Newman University is introducing a program in the fall designed to
help graduates do more than just remember information, it is designed to
help them think – for the rest of their lives.
Newman’s President Dr. Noreen M. Carrocci said the program is cutting
edge even though it is based on Blessed John Henry Newman’s “The Idea
of a University,” his highly influential reflections on education
published in 1873.
“The Newman Studies Program takes his idea of university and
different levels of knowledge and says, ‘How can we make that current
and relevant today for our students and create a signature program that
all students who graduate with an undergraduate degree from Newman
University will be rendered distinctive because of it?,’” Dr. Carrocci
said.
That is what the faculty and Provost Dr. Michael Austin have done,
she said.
“It is truly remarkable in terms of commitment of the faculty
to work together, to explore new territory together, and I think it’s
going to provide our students with an incredible intellectual
experience.”
Dr. Carrocci said “presidents’ jaws were dropping” when Dr. Austin
presented the program at the Association of Catholic Colleges and
Universities meeting Jan. 29-31, in Washington, D.C.
“You got the faculty to do what?,” she was asked. “Somebody said we
ought to copyright it. I said, no, in academe, imitation is the highest
form of flattery. So I hope many schools will look at this model and see
what they might gain from going back to the roots of the idea of
university.”
Dr. Austin said the Newman Studies Program completes a student’s general education.
“Real education is not just accumulating facts, it’s taking them and
doing something with them,” he said. “We want to show them how to do
that and we want to convince them to continue doing that because we
believe that’s what it means to be educated.”
The four “capstone” courses that all junior and senior students will
be required to take are not designed to teach them a collection of
facts, instead they will learn what to do with facts and how to make
meaning out of facts.
“We are a society awash in data, with very little idea of what
meaning is,” Dr. Austin said.
“These are courses about how to take a
body of material and turn it into something meaningful, something
resonant.”
Dr. Austin said Newman University previously had a fairly standard
general education model where students had a cafeteria of courses in
their freshman and sophomore years and then begin concentrating on their
majors in their junior year.
The problem with that model, Dr. Austin said, is that students don’t
learn much and what they do learn becomes very fragmented.
Another
problem for Newman University is that it’s a transfer institution with
about 70 percent of its students transferring to the university after
studying two years somewhere else.
That means that the “key Newman
experience” must be taught in the upper two years, he said.
A faculty committee under the direction of history professor Dr.
Kelly McFall, worked for the last three years on the revised core
curriculum.
“It was a hard nut to crack, but we wanted something that would be
transfer-friendly,” Dr. Austin said.
“At the same time we wanted
something that was branded, something that was very specific to Newman,
something that you could get nowhere else but at Newman.
“We plan for this to be what we are doing as Newman University that
is unique to us,” he said, “rooted solidly in the tradition of our
namesake that a student can only get at Newman.”
Cutting-edge program will be required for all students; honors the university’s namesake, vision
The Wichita Catholic university has designed a three-tier Newman Studies Program:
• The first tier focuses on building skills such as writing, communication, math and technology.
• The second-tier focuses on acquiring general knowledge about science, history, philosophy and other topics.
• The third tier synthesizes the first two. All junior and senior
students will be required to take four capstone courses such as: “The
Creative Spirit” and “The Quest for Meaning.”
One course, for example,
studies Spanish films from a Catholic social justice perspective.
“The capstone courses are the courses that are designed to be THE
Newman experience, the experience that you just can’t get anywhere
else,” Dr. Michael Austin said.