Fifteen years ago, MacMurray College had a dream of a core curriculum which would transform not only her students but her faculty as well. From that dream emerged the Mac IV Experience, a multi-faceted liberal arts curriculum which includes a three-course Rhetoric sequence, a five-course interdisciplinary Ideas sequence, and a student's major.1 The purpose of this paper is to describe the culminating course of MacMurray College's liberal arts experience, the Senior Capstone. First, we will explain MacMurray's curriculum and the role the Senior Capstone course plays within it. Second, we will focus on the Capstone's integration of general education and the students' pre/professional majors, specifically highlighting the classroom strategies the interdisciplinary teaching staff has used and the benefits realized by both faculty and students.
General Education and Liberal Arts
MacMurray College's general education curriculum is fully integrated into a student's academic plan for a liberal arts education. This curriculum has three parts, the Rhetoric sequence, the Ideas in Perspective sequence, and the Breadth component. The three-course Rhetoric sequence includes College Writing, Persuasive Writing and Argumentation, and Public Speaking. This sequence is built upon the Kerrigan system of writing and the Toulmin model of argumentation. All students complete the sequence by the end of their third semester of college. To fulfill the Breadth component students must take at least one course each in Natural Sciences, Social Sciences, Humanities, and Fine Arts. Students may take these four courses at any time although many students will complete this requirement by the end of their sophomore year. The five-course Ideas in Perspective sequence is the heart of the MacMurray liberal arts experience. Students begin the sequence the first semester of their sophomore year and complete it as seniors. Thus, MacMurray does not ghettoize general education into the first two years of college but integrates liberal learning with a student's overall academic development.
The Ideas in Perspective sequence is "an integrated approach to understanding the major ideas which have shaped the Western World and their effect on the political, scientific, economic, and cultural development" of today's civilization (MacMurray Catalog 48)2. The first four courses offer a sequential examination of the development of "the ideas, experiences, and innovations which have had a continuing impact in history" from classical times to the present (48). These courses are:
Ideas 210: The Ancient World (Greece, China, Hebrews)
Ideas 211: Romans and the Middle Ages (Rome, Christianity, Islam, Middle Ages)
Ideas 310: Renaissance, Reformation, Enlightenment
Ideas 311: The Modern World (French Revolution to present)
Students in these four courses discuss a common series of primary texts and respond to them in short analytical papers.3 The discussions and the papers address four key questions: what is the relationship between humans and the divine, humans and nature, humans and the state, and humans and each other. Until the 1997-98 academic year, the fifth course in this sequence was a multi-cultural course examining the cultures of Colonial Nigeria, Communist China, and contemporary Guatemala. This year, Senior Capstone became the fifth course in an effort to be more consistent with the stated purpose of the Ideas sequence which is "to demonstrate the interrelatedness of all fields of knowledge and human endeavor" (48). A single section of the course is being piloted each semester this academic year.
Senior Capstone: Course Design
After several years of experience with the Ideas curriculum, MacMurray developed the Senior Capstone in order to provide more intentional synthesis of the entire scope of a MacMurray student's education4. It has been designed to explicitly integrate a student's major with the general education curriculum, particularly the Ideas and the Rhetoric sequences. As stated to the students on the syllabus (attached), "this course is designed to help you synthesize the ideas you encountered in their original context in previous Ideas classes with practical contemporary issues drawn from your major. Building upon the critical tools you acquired in Rhetoric classes, you will analyze and synthesize these ideas. As a result, you will become more capable of addressing public, professional, or personal issues in a manner appropriate to someone with a strong liberal arts education."
