Curriculum by Design

Mary Thomas Crane (Edited By) Mary Thomas Crane is the Thomas F. Rattigan Professor of English and director of the Institute for the Liberal Arts at Boston College. She works on early modern English literature and is the author of Framing Authority: Sayings, Self, and Society in Sixteenth-Century England (Princeton University Press, 1993), Shakespeare’s Brain: Reading with Cognitive Theory (Princeton University Press, 2000), and Losing Touch with Nature: Literature and the New Science in Sixteenth-Century England (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014). She has taught the Enduring Question course “Revolutionary Media: How Reading Changes Us.” David Quigley (Edited By) David Quigley is the provost and dean of faculties and a professor of history at Boston College. He was previously dean of the Morrissey College of Arts and Sciences at BC. He is the author of Second Founding: New York City, Reconstruction, and the Making of American Democracy (2004). He has taught the Enduring Question course “Worlds of Moby-Dick: What Historical Forces Shape a Book’s Greatness.” Andy Boynton (Edited By) Andy Boynton is the John and Linda Powers Family Dean of the Carroll School of Management at Boston College. He is the author of The Idea Hunter: How to Find the Best Ideas and Make them Happen and has a blog on leadership and innovation on Forbes .com.

Preface: Curriculum Revision and the Foundations of American Higher Education

David Quigley | xi

PART I: INNOVATION AND THE LIBERAL ARTS CORE | 1

Choreographing the Conversation: How Designers Helped Clear an Academic Logjam

William Bole | 3

What Do We Know? Or, The Perils of Expertise

Toby Bottorf | 13

Innovation

Andy Boynton | 21

Ambitious Plans Meet Reality: How We Made the Renewed Core Work

Mary Thomas Crane | 31

Slowing Down and Opening Up: Preparing Faculty to Co-design a General Education Course

Stacy Grooters | 41

Core Renewal as Creative Fidelity

Gregory Kalscheur, S.J. | 50

Reflection and Core Renewal

Jack Butler, S.J. | 62

Surprised by Conversation: A Reflection on Core Renewal at Boston College

Brian D. Robinette | 69

PART II: TEACHING THE RENEWED CORE | 73

Complex Problem Courses | 75

Teaching about a Planet in Peril

Prasannan Parthasarathi and Juliet B. Schor | 77

Experimenting with Science and Technology in American Society

Jenna Tonn | 82

Global Implications of Climate Change: Importance of Mentorship in a Core Education

Tara Pisani Gareau and Brian J. Gareau | 104

Enduring Question Courses: Bringing Together Divergent Disciplines | 115

How to Live in the Material World: Two Perspectives

Elizabeth Kowaleski Wallace and Dunwei Wang | 117

Aesthetic and Spiritual Exercises, in and beyond the Classroom

Daniel Callahan and Brian D. Robinette | 123

Enduring Question Courses: Differentiating Similar Disciplines | 133

Death in Ancient Greece and Modern Russia: Reflecting on Our Reflection Sessions

Hanne Eisenfeld and Thomas Epstein | 135

Spending a Semester with “A Possession for All Time”: Justice and War in Thucydides

Robert C. Bartlett | 144

Inquiring about Humans and Nature: Creativity, Planning, and Serendipity

Holly VandeWall and Min Hyoung Song | 150

The Liberal Arts Core: Engaging with Current Events, 2016–2020 | 157

Crossings: Teaching “Roots and Routes: Reading/Writing Identity, Migration, and Culture”

Lynne Anderson and Elizabeth Graver | 159

The Architecture of a Black Feminist Classroom: Pedagogical Praxis

in “Where #BlackLivesMatter Meets #MeToo”

Régine Michelle Jean-Charles | 167

Truth-Telling in History and Literature: Constructive Uncertainty

Allison Adair and Sylvia Sellers-García | 178

Covid Core Lessons

Elizabeth H. Shlala | 190

Acknowledgments | 199

Appendix A: The Vision Animating the Boston College Core Curriculum | 203

Appendix B: Boston College Core Curriculum Required Courses | 209

Appendix C: Complex Problem and Enduring Question Courses, 2015–2021 | 211

List of Contributors | 235

Index | 243