One of my seasoned colleagues reminded me of this old saying, which he had found to be very true during the various curriculum changes he already experienced during his career. We were in a somewhat heated discussion that lead to the conclusion that his proposed new course most likely would -unfortunately- not find its place in the new curriculum. A big disappointment for the colleague, and for me, but in this case I happened to be only the messenger that had to convince him of the inevitable...
Those of you working in higher education undoubtly have experience with the phenomenon. Every decade or so, there is a need to refresh the curriculum. Science is proceeding, new technological developments deserve a position in the bachelor's or master's programmes, or didactic insights ask for new pedagogy.
From a rational viewpoint, it should be simple: decide which learning outcomes are the most relevant for future graduates, structure the content in a coherent way into courses or modules to form a 120 EC programme, and that is it. In reality, it is a confusing and stretched out process that releases all kinds of emotions, and not always positive ones: frustration, disappointment, anger and mistrust. Two of the biggest challenges, especially in a large faculty as ours, seems to be to get commitment from all staff members and to succeed in once and again carefully explaining why changes are needed and why certain choices are made.
Over the past months, I've often heard remarks like "Why is this subject no longer relevant?! It was probably decided somewhere by 'them' to finally get rid of me/us!" Although scientists generally are rational persons, conspiracies all of a sudden seem to be everywhere. Trust in executive decisions appears to be quite limited. Why is it that resistance is met? I have a few possible explanations:
Luckily, we can have some confidence: TU Delft is among the highest ranked universities in the subject of Civil Engineering. Like one of my colleagues said: "We are now in a good position to design the best Structural Design track in the world!". It is with that attitude that we should try to cultivate a more positive atmosphere. We will be proud of the new curriculum once it is running from September 2022 onwards. No doubt, we will loose some subjects that have served their purpose over the years, but we will also include new and exciting topics that will open up new opportunities for the students that will shape the world by their civil engineering skills over the coming decades.
Those of you working in higher education undoubtly have experience with the phenomenon. Every decade or so, there is a need to refresh the curriculum. Science is proceeding, new technological developments deserve a position in the bachelor's or master's programmes, or didactic insights ask for new pedagogy.
From a rational viewpoint, it should be simple: decide which learning outcomes are the most relevant for future graduates, structure the content in a coherent way into courses or modules to form a 120 EC programme, and that is it. In reality, it is a confusing and stretched out process that releases all kinds of emotions, and not always positive ones: frustration, disappointment, anger and mistrust. Two of the biggest challenges, especially in a large faculty as ours, seems to be to get commitment from all staff members and to succeed in once and again carefully explaining why changes are needed and why certain choices are made.
Over the past months, I've often heard remarks like "Why is this subject no longer relevant?! It was probably decided somewhere by 'them' to finally get rid of me/us!" Although scientists generally are rational persons, conspiracies all of a sudden seem to be everywhere. Trust in executive decisions appears to be quite limited. Why is it that resistance is met? I have a few possible explanations:
- workload - many academic staff members, especially after 1.5 years of covid-19, are exhausted and are worried about anything that further adds to their workload. Curriculum changes always do, since even repacking existing content in a new format will lead to the required bureaucratic tasks, a transition year or two, excepctions for individual students, extra exams, double shifts in teaching.
- love for ones own expertise - no one understands so much the relevance of the content of your course as you do, and it is hard to accept that other disciplines all of sudded should get more space in the curriculum than yours.
- fear for negative financial effects - although there will be made many promises in advance that a curriculum change will not have financial implications for groups, past experiences often inform people differently: departments always lack money, prolonging contracts is always difficult, and hiring extra staff never is easy.
- lack of communication - communication is always challenging: it requires time and effort to organise it, and all calendars are already overloaded. In our faculty, we had quite a number of sessions in which staff were asked to provide input, using many-colored post-its, large posters and long discussions. The process of explaining why certain choices were made in the next stage, however, did not always seem to connect to those session outcomes. The rationale of the curriculum review did not always land.
- lack of memory - especially once moving to a next stage, sometimes with fresh staff members joining and old ones leaving the teams, old discussions kept on reoccurring, since the people involved in earlier decisions left the teams after a certain stage, and their decisions had to be re-explained.
- lack of acceptation - at some point, one will need to accept that things are the way they are, and proceed in a positive manner without complaining. Academics are human beings, and not always as flexible as necessary.
Luckily, we can have some confidence: TU Delft is among the highest ranked universities in the subject of Civil Engineering. Like one of my colleagues said: "We are now in a good position to design the best Structural Design track in the world!". It is with that attitude that we should try to cultivate a more positive atmosphere. We will be proud of the new curriculum once it is running from September 2022 onwards. No doubt, we will loose some subjects that have served their purpose over the years, but we will also include new and exciting topics that will open up new opportunities for the students that will shape the world by their civil engineering skills over the coming decades.