Senior Capstone builds upon and extends the design of the rest of the Ideas sequence. First, in terms of interdisciplinary teaching, the first four courses are taught by a staff each of whom has responsibility for an individual section whereas Capstone is team taught by two professors from different disciplines. Many faculty members specialize in one or two of the earlier courses and teach exclusively in them. The two current Capstone faculty were chosen, in part, because they have specialized in different periods in the sequence and thus complement each other's Ideas expertise. Second, in terms of course readings, the first four courses rely on primary texts to represent a time period, a culture, or an intellectual movement, whereas Capstone attempts to synthesize those earlier readings and trends in intellectual history. Because not every student will necessarily have read exactly the same material, this synthesis is supplemented with reading and discussion of sections of an overview philosophical text (Tarnas, Passion of the Western Mind)5. This serves both to refresh students' memories and to integrate the material of the first four courses. Third, in terms of writing, in the first four courses students respond to the primary texts in a series of short, analytical papers that draw almost exclusively from the assigned reading. The discussions in Capstone culminate in a major essay in which students analyze a contemporary issue by incorporating the expertise gained from study in their majors with careful articulation and consideration of broader questions and perspectives drawn from the world's intellectual traditions. This type of issue analysis is modeled for the students through discussion of Rachel Carson's landmark work Silent Spring.
Senior Capstone: Instructional Strategies
In the debut semester of Senior Capstone thirteen students from ten different disciplines and two faculty from two disciplines formed an intentional learning community6. This community became the basis of almost all the instructional strategies in the course. At the very beginning of the course, the faculty invited the students to commit to the idea of a community based upon the understanding that they all, faculty and students alike, would function as co-learners and co-leaders. The learning community functioned for both discussion and writing. In terms of discussion, the class engaged in active dialogue about the fundamental assumptions and underlying values which support policy questions in a variety of fields. We entered into this discussion initially by examining the fundamental assumptions of some of the ideas explored in the first four Ideas courses. For example, we discussed the difference between a classical Christian view of time and a Darwinian-based evolutionary view of time. We then applied this same type of analysis to Carson's work on pesticides. We raised issues such as the nature of progress, individual versus corporate responsibility, and the desirability or necessity of survival. As every participant brought his or her own value orientation to bear upon this discussion, we were soon able to see that individual disciplines are based upon different fundamental assumptions and underlying values.
The class also functioned as an intentional learning community for the writing and presenting of individual major essays. The essay project was broken down into five stages, each of which involved input from the class and an individual conference with the two faculty leaders. First, the students presented their topics which were to be issues of current controversy in their majors. The focus was to be on a conflict in values, rather than an attempt to solve a particular problem. Ideally, the value conflict would be one which might ultimately influence policy decisions in each field; however, no problem needed to be solved in the papers7. At the time of this presentation, all the participants brainstormed with each other as to what sources from the Ideas sequence might be most relevant to the proposed topic. These discussions were extremely fruitful for each student. Second, students prepared and presented an annotated bibliography which included relevant sources from both their majors and the Ideas sequence. Again, the students provided substantial input not only with respect to authors who might be considered but with respect to the application and interpretation of authors chosen. The third and fourth stages were not formally presented to the class although a great deal of informal discussion occurred. The third stage was an outline of the final paper. The fourth was a partial draft particularly emphasizing the argumentation section where the student would indicate his or her preference for one side or the other in the value conflict. Both the outline and the partial draft were discussed in conference with the faculty. The fifth and final stage in the project was the culmination of the entire process and the culmination of both the Ideas and Rhetoric sequences. Each student prepared and formally presented the completed paper to the entire class. In addition, each student prepared questions to raise in the discussion time following each presentation. Although we allotted thirty minutes per student this semester, that was simply not enough time for the intense discussions which resulted from these projects.
In sum, the instruction in this course was interdisciplinary both in terms of content and pedagogical strategies. The students were as active in the learning and teaching process as the faculty. Although the course proved to be extremely time intensive for all participants, the rewards of the learning community were tremendous.
Senior Capstone: Successful Outcomes
Senior Capstone is successfully contributing to the original MacMurray goal of transformation and is fulfilling its particular objective of integration. Student perceptions of the Ideas sequence8 and of themselves were transformed. About the sequence one student said, "Two years ago, you could not have convinced me Core had anything to do with my major. Now I can't believe how relevant it is." All course members, faculty and students, learned a great deal about a variety of disciplines as well as learning more about the intellectual traditions studied in previous courses. But, most importantly, students' self-perceptions were changed as well. Students who did not believe they could explore a single issue in any depth discovered they could. Students who did not believe they had retained any information from the previous Ideas courses were astonished to hear themselves engaging in spirited dialogue on the specifics of particular authors. Students realized they could analyze the arguments of others and present a reasoned argument of their own. As one student put it, "This course was really hard but you feel so accomplished at the end." The two faculty members shared in these reactions. Between the two of us, we have approximately fifty years combined teaching experience. Capstone was one of the two or three best courses we have ever taught. MacMurray College prides itself on being a teaching institution; in this course we truly felt like teachers and we knew real learning was going on.
