Elizabeth Oldmixon
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My Department Should Reform Its Undergraduate Curriculum. Here's why.

2/27/2019

2 Comments

 
My department should reform its undergraduate curriculum. I've been thinking about this for a while, and some may recall that this was a priority when I ran for chair. This isn't about improving teaching. We're a pretty phenomenal teaching department. It's about looking at the big picture and considering whether and how programatic changes would help our students transition after graduation. 

The current curriculum is pretty standard. Students must complete 30 hours. Among those hours, students must complete:
  • 6 hours of Texas and American government as required by the state of Texas
  • 3 hours of research methods
  • 18 advanced hours spread over at least three of six fields (American government, public law, theory and methodology, public policy, comparative politics, and IR)
  • 3 hours of capstone
We work to ensure that these classes instill critical thinking, communications skills, good citizenship, and writing, as well as a deep substantive knowledge of the political world--all of the things that you would want from a liberal education.
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Most of our students will not become political scientists. We instill these skills, and expect that students will do something else, be it journalism, secondary education, non-profit work, law school, or political organizing and campaigning. The problem is that I'm not sure it's obvious to students how to translate the skills and substantive information they learn in the major to the job market. I was reminded of this the other day when I saw the following tweet by a former student:

I wish college would teach you how to get a job with a political science degree. So far my education in that has come from the streets. Not everyone will get a internship, a lot of those are stolen by non serious politicos.

— Ricky Rodriguez (@rickyrod1385) February 26, 2019
I'm not suggesting we give up our commitment to liberal education, but couldn't we also restructure the major in ways that help our students figure out what's next? One possibility would be to include civic engage projects in the curriculum, in order to facilitate student connections with the wider community. Another approach would be to establish undergraduate tracks or certificates in, say, political campaigning, international affairs, political advocacy, and political data analysis and visualization. With that, we would need to ramp up our internship program, perhaps making it a required component of the major. 

I understand why faculty might balk at large scale curriculum reform. It would be a bureaucratic pain in the neck. It would require work and reflection. It might involve building partnerships with other departments. It would definitely require us to be more intentional about our course offerings. However, "[a] political science major 'program' ... is not just the roster of whatever courses happen to be in the college catalogue." Nor is it the roster of classes offered in a given semester. It is important, then, to consider how course offerings advance the overall goals of the program and our students. That's not to say we don't currently think about programatic needs, but to a non-trivial extent course selection is driven by faculty personal preference.

​I can imagine reasonable and conscientious colleagues asking, why bother? As long as we're generating sufficient credit hours to keep the administration at bay, why open this can of worms? That's a fair question, especially given that the major is really healthy at present. As you can see in the figure below, our enrollments have been increasing steadily since 2013. 
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For me, the imperative for curriculum reform lies with our students. While Millennials are the most highly educated generation in American history, Stella Rouse and Ashley Ross point out that they face higher levels of debt, unemployment, and poverty than the previous two generations. Generation Z is likely to face the same constraints. Looking at men of color, African American and Hispanic students in Texas have lower college completion rates than their white peers--African American 8%, Hispanic 24%, and White men 46%.* Among UNT undergraduates, 64% are non-white and 42% are first-generation college students. 

All of this is to say that by and large our undergraduates are not coming from a place of privilege. As educators, we owe them serious reflection on our curriculum, in order to determine how we can best help them to succeed once they leave UNT.

*These data are reported in the UNT Institutional Site Visit Report prepared by the Texas Educational Consortium of Male Students of Color.
2 Comments
SELF denied Holy Warrior for Jesus Holy Trinity
12/6/2020 10:58:22 pm

global extermination by 2025 - And I've sent this & messaged DOD & military base's in new mexico re: Dulce's military base as well; It's gonna be a literal, human incomprehensible global bloodbath massacre & not even the word nightmare nor Crime's against humanity can scratch the surface. Including those fool's (devil court jester's) - The 'Utah Data Center', code-named "Bumblehive". And the Multiprogram Research Facility in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.

ALL $ bought & sold out your humanity & NON-SELF owned Soul (as solely God owns ALL), but re: Even with & like THOSE upon indian reservation (no respect for THE LAND) = New Mexico's 7 mile's down Dulce military base (& their just ONE amidst USA, despite global elsewhere), but press - on your computer keyboard key's Ctrl & 'F' & search / find keyword - type in: Level 6 & see thereof text wordage around thereof: https://www.crystalinks.com/undergroundbases.html.

