“Model 14 Revised V2 is our new curriculum model,” announced Michael P. Scott, Chair of California State University, Monterey Bay’s (CSUMB) Academic Senate, at the Academic Senate meeting on April 9. “The meeting is now adjourned,” Scott continued as a few members of the Senate stood up and hugged one another. Other members chatted away at how they felt about the results of the election.
The model was approved by a 119 to 87 vote. Each Senator had four votes to cast. In an unusual move for the Senate, paper ballots were used for the voting process.
This means that under our new General Education (GE) curriculum model and with restructuring CSUMB University Requirements, according to the Executive Order (EO) 1100 Planning Hub, CSUMB will still have a First Year Seminar requirement that will be paired with a Lower Division GE course.
CSUMB will still require Graduate Writing Assessment Requirement (GWAR), which can either be paired with a GE or non-GE course depending on future students’ majors. The school will also have Upper Division and Lower Division Service Learning (SL) requirements. Majors will have the option to include their Upper Division SL in a major requirement, or a GE requirement and the Lower Division SL requirement will be a part of the Area D3 paired with Civics.
There will be a new Ethnic Studies requirement that can be fulfilled by completing a GE or major course with an “ES” tag.
The most important change taking place with Model 14 Revised V2, is the World Culture and Language requirement. Bachelor of Arts (BA) degrees will have a language requirement met through proficiency in either a Language 201 course or higher, a new Upper Division GE Area C course with a language prerequisite, or an approved study abroad course, according to the EO 1100 Planning Hub. This change means majors will need to allow up to nine units of curricular space for students to complete this requirement.
Bachelor of Science (BS) degrees will have the option to complete either a World Culture or Language requirement. This means they will have the option to either take a Lower Division GE subarea C2 language course, an Upper Division GE Area C World Culture course with no prerequisite, an Upper Division GE Area C course with a language prerequisite or an approved study abroad course. For this requirement, majors will need to allocate three units of curricular space.
All of these changes are in addition to the reorganization of the GE areas and the inclusion of Upper Division GE requirements in the following areas: Area B – Science and Math, Area C – Arts and Humanities (including languages) and Area D – Social Sciences, which require majors to account for nine Upper Division units in both four-year and two-year pathways.
With Model 14 Revised V2 chosen as our new curriculum model, the faculty has a lot of work to do to blend it in with our current coursework and majors. Certain classes and major requirements need to be rearranged to fit with the new model in order to comply with EO 1100.
New Lower Division classes will need to be developed and implemented. Existing Lower Division classes will be restructured to three unit classes while also fitting in with the new subarea requirements.
All of these changes must be put into place by fall of 2019, since that’s when CSUMB has to comply with EO 1100. These changes will not affect existing students, as they have catalog rights to the year they first registered to CSUMB. For further information, please visit the EO 1100 Planning Hub on the Academic Senate page on the CSUMB website, or read our previous articles on this matter in older issues.