Senior Capstone does exactly what the culminating
experience of a liberal arts curriculum ought to do--it integrates
all the components of a student's education. It forces everyone
to realize that no single part of our education exists in a vacuum
and that the best education is that which we accomplish in community.
It enables seniors to realize that they are, at least in part,
experts now, with ideas worth exploring and expounding upon. MacMurray
students like to wear T-shirts that proclaim "Core sucks!".
Thanks to the Capstone, they may need to add one to their wardrobes
that announces with equal enthusiasm "Education happens!".
Endnotes
1 The Mac IV Experience also includes experiential learning which encompasses a variety of internship, clinical, and practicum experiences. Breadth components and a leadership emphasis complete the various Mac IV components.
2 The Ideas sequence was first conceptualized by Edward Mitchell, former President of MacMurray College, when he was serving as Dean. Mitchell's vision of a curriculum that would transform the college community has been operationalized as the intellectual property of the entire faculty. In any three year period, sixty-five percent of the college's programs provide at least one faculty member to the teaching staff. The first four courses are taught by an interdisciplinary staff which develops a common syllabus, tests, and lectures and which holds weekly meetings for planning and discussion.
3 Authors and texts which have been read in the Ideas sequence include the following:
Ideas 210-211: Homer, Sophocles, Plato, Aristotle, Confucius, Lao Tsu, Hebrew Scripture, Virgil, Marcus Aurelius, Lucretius, Cicero, Christian Scripture, Augustine, Qur'an, Hadith, Rumi, Benedict, Thomas Aquinas, Julian of Norwich, Hildegard of Bingen, Dante, Chaucer
Ideas 310-311: Locke, Hume, Machiavelli, Hobbes, Smith, Voltaire, Moliere, Shakespeare, Calvin, Luther, Erasmus, Pico, Marx, Christine de Pisan, Cervantes, Paine, Huxley, Shelley, More, Rousseau, Darwin, Douglass, Wollstonecraft, Einstein, King, Walker, Wolf
4 The Senior Capstone was conceptualized by then President Edward Mitchell. It was initially developed by a committee of four: Mitchell (whose academic discipline is Chemistry), Richard McGuire (English), Wen Chen (History), and Meredith Cargill (Rhetoric). The syllabus was finalized by the current teaching staff of McGuire and Claire Jerry (Philosophy and Religion).
5 There are two reasons students might not have read all of the same material. Transfer students are typically required to take any two of the first four courses in addition to the senior course. Students who begin in mid-year may take the courses "out of order" and some of the readings do change slightly from year to year.
6 One major each from Accounting, Business Administration, Criminal Justice, Journalism, Nursing, Psychology, Sports Management, and two each from Biology, English, and Social Work volunteered. The faculty were from English and Philosophy and Religion. This section of the paper will focus on what actually happened in this particular section of the course, rather than on the goals and objectives in general.
7 Following is a list of topics identified by student major:
| Accounting | the conflict between personal and business ethics |
| Biology | creationism vs. evolutionism |
| Biology | ethics of cloning humans |
| Business Administration | heavily regulated vs. laissez faire economy |
| Criminal Justice | rehabilitation vs. punishment |
| English | censorship |
| English | revision of the canon of Western literature |
| Journalism | rights of the media vs. rights of the individual |
| Nursing | medical paternalism vs. patient autonomy |
| Psychology | scientific vs. humanistic psychology |
| Social Work | parents' rights vs. children's rights |
| Social Work | institutionalization vs. residential care |
| Sports Management | free agency |
8
The Ideas sequence is more commonly referred to on campus as
"Core" as in "core curriculum".