curriculum approved by faculty retains the current Freshman Seminar as COLL 150. The first-year seminar course strengthens written and oral communication through in-depth study of a specific topic.”</p>
<p>One of my good friends is taking the course this year. She really likes it. This may be one of the potential pilot courses they are referring to. Anyways, it’s a good class with an interesting setup if you’re interested in history. One of the unusual parts of the class is that it takes place on Saturday and is longer than the usual freshman seminar. But there it takes place once a week and there is so much traveling involved. They’ve gone to explore CW, Jamestown, Madison’s home, Jefferson’s home, and many others all expenses paid (yes, even lunch) on field trips by the professor. My friend wasn’t sure if she’d like it at first because it is on the weekend and there’s alot of work involved, but it really does go in depth. If this does happen to be one of the pilot course, I don’t think they’re in a bad place.</p>
<p>At BU CGS, my daughter takes Natural Sciences which fulfills her Science GER-Type Class. that course teaches
the science but will go into the discovery process to provide a more why/how/when approach. She attends class in a cohort of 60 students but has each class with 30 or fewer. Each cohort attends the same group of 3 courses taught by the same professors. All three of those courses are tied together by some theme. In the natural science example her history GER type class will look at progress of the science in the historical context. Like what pasteurization is ( Science) why it was important at the time ( History) and in social sciences they would talk about how it affected society. Kinda neat if you ask me. No reason to go that much in depth if you are gong to be a non-science major or as a basis for the sciences.</p>
<p>AP and IB credits will still be accepted toward graduation credits as before, but they will not exempt students from a “distribution” requirement known as COLL 200. Students will be required to take 12 credits of COLL 200 coursework. These are specially designed courses that have an inter-disciplinary focus, so AP and AB credits simply can’t substitute. Departments have their own rules for deciding whether a particular AP test score substitutes for a particular course. </p>
Hey! I am going to an informal chat on the new college curriculum led by the “W&M Society for the College Student Association” this Thursday. It is in hopes of learning more about the new curriculum myself, both out of curiosity and because I want to be a peer mentor for next year’s freshmen. Let me know if you any specific questions you’d like me to ask them for you! I think its important to be aware of the changes, but I am afraid not that even that many current students know that much about what the program entails
@shawnspencer Thanks so much for volunteering to help with this. It’s one of the major uncertainties about W&M going forward. From the press accounts, the new curriculum was adopted by a close vote of the faculty, and a lot of faculty members apparently didn’t even vote.
As a parent of a prospective freshman, my main concerns are the extent to which this has been thought through. How many of the courses have been piloted this year and what have the evaluations looked like for the first-semester courses? How many of the courses won’t be offered for the first time until they become required courses next fall? What is their process for adapting the courses depending on the students’ experience this year?
That’s a lot of questions, I know. I’d appreciate it if you can bring back answers to any or all of them for the community of prospective students! Thanks again for the offer.
@shawnspencer You mentioned a while back that you were going to a program on the new curriculum and asked for questions. I posted several above, but I don’t think you replied after the program (perhaps you did, but on a different thread?) Could you please update us on what you learned?
@arlmom2 I posted the original comment maybe @wmadmissions will comment…
But as I said I believe the first 2 years as a liberal arts college is a wonderful thing ( similar to many of the Ivy’s like Harvard College 2 year liberal arts core prior to declaring a major in a particular college)
Thanks @jssaab1@shawnspencer posted about going to an event on the new curriculum, which is why I asked him/her my questions. But I’d be glad to hear from anyone about how the trial versions they offered last fall worked out.
Hey @Arlmom2! Sorry for the delayed response. The event I originally mentioned was either postponed or canceled due to the snow on that day. I will try to forward your questions to a professor or a member of the flat hat who originally worked on the story to try and find out more, but you may be better off asking the admissions office and having them direct you to the right person. I’m sure that it will also be a topic of discussion on the Day for Admitted Students as well, so it is likely that they will have workshops or speakers discussing it.
You can find the full list of courses at WM here (courselist.wm.edu). Those that have a COLL annotation next to it denotes a COLL course. You can search by semester and find some of the courses that will be under the new system. Currently though, many of them are also cross-listed under the current GER system, which I am guessing are the “pilots” and they will be phasing out into the full swing of things once the current freshman class (Class of 2018) graduates.