How Curriculums Change...and What it Means For You

From time to time, a university or a department will create a new curriculum or will change an existing curriculum to better reflect the state of education today, or to incorporate new classes. These changes are usually very beneficial things and should be looked on with the most positive light possible.

That being said, curriculum changes can wreak havoc when people are being given incorrect information (i.e. two advisors are telling their students different things) and I am a huge stickler for clarity of information.

Here's a little for instance:
Virginia Commonwealth University is currently revising its general education requirements--as it stands right now, students entering in the fall of 2009 will fall under what is called the "core curriculum" requirements. This means that all students (regardless of what major, department, or school those students are in) will have the same general education requirements.

Now, students are bound by their academic bulletin (if you entered your school in the Fall of 2007, you will be bound to the 2007-2008 academic bulletin). Most students receive copies of these bulletins when they arrive for their freshman orientation--and most schools also have copies of these bulletins available electronically on their websites. You are required to abide by whichever curriculum is laid out in your bulletin...but there is a loop hole! If your curriculum changes significantly, you can choose to follow the curriculum of any year after you enter the university (but you must follow the whole curriculum...you can't just pick and choose the requirements you like!)

Think about it this way: if your class syllabus is your contract with your professor, your academic bulletin is your contract with the university. But, like any good contract, there are always loop holes.

So, students entering VCU in the fall of '09 will be held to the core curriculum and all of its little oddities (among them, the fact that our sophomore English class--ENGL 200--is NOT required). Every student that entered the university before fall '09 is STILL required to take ENGL 200.

That being said...the University has a responsibility too. Even though ENGL 200 is being removed from the curriculum...the school still has to offer the class until everyone operating under the previous academic bulletins has successfully completed it. The university cannot simply remove a class and expect several thousand students to have completed said class within one academic year (which is a rumor going around the Theatre department right now). That is completely impractical...and it's mean to boot.

So for all of you who still need ENGL 200--you've got time!