SKIDMORE COLLEGE

INTRODUCTION:
The Committee on Educational Policies and Planning met 37 times during the
academic year 2000-2001. CEPP representatives met with the Board of
Trustees' Sub-Committee on Academic Affairs three times to discuss the
faculty's work on revising all-college requirements. CEPP representatives
met with Academic Staff five different times to discuss the committee's
work. A CEPP representative met with the Student Government Association's
Senate to discuss CEPP's proposal to amend all-college requirements. There
were also a number of other meetings of various CEPP subcommittees (e.g.,
Sub-Committee on Academic Standards and Expectations, Sub-Committee on
Guidelines for Culture-Centered Inquiry, Sub-Committee on Guidelines for
Humanities, Sub-Committee on Guidelines for Arts, Sub-Committee on
Guidelines for Social Sciences, Sub-Committee on Guidelines for Natural
Sciences, etc.) and committees that jointly include CEPP members (e.g.,
Institutional Planning Committee, Committee on Committees).

REGULAR BUSINESS:
While the year was dominated by attention to the core curriculum, CEPP
carried out a number of more routine tasks. We approved a proposal for
Skidmore to join the Biosphere 2 Partnership in Arizona. CEPP engaged in
preliminary discussion and research related to the extension of Skidmore's
affiliation with the study abroad program in Spain to Alcala (located near
Madrid). CEPP approved the Academic Calendar for the year after next. Along
the way, the committee had ongoing conversations about the structure of the
college's calendar, with particular consideration for the timing of
Academic Festival. We agreed to hold the Festival after the last day of
classes this year, May 2, and to review that policy again next year with an
eye toward developing a more long-term policy. CEPP studied the merits of a
plan for a new pilot program in which a small cohort of first-year students
study in London during their first semester of college. We also reviewed
selected sections of the Middle States Report pertaining to educational
policy. Like many others on campus, CEPP actively participated in the
Institutional Planning Committee's Strategic Planning Initiative. (The
suggestions we offered are delineated below.) CEPP drafted and adopted a
new operating code (none has existed in recent memory), which the committee
agreed to review at the beginning of next school year.

REVISION OF ALL-COLLEGE REQUIREMENTS:
The most substantial work that occupied CEPP this year has been an effort
to revise the all-college requirements. This process began several years
ago when various colleagues recognized a number of constraints in our
current system (e.g., students having difficulty registering, going abroad,
double-majoring etc.). The Offices of the Registrar and the Dean of Studies
reported such constraints dating back at least six years. The process of
Reconfiguration then added to this problem in the last two years.
Colleagues have also expressed concerns as to whether our curriculum has
been serving particular educational goals in the best possible way.

During last summer and early fall, CEPP continued its efforts to consult
numerous parties in planning for a new curriculum (e.g., Offices of the
Dean of the Faculty's Office, the President, the Dean of Studies, the
Registrar, Student Affairs, Academic Staff, Student Government Association
Senate, SGA Academic Council, Admissions, selected departments and numerous
individual faculty, especially previous CEPP members). The committee
brought a preliminary proposal to the faculty at a Special Faculty Meeting
on September 22, 2000.

With the generous help of Leo Geoffrion and Ann Henderson, we established a
web-site with several sources of information and means for communication.
These included links to AAC&U white papers, data analyses (generated by
CEPP and the Registrar) and SGA documents. We also set up a newsgroup
discussion to facilitate more dialogue, which generated a cluster of
concerns. CEPP then distributed a short survey to the faculty in an effort
to develop a broader sense of the faculty's wishes. In addition, CEPP
members continued to have dozens of informal conversations with various
individual colleagues.

Based on all these exchanges, CEPP revised its proposal, which it then
presented as a formal motion at another Special Faculty Meeting on November
17. Subsequent conversations with key departments most involved in proposed
changes led to additional revisions of the proposal, which came to a vote
on the faculty floor at the Faculty Meeting of December 1 (see Minutes from
Faculty Meeting for a copy of the motion). After several amendments were
considered and rejected, CEPP's motion was approved (89 voted "yes," 33
voted "no," 3 Abstentions).

