The ultimate goal behind the core curriculum at Boston College is to turn students into well-rounded scholars. Thus, the school has begun to make changes to the history core in an effort to broaden its scope and shy away from solely Euro-centric teachings.
The history core is not, however, facing a complete overhaul. Rather, as history department chairperson Marilynn Johnson explained, the existing courses are being revamped to be "more comparative and global in scope."
Core moderator Franziska Seraphim said that there had been 30 core history courses offered each semester, all of them referred to as "Modern European History" in some form (for example, Modern Europe Social and Political Theory). Twenty of these courses are relatively small - they are capped at 33 students - and are taught by graduate students. The other 10, which are larger classes taught by faculty and have discussion groups, are the ones that are being changed.
All of the professors had been teaching European history courses, Seraphim said, but they each had their own teaching styles and specific areas of interest. Since the scope of the core is being expanded to include a global perspective, each of these professors now teaches in their fields of interest. "These changes give everybody a chance to do what they do best," Seraphim said.
The names of the classes were changed to more accurately depict their focuses and they were alphabetized and placed in the course catalog under core. "The idea was to emphasize a particular large world region and put it in a global context," Seraphim said.
As part of this "long term process," the history department has taken initiatives to train faculty and graduate students to transform their teachings in these courses to help increase their global nature. The former graduate program, for instance, only required students to take a colloquium in European history, but now, they are required to take a general historiography course that is more comparative in scope.
This plan has yet to begin, however, since it is scheduled to start in the fall of 2008.
Certain efforts have already begun, though. Seraphim has organized workshops for faculty to attend to learn how to appropriately adjust their courses, which started last fall.
Additionally, she created a global history database, which has tech support resources, maps, and other visual materials. This was set up over the past summer.
"These resources are to help them change their teaching of only Europe or only Latin America or whatever course they teach. We're trying to move beyond that," Johnson said.
The core changes, said Seraphim, helped push the faculty to "take the extra step" and begin to think creatively about how they should teach their classes now. "I think this has energized everybody to think about the core in different ways and take pride in their specialty," Seraphim said.
"This really benefits the students," she added. "It's a worthwhile enterprise."
Johnson said that, despite all of them being named "Modern History," each of the history core courses used to be focused on one area, like Asian or Latin American history. Now, with courses like "Globalization," and "Islam and Global Identities," the courses are much more inclusive.
"We are identifying courses more clearly now," said John Joseph Burns, associate academic vice president for undergraduate programs. "We're developing more relationships with the rest of the world."
"The idea here is to have diversity," Johnson said.
The transition, however, has been, at times, uneven. "Some faculty members, especially the newer ones, embraced this," Johnson said. "Others, like the faculty that has been here for a long time, are more hesitant. The professors that have been teaching European history will continue to do so."
Burns added: "The history department responded [to student interest] to the degree that they could, but there is still the strong feeling that European history is the basis of our country's political and philosophical system, and students need to understand how it developed. But it is also important to understand cultural differences; America is not a purely European culture."
The problem, however, is primarily on the student end, Seraphim said. "Since core is mandatory, that really isn't a good way to get people excited about it," she said.
Subsequently, she feels that more time is necessary for student interest in the new core to increase.
"I think it will take another year or two for students to understand that the core has changed and that they can really make it work for them," she said. "They need to understand that now you should really choose carefully and take what you're interested in."
Johnson mentioned that the changes are not mandatory, but rather, the department "strongly recommends" them. All in all, though, she said that there has been a great deal of interest in the adjustments.
"I think this will be a trendsetter throughout the profession. Reorienting peoples' teaching style is difficult to do, so hopefully the resources will help make that happen," Johnson said.
Despite her concerns over students' misunderstanding of the core changes, Seraphim said she has already begun to see student interest. She is a professor of Asian Studies, a class, which, she said, contains students who wish to learn something new, who are interested because they have family in Asia, or for any other reason, but it isn't because they believe they have to be there. "They are truly interested, and not just taking the class as a way to pass the time or fulfill the core," she said.
The changes have been a long time coming, said both Johnson and Burns.
"The profession has been going in the direction [of international comparisons] for a long time," Johnson said. "In this world, we want to be able to train students to understand the history of it from a global perspective. We heard from the students that this needed to happen and this is what they want to do."
"The University's core is not meant to limit what students should or can study," Burns said. "This [adjustment] is a good, accurate representation of how European historical, institutional, and intellectual roots have formed much of our country, but also how we change and adapt to other cultures. This is what Americans should understand about our system."
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