By SHANNON O. WELLS
When Belkys Torres discusses her vision of rethinking Pitt’s general education curriculum with fellow faculty members, the associate vice provost for inclusive excellence in education clearly comes from a personal place.
A first-generation college student and daughter of exiled Cuban immigrants, Torres had little access to concepts like inclusive advising and similar support structures that might help an undergraduate student “avoid the many mistakes that I made along the way,” she said.
These ranged from selecting majors and study-abroad logistics to incurring “all kinds of unnecessary debt” and, upon realizing law school was not in the cards, “feeling a bit aimless after graduation” and trying to figure out a transition, she said. “So I share all of this about who I am, because it’s also what drives me and my passion for this work.”
Torres shared such experiences while presenting an overview on reimagining Pitt’s general education curriculum based on an “inclusive excellence” approach, to Faculty Assembly at its Oct. 4 meeting in Posvar Hall.
“I’m really excited for the opportunity to advance equitable student success at Pitt,” she said, “and really build on the amazing work that’s been going on for decades at the school level, at the campus level, and more recently, within and across the Office of the Provost.”
As inclusivity looks different depending on the population being discussed, and wanting to support it, “it’s critical that we prioritize an interconnected approach to students’ co-curricular and curricular experiences,” Torres said. “For example, students from LGBTQ-plus communities need to be able to explore their academic environments in ways that feel safe.
“They need to be in an environment that promotes anti-discrimination policies and provides student organizations, faculty and staff to support them,” she added.
Students from underserved communities benefit not only from student and institutional organizations that provide cultural and academic support, but also from faculty and staff from their communities who understand and reflect their needs, Torres explained.
The provost’s office, therefore, strives to bridge its own work on academic regulations and the curricular experience with that of the Office of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion.
“So our strategic plan … forges a path forward for us to help us iterate and imagine our commitment to our future Pitt graduates,” she said. “If we’re committed to the work of driving student success, we really need to think about the ways in which we’re providing transformative opportunities for our students to learn, grow and thrive — and here’s the clincher — without increased financial burden when their exploration and their discovery leads them to a new major,” campus, or different opportunity than when they first arrived on campus.
Torres proposes a re-examination of current University-wide student learning outcomes and the degree to which Pitt’s gen ed requirements “are clearly guiding students toward those outcomes and whether they’re actually aiding in pathways towards the major,” she said.
As opposed to “deficit thinking,” the goals, rather, are about “understanding the amount of work and deliberate thought that has been happening at the school level and at the regional campuses around general education reform,” Torres said, “and see how — and to what degree — we as an institution can reimagine and redefine what I would argue are outdated learning outcomes, as we speak.”
Shifting outcomes
Last defined and documented in 2006, Pitt’s general learning outcomes have become outdated, Torres noted, particularly in areas of equity and inclusion, language about data literacy, as well as leaving a “weak” connection to ethics.
A minimal connection between learning outcome goals and current Gen Ed requirements (GERs) has first-year admitting schools “espousing their own GERs,” with upper-division schools including them via prerequisites, Torres said.
Maintaining this status quo leaves vulnerabilities in future accreditation evaluation; hampers transfer/articulation partnerships; creates an overly complex inter-unit (school/campus/institution) dynamic and an extended “time-to-degree; and leads to artificially deflating graduation rates while increasing students’ debt load.
Also, an increasing number of students are taking more than six years to graduate, and that’s with 120 or more credits, Torres’s research shows.
“I think we all agree that there are some learning outcomes — like thinking critically and analytically, communicating clearly and effectively, gathering and evaluating information effectively and appropriately — that are important,” Torres observed. “At the same time, there are clearly learning outcomes in the 21st century that are absent in this list right now.”
Currently, when schools or programs share success metrics on the student side, “they point to these learning outcomes and then work backwards from there,” Torres said. “And what we’re learning over time is that at the school level and the campus level, these learning outcomes have shifted at the University level.
“We have some work to do in terms of rewiring and refreshing the outcomes,” she added.