Do your own research, come to your own conclusion's, but DON'T deem vast that they have been doing & are (tick tock 'time', right now) aren't even worse so: global extermination by 2025, & whom TOP Power deem that 9-1-1 was JUST a TEST, to see just how the global masses would react & respond.

Globalist's, misc aren't really doing what they plan on, their really just passing the time, evil - senselessly, & their talk of reducing 7 billion plus down to 500 million, huh, OH don't think it'll stop there, oh no, just so Satan who solely started this Holy War against God, can eventually 'spite' God with exhibited all human eventually narrowed down & killed, like Satan's timeless laughing off it's ass at us (having put on a clueless humor show for that beast) & deeming to God, "LOOK AT THEM ALL, YOUR SO-CALLED PRIDE & JOY, THEIR SUPPOSE TO REPRESENT YOU?!"

And you gonna tell me (fellow human's) THAT no bothers you? OH it will, upon Coming Judgment Day before Jesus per / via your Heaven Life Record (everyone has one, even Adam & Eve), OH . . . I 'GET' much BECAUSE I chose to SELF denyingly Holy Warrior rise up for solely Holy Trinity. You (CARE?) to read - hear more? Huh, fine, it's NOT my Holy intel & I'm no threat nor lone wolf (as lone wolf is NOT in nor of Holy Trinity). Men in Black? Crime's against humanity NO even begin to scratch the surface.

Like judge Marshall ("Time Cop") said, "The sentence is DEATH, to be carried out IMMEDIATELY!" NO waiting around for the right cocktail, & thereof WATCH & WITNESS just how fast 6' x 9', misc tier's would be cleared & emptied!

Know that it was Adam that sinned first, NOT Eve BUT old men long ago would have vast past since - to date believe otherwise, & why would anyone think? YEAH, huh, right.

Here's another one: When satan got defeated re: Jesus's testing in the desert, Satan just deemed (BECAUSE of '?', ROGUE us all as a whole FROM Holy Trinity), "Fine Satan would just go after Jesus's next best thing, HIS Little One's 'children / kids' through the adult's".

Humanity could & should have SELF denyingly chosen to Holy Warrior rise up & represent solely Holy Trinity - as to why we were created & thought up in the first with WITH all we'd ever need ie: gift's, talent's, skill's & free will, NOT EVER to exhibitedly deem (UGH) that God is somehow a maid & janitor for us?

Uh, NOT HE wouldn't even have to exhale & we'd go out quicker than a candle & think NOT fellow humanity why Jesus REALLY came, huh, there'd be WHAT? Animatedly White streak's down all adult's back in fear & terror finding out the REAL Truth, with that we were solely created to self denyingly care take of each & Earth, NOTHING off!

And the dying Earth? Try: The Natural balance is off - once like a force field shielding, like a computer firewall going down, thus, having allowed in, because of Adam first & THEN Eve, which Satan seeing Adam failing God priorly THEN did God allow Satan to try testing Eve.

And re: children / kid's, Jesus: "If any adult's keep any of these Little one's from me, they will NEVER see my Father". MUCH has been changed, suppressed, misc by whether the Vatican, fill in the blank's over centuries, even destroyed so that later humanity would NOT know of the truth or say that - to do such, simply would have been purposely not been recorded so as to deem that it just never happened & thus, later humanity would not know.

Yeah, I know much BUT it AIN'T me, it's Holy Trinity, per / via HIm 'touching' me, knowing I'd be shunned but I don't care because I will die for Jesus & have past since - to date until my eventual death, SELF denied voluntary & chosenly Holy Warrior for Jesus Holy Trinity.

Huh two thing's: THEY of whether globalist's, etc or TOP - down globally deem cluelessly that - 1) Satan started this nevertheless 70 century - to date Holy War against God, 2) Adam FIRST, NOT Eve, sinned & then Eve of course but old men long ago changing writing's would have any & all believe otherwise, & SO . . . what then? Satan wins? YEAH, NOT! THINK AGAIN!

And THEN, there's thi

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Manjit kaur link
2/7/2023 07:00:55 am

Really informative article, I had the opportunity to learn a lot, thank you.

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