处理大问题

崔的开创性的 核心 课程, 2010年推出, did so much to elevate academic performance and campus conversations that the University has restructured its general education courses in a significant and similar way. 结果就是崔永元的签名 持久的问题 & 想法(问&I) 课程 which takes big questions—such as “What is liberty?“我是谁，他们又是谁??和“你说我是谁??”—and makes them the focus of each general education course.

“General education courses at Concordia Irvine are no longer gateway courses to a major but windows to the world,斯科特·阿什蒙说, associate provost and professor of Old Testament and Hebrew. “我们正在培养批判性思维技能, 沟通与协作, 但这些本身并不是目的. 重要的是你如何对待他们. We want to orient students toward big things that humanity has wrestled with.”

的 shift takes Concordia closer to its liberal arts roots, where fundamental questions about what it means to be human are engaged through reading, 写作和辩论. General education courses now aim to answer questions like: “How shall I live?“为什么是艺术?”?”“什么是口才?以及“我如何理解自然??”

We want to orient students toward big things that humanity has wrestled with.

“的 word ‘university’ means to see it all together,阿什蒙说. “大学 originally didn’t look at disciplines as discrete subjects, 而是一起看到真相的方式, 看大局. All universities are dealing with these questions, but they tend to get subsumed. 我们想把它们放在最前面. To be an educated citizen requires engaging with these questions and living together in certain ways.”

这一大胆的举动产生于……的积极影响 核心 课程介绍校园生活和学术. 的 核心 引入配对课程, 比如生物学和神学, creating a framework to engage larger questions across disciplines. But some wondered if the unique and more-demanding approach of the 核心 会降低学生入学率或降低gpa吗.

“它实际上帮助了学生, partly because we were providing support like peer tutoring and one-on-one meetings with professors,阿什蒙说. “What you expect of students is what they will be able to do. Faculty saw marked improvement in the students’ ability to engage with primary works, 就这些主题提出问题并写下来.“在…… 核心, CUI students were squarely in the middle of the pack in surveys of student engagement. 三年后的今天 核心, in many categories of learning practices, CUI ranked in the top ten percent in the nation.

“That was a significant leap forward, and that led to the idea to expand with Q&我，”阿什蒙说.

Another measure—informal, but perhaps important—might be called the breakfast burrito metric. 教职工们注意到在 核心, student commencement speakers often mentioned breakfast burritos as a humorous example of what graduates would miss at CUI, 很少有人提到学术.

自 核心 was introduced, “every graduation speaker has mentioned the 核心 in their speech as a formative part of their experience,阿什蒙说. “现在，这是课程中一个重要的身份标志. 以前是早餐的墨西哥卷饼. 现在是 核心.”

Bringing a “核心-ish” approach to general education seemed a natural next step, 所以在2015年, a committee was created to study and propose how to transform CUI’s general education approach. 社会学教授Kristin Koenig是委员会成员.

“我们讨论了一些事情, and there were times there wasn’t agreement in the room about what kind of great questions a course should fit in, but I was impressed by colleagues who took the questions and ran with what it might look like,柯尼格说. “的re was healthy debate and a process by which the broader faculty would propose how their courses fit into these questions.”

例如，“我是谁，他们是谁”这样的问题?贯穿于心理学, 人类学, 经济学, 社会学和各种学科, 说Ashmon.

他说:“每个学科都可以参与这个问题。. “All students and faculty know we are addressing this question, 我们可以跨学科交流.”

之一 Q&I’s resulting requirements was that faculty assign more primary texts, as 核心 courses do. 吉尔伯特Fugitt, 副校长兼教务长, used to teach a one-unit leadership development class for student leaders which “felt like an elective” and drew small numbers. In response to the committee’s invitation to revamp the course under Q&我、富吉特和其他人试图建立更强大的东西.

“的 struggle was to connect it to classical thought and be engaging,富吉特说. “我们不是哲学家. 这是怎么教的? 我们如何让它实际可行, connect it back to big questions and integrate Christian faith into it?”

To be an educated citizen requires engaging with these questions and living together in certain ways.

He and several faculty members researched primary sources and came up with a syllabus that includes Victor Frankl’s Man’s 搜索 for Meaning, 葛底斯堡演说, 以及圣经中强调领导风格的章节. All discussions point back to the focal question, “How shall I live?”

的 once-sleepy course has been reborn as a 3-unit class for all students which is “my favorite thing to teach,富吉特说. “这是鼓舞人心的. 很有趣. 我真的能看到这对学生的影响. You get to know them really well and see them build confidence in what they can be as leaders. It’s interesting to see people wrestle with the concepts and how they can apply them in their own lives, 家庭, 运动队等等.”

的 class is so popular that they had to cap it at thirty students. Each writes a culminating final paper answering the question, “你的领导原则和道德准则是什么??”

“我喜欢它，”富吉特说. “这些学生在论文中真的很开放. 我们谈论你是如何生活的, 你如何领导, 你如何待人, 作为一个商人，你将如何经营一个组织, 传教士或教师. I feel confident in our sources, and the biblical part is really powerful.”

Koenig说 Q&I’s approach doesn’t lock students into “a vanilla-flavor intro class which is usually a survey.相反，“这让他们更有深度，”她说. “It’s a great way to show the connection between these disciplines. Many of us are asking the same questions; we just may come at them from different perspectives.”

在某些方面， Q&I 对教师和学生都有更高的要求. 学生们深入挖掘第一手资料, 写得更多, while faculty meet together to talk about how the classes are going and agree on what needs to be improved.

但另一方面, “it becomes easier to teach because you can always loop back and say, “这和问题有什么关系??’”阿什蒙说. “这很有成就感，也很有趣.”