Issue date: 11/20/08 Section: NEWS

Media Credit: Kelsey Kruzich Celia Williamson, Associate Vice President of Academic Affairs speaks about core curriculum changes and amendments.

Wednesday's core curriculum meeting raised questions of high school advanced placement credits and the importance of college-level grammar.

A debate mounted concerning how to handle credits from advanced placement exams in high school. These credits are typically assigned to an equivalent course by the department in which the student chooses to apply.

The problem comes if the student decides not to enter a department where those credits apply. Students with these unused credits could risk exceeding the states' credit-hour cap for receiving financial aid, said Celia Williamson, deputy provost and dean of undergraduate studies.

"It's like this test says you earned college-level credits, but by accepting it and it not being equivalent to one of our courses, it may turn into baggage and not an asset," she said.

Williamson suggested the use of university-wide course numbers that would hold the elective credits.

Members also approved state-mandated Exemplary Educational Objectives and objectives approved by the faculty Senate for the core curriculum. Each department has specific requirements.

Those approved were requirements for visual and performing arts, natural sciences, English, social and behavioral sciences and other humanities.

"For each area, they establish a list of exemplary educational objectives, and the universities must cover at least half of these in the courses," Williamson said. "What we're doing is saying for UNT, it's these."

NT is in the process of reviewing its core curriculum, as per state requirement. Originally, each individual course could choose its own requirements, but Williams said this created problems.

"That gave a lot of flexibility to instructors, but when it came to try to assess the core, it was just nearly impossible because we were assessing by different standards for every class," she said.

During the review of the English requirements, journalism department chairman Mitch Land pointed out the lack of emphasis on grammar and moved to specify it in the document language. He cited examples that demonstrate a need for grammar instruction at the college level.

"I had an e-mail from a senior writer in my division that said, 'If you'll just send that to Mitchell and I'" Land said. "All these I's, and I'm thinking, 'Why are there so many cyclopes running around?'"

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