Broad Curriculum Reform is Needed if Students are to Master Core Skills

(excerpt)
Attachment 2B

by: Robert M. Diamond
in: Chronicle of Higher Education, August 1, 1997, page B7.

In conducting workshops over the past decade on how to design curricula, I have asked considerably more than 1000 faculty members -- from a cross section of academic disciplines and institutions -- the same question: "What basic competencies or skills should every college graduate have?" The responses have been remarkably consistent. They typically include skills in communicating (writing, speaking, reading, and listening), mathematics (especially basic statistics), problem-solving and critical thinking, interpersonal skills (such as working in groups and leading them), computer literacy, and, most recently, appreciation of cultural diversity and the ability to adapt to innovation and change. Of course, most of us would add to this list knowledge in the student's major discipline and some general knowledge of other core disciplines in the humanities and sciences.

Despite this broad agreement, however, students, parents, employers, legislators, and many of us within academe believe that far too many students still graduate without mastering the core skills.