The committee then turned its attention to the many details of implementing
the new curriculum. In consultation with the offices of the Dean of
Studies, the Registrar, Academic Staff and various departments, CEPP
devised a general plan for implementation. Along the way, a concern
developed among some faculty about the appropriate procedures for
determining the best way to move through the period of transition. CEPP
then consulted with the Committee on Faculty Governance and Professor John
Thomas (the Parliamentarian) about appropriate procedures. CFG and
Professor Thomas indicated that the wording of the motion passed by the
faculty on December 1 suggested that all students were now under the new
curriculum. Recognizing the logistical problems of that default arrangement
and the tight timeframe for making changes in the catalogue and reworking
course offerings, CEPP was eager to delineate a specific alternative plan
for implementation. The most difficult issue to resolve at this stage was
how many classes of students would be under the new curriculum.

CEPP then brought two motions to the Faculty Meeting on March 2. The Chair
of the Faculty Meeting, President Studley, concluded that the effective
date, class, or method for launching the new core curriculum is not a
"major matter of policy" and therefore is not subject to the conditions for
being held over for a vote. The first motion, which included a friendly
amendment offered by Professor David Wiess, stated the following: "CEPP
moves that the all-college requirements for the Classes of '01 and '02
remain unaffected by the curricular changes voted in by the faculty in
December of 2000." This motion passed. The second motion read: "CEPP moves
that students in the classes of '03 and '04 who have already met the
foreign language requirement according to the curriculum in place when they
entered Skidmore will be deemed to have met the foreign language
requirement under the newly adopted curriculum." This motion also passed.

We then organized subcommittees (including CEPP members and other faculty)
for drafting guidelines for each of the new requirement categories in the
core curriculum, which included Culture-Centured Inquiry (Cultural
Diversity, Foreign Languages, Non-Western), Arts, Humanities, Natural
Sciences, and Social Sciences. This stage of the process entailed regular
communication with Curriculum Committee. The Dean of the Faculty's Office
made faculty development funding available for workshops linked to new
curricular offerings, which are taking place this summer. CEPP members
reviewed specific sections in the new Catalogue as well as several College
Relations and Admissions documents to ensure accuracy in terms of the new
requirements.

CONCERNS:
The members of CEPP recognize with pride a sense of accomplishment in our
work this year. The structure of the new core curriculum alleviates
constraints that have burdened students as well as others, and enables a
number of promising educational possibilities. At least as important,
throughout the process of revising the requirements, we met our own goals
of inclusiveness, consultation, and integrity. That said, CEPP has several
concerns about our work, the process of policy-making in general, and the
future of educational planning at Skidmore.

The four most urgent challenges include: (1) the extremely diverse views
encompassed within the faculty; (2) the lack of informed, coherent
representation and advocacy of faculty interests in our governance system;
(3) the lack of time various stake-holders have for moving toward sensible,
final decisions; and (4) the lack of systematic data reflecting the degree
of success of particular educational goals.

(1) Disparate Views Among Faculty: The first challenge is a multi-faceted
issue. The intensive specialization combined with increasing interest in
interdisciplinarity in the academy make for many divergent perspectives on
the most important curricular goals. A related problem is the lack of
institutional perspective among a large number of faculty members. The
complexity, multiplicity and diversity among all the activities and
orientations of professors contribute to a certain lack of understanding
across disciplines, departments and programs. Moreover, faculty members'
focus on educational goals they understand forces questions of resources,
fairness, and even decision-making itself to the background of many
discussions. That CEPP was constantly drawn into ongoing consideration of
campus politics, often at the expense of using valuable time for more
substantive conversations about curricular philosophies, logistics and
possibilities underscores this problem. Figuring out a better way to
negotiate this challenge will be crucial to any future effort to revise the
curriculum or for that matter to develop any kind of substantially new
direction in educational policy in general. Paying more attention to
national trends as well as examples (both positive and negative) set by
other colleges may be a productive step toward developing broader
institutional perspective.

