Developing Work at the University

I had a good first full week at City University. It appears that I will be busy which is of course my preference! I went to a meeting of the general education committee which helped me get a feel for the issues they are facing and the politics of the changes.

Language is a huge issue. This is an English-language university, but many students and staff are not comfortable with English. So not only do they have to do the work of getting students to think in more abstract terms, connecting theory and practice, but they have to do it in a second language. It sounds like many courses do not really even require much complex reading in English. There is also great pressure to get good evaluations from students which further tends toward "dumbing down" the English. And then many faculty do not feel proficient in English. In many ways these are the same types of discussions we have in the US--do you push in order to encourage them to rise to the challenge, or do you move toward the lowest common denominator?

Next week I am going to meet individually with many of the faculty who teach GE. This should help me build relationships, find out faculty needs, and get me "out of the mall." I also am going to go to several departmental seminars. I'm preparing for a seminar on interdisciplinary teaching as well as several research lectures. Another project I will work on involves evaluating the GE courses that are already being taught. They have been giving students pre and post tests but the results have not been great. My impression is that the students are not very self-reflective on what it was they have been learning. When you talk individually with them, it is clear that the GE courses have had a big impact on them, but the survey doesn't seem to be catching these results.