Seamless and streamlined
In some areas, she observed, Pitt has moved beyond the documented standards set in 2006. Torres questioned if those outcomes clearly reflect Pitt’s “relationship to conversations around equity, inclusion and social justice.
“I think there’s an opportunity for engagement in the work that we are already doing,” she said. “In other words, we have courses across the curriculum, across our schools, that prioritize conversations on matters of social justice, equity and inclusion. “However, those are not reflected in our learning outcomes.”
Another notable challenge is the lack of connection between existing Gen Ed requirements across Pitt’s six first-year admitting schools and three campuses — encompassing about nine different curricula — and the learning outcomes.
While there is a “clear and concise understanding” at the campus level about why those Gen Ed requirements need to be there, “we’re not intentional about connecting those back to these outdated learning outcomes,” Torres said. “Clearly, there’s a gap there that we need to address.”
Where Pitt is likely to rely more on transfer students in the coming years, she said, having nine different general education requirements or curriculum would require upward of 46 transfer and articulation agreements with partners across the region. Pitt, rather, should be intentional about transfer students having a “seamless, streamlined” approach when they come onboard, so they “don’t have to add time to a degree by retaking courses they’ve already taken” or take on a significant financial burden.
“At the moment, it’s incredibly difficult to have a streamlined transfer process that recognizes the work that students have already done,” Torres said, “especially if they come in with an associate’s degree under their belt.”
Common ground
Pitt met with more than 30 other universities last summer through the American Association of Colleges and Universities‘ Institute for Education and Assessment, finding many peers poised to do similar work, Torres said.
“So we are not only in good company, but poised to do some really fascinating benchmarking, I think, to get us excited and inspired about what might be possible for us to consider as an institution that wants to innovate and continue to be inclusive.”
Common challenges among peer institutions include Gen Ed curriculum requirements that lead students to select courses more randomly rather than in a “strategic or scaffolded approach.”
“We need to, I think, do a little better in terms of educating our students as to the power of a liberal arts education and the ways (that) education is really pushing them to self-discovery (and) figuring out where their passion lies,” Torres said, but at the same time ensure “we’re not penalizing them when the bill comes in,” or by having to retake courses because they changed their major or school “because they finally found that passion that’s really going to drive them to graduation.”
Torres finds Gen Ed reimagination exciting because “we are in a positive environment … This is not about outlining what we’re doing wrong,” she said. “Quite on the contrary, this is an opportunity for actually all of us to come together and learn about what’s happening in environments across schools and campuses, where really cool and innovative programs occur.
Torres asked Faculty Assembly members to think about what “excites and motivates” them about this opportunity, and “how we can work together.”
“I’m trying to figure out a process here where we can leverage existing bodies and governance structures to continue this dialogue,” she added. “I don’t want to create additional meetings (or) additional burdens for faculty who are already overtasked.”
Large-scale process
This semester, she will continue engaging with leadership across schools and campuses with the goal of launching a representative task force by next spring. Comprising representatives from various working groups, the group will be tasked with guiding principles and objectives to meet the project’s goals.
Leaning on the conservative end of a timeline, Torres envisions a three-year interlude between now and a pilot concept emerging. “One, because we need to be thoughtful and deliberate in our work; two, because we’re awaiting the arrival of a new provost and want to make sure that they have the opportunity to participate in this process. And three, because it is a large-scale process when we think about the number of schools and campuses involved, and we want to be inclusive in that work,” she said.
Thanking those in attendance, Torres said she looks forward to “learning from all of you to continue the conversation as we go,” offering to arrange presentations with departmental leadership. “I’m always happy to do that work,” she said.
Senate Council President Robin Kear thanked Torres for taking on the project. “And I certainly hope that the next provost will also champion this, because I think it fits in with how Pitt needs to change and be responsive to parents and the duties to our students to not make them have to spend six years (to graduate),” she said. “I appreciate all of that information.”
Shannon O. Wells is a writer for the University Times. Reach him at shannonw@pitt.edu.
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