A few weeks
ago, I had the good fortune to spend some time visiting with Dr. Charles
Isbell, Jr., the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs in the College of
Computing at Georgia Tech. Dr. Isbell described the innovative way the College
of Computing had restructured their curriculum in the face of the declining
enrollments in computer science that followed the dot com bubble bust just
after the turn of the new century.
After our
visit, I gave some thought to how the conversation around curriculum can
dictate what we consider. In a nutshell, Georgia Tech has been able to change
the conversation about curriculum from “what do you want to be” to “what do you want to do?” In doing this, they have created a
flexibility within their curriculum that will allow them to respond to the
dynamic environment of computing.
Surprisingly,
Dr. Isbell related to me that when they began to consider how they would
implement this new curriculum approach, they did not need to create many new
classes. (I believe he said they only created two new classes.) They found they
only needed to “repackage” their existing curriculum in a new way.
Their new
approach makes so much more sense than the old way of thinking! They find that
they can now identify specific humanities electives that students should take,
because they can relate the elective to what the student wants to do after graduation. Students can now
explain to recruiters why they are taking the classes they take, because they
understand how the classes prepare the student to do
what they want to do. (The old answer to why a course was taken: “Because it’s
required.”)
Now,
colleges of computing are probably much more accustomed to change than colleges
of business are, so translating the idea into a college of business would take
some work. But I think in the long run, changing the conversation from, for
example, being a finance major to managing the financial assets of an
organization, or from being an MIS
major to applying technology to solve
business problems, could produce a better graduate. Many of my colleagues will
argue that they do this already, but it really isn’t how the conversation
usually progresses. We tend to talk about majors. We tend to talk in the
context of our silos.
Even these
changes pale, however, when we really start to think “outside the box.” Imagine
envisioning the business curriculum in terms of the interfaces between
commerce, government, business, and consumer, rather than majors. This perspective could get us out
of the major silos completely. I hope to write more on this idea in subsequent
posts.