(2) Ineffective Governance: Having a flexible or loosely defined governance
system is certainly appropriate in our type of college community. However,
in the context of the first challenge and the widespread disagreements
stemming from it, the lack of clear procedures in the midst of a
contentious discussion (e.g., the process of implementation) makes
decision-making and especially the establishment of closure on any given
issue very difficult. The main setting where important decisions are made
with the highest degree of legitimacy and closure is the faculty floor.
While taking a vote on a particular motion is the best way to establish
such credibility in policy, there are a number of decisions that are not
appropriate for a vote, indeed perhaps a few in recent years on which we
have inappropriately voted. In our current college culture, the development
of nuanced policy, which is informed by sophisticated analyses of
challenges and implications, is rather difficult on the faculty floor.

(3) Limited Time: Like the second challenge, the third issue is
understandable but nevertheless compounds the first problem. So many
colleagues at Skidmore work very hard in fulfilling their normal duties.
Undertaking a substantial project like overhauling a curriculum on top of
all that work is very difficult. It is politically complex, logistically
laborious and emotionally draining. Probably the top priority in terms of
addressing these issues is communication. Members of CEPP, as well as other
parties (e.g., Academic Staff), must constantly communicate with one
another, large numbers of individual faculty members, and important
offices, departments and programs. And faculty members in general have
scarce time for attending extra meetings and studying all the materials
necessary for making informed decisions.

(4) Insufficient Use of Data: The first and third challenges contribute to
the fact that the college has not yet developed a comprehensive system for
evaluating the success (or failure) of various programming and curricular
choices. While time-consuming itself, developing the capacity for
generating such data would certainly enhance the discussions among a
diverse faculty, and would generally make the decision-making process more
efficient in terms of setting priorities. That is, we would have a more
comprehensive sense of whether our efforts are working.

Neither the challenges nor the suggestions outlined here are new. They
relate to common and familiar themes expressed in the data gathered by the
Institutional Planning Committee this year in the Strategic Planning
Initiative as well as concerns raised by the Committee on Faculty
Governance last year. That the curriculum has been too large is an
extension of the broader problem of too many programs combined with too few
resources. We could of course use more faculty, more money, more
facilities, and more time; and we surely must continue to develop such
resources. Meanwhile, in the absence of all our desired resources, a more
comprehensive body of data (pertaining to curriculum and educational policy
in general), more carefully studied by a committed group of faculty, could
be used to generate visionary policy and persuade other faculty of its
quality. Such an arrangement would require a greater commitment to
collecting, analyzing, using and respecting data. As various AAC&U
documents and experience on CEPP suggest, such data could take various
forms (e.g., existing qualitative and quantitative evidence from withdrawn
students and seniors, and a more comprehensive review of course delivery
and fulfillment of college goals). Once in place, a system that generates
empirical evidence could inform and rationalize the development of durable
and credible policy in a way that transcends the diversity of faculty views
and saves time.

Skidmore College is thriving. Given the plight and trajectory of other
institutions, the division and destructiveness of other college cultures,
we should of course neither ignore that nor take it for granted. And there
are few issues more routinely difficult than the curriculum. After a lot of
work to improve the core curriculum, however, the enduring belief for many
CEPP members is that we can do better. Developing thoughtful, visionary
curricula that respond to and anticipate how the world is changing, while
honoring our historical commitments in a way that draws us together around
the mission of the college is possible. We believe that such work, or any
successful educational policy in the future, will require taking the
challenges identified here seriously.

AGENDA FOR 2001-2002.

At the final meeting, CEPP generated the following list for possible topics
that will comprise next year's agenda: develop policy related to distance
learning and intellectual property rights, foster intellectual culture,
clarify the role of athletics, collect and disseminate data linked to
educational policy (e.g., information from the withdrawn student surveys,
the senior survey, academic advising, alumni affairs, information on
grades, majors, requirements, etc.), revamp the CEPP web-site, discuss the
make-up and function of CEPP, enhance academic advising, consider the
possibilities for a Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning, revise
the Calendar (including Academic Festival) and weekly schedule, articulate
the relationship between majors and all-college requirements, facilitate
on-going review and evaluation of the curriculum. Sandy Baum agreed to be
the next Chair.

CEPP 2000/2001

Adam Abramowitz (01)
Sandy Baum
Susan Bender
John Brueggemann (Chair)
Pat Fehling
Pat Oles
Lary Opitz
Phil Ortiz
David Peterson