UH adds flexibility in earning credits
By Beverly Creamer
Advertiser Education Writer
If you live abroad for a year, work for a nonprofit saving endangered species, or teach English in Japan, the experience can get you college credit at the University of Hawai'i.
For the first time in more than three decades UH-Manoa has overhauled its core general education
curriculum requirements to offer more options and flexibility, provide undergraduate mentoring and move undergraduates through the system in four years rather than the five or six it typically takes now.
"This is a big benefit for returning students," said Karl Kim, UH-Manoa Interim Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs. "They'll have fewer requirements to meet. ... The structure was a bit rigid and there were bottlenecks in the system, and not much freedom of choice."
The credit-for-life-experience option is one of the more unique changes.
"This is our wild card, giving academic credit for an extraordinary educational experience," Kim said. "If you did something remarkable, you should get academic credit. The only string is you have to find a faculty sponsor who will sign off on this."
The faculty-driven initiative has been three years in the making and required the need to rewrite and refocus hundreds of courses.
Frustration during that period had been highest among community college professors who faced the challenge of meshing their course offerings with the new core at Manoa.
"Trying to make all of this work is not easy, just because of the magnitude of the change and the difference in philosophy," Kim said. "But it's far more student-friendly and is a major overhaul of general education at Manoa. But when students find out, they love it. And we've tried to make this as friendly to transfer students as possible."
The curriculum will continue to include writing-across-the-curriculum standards, but will also require a new Hawaiian, Asian and Pacific issues course.
"In the past the focus was really on colleges and departments. Now the focus is on much more interdisciplinary ways of thinking and multicultural issues and these cut across traditional disciplines," Kim said.
In raw numbers, the new curriculum reduces the number of required core credits from 40 to 31, but adds breadth to the number and types of courses that fit. After freshman year every student will have a faculty mentor to develop an individual academic plan.
The changes began in 1999 with the Manoa Faculty Senate approving a resolution to change and modernize the core requirements in response to student complaints and concerns.
Since then faculty committees have spent thousands of hours to build the new core around criteria, not courses.
To modernize the courses, each one is going through faculty review to make sure it fits the new hallmarks, Kim said.
Even when it's approved, the approval only lasts five years before it must be revamped again, Kim added.
Also linked to the new core is an assessment process that involves evaluations by the students.
Reach Beverly Creamer at bcreamer@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8013.
