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What is the Open Curriculum & liberal learning?Video transcript: "Brown has been a really valuable gift to me because I've learned how to build community here. Brown has this idea, and that's the open curriculum. So the idea behind it is that Brown provides you a liberal education. Liberal education is a really wonderful experimental idea. It doesn't quite matter what you study, but in the process of studying your passion, in the process of reading books, you're learning how to think critically, to engage with the world, to think beyond yourself. And by not having any core requirements, no one at Brown ever tells you what to study. And this enables you to, over your time at Brown, to pick the right classes, to pick the wrong classes, to really find this academic passion that gives you questions and teaches you how to question in your approach to the world."
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How did the Open Curriculum get started?
"Placing students at the center of the educational experience is not a device for reducing their obligations. It places an enormous burden on them, making them responsible for their own choices and allowing them to learn from their mistakes in a supportive environment — something that we have come to see as a shared requirement for growth, whether it be in childhood, adolescence, or as a team member in the workplace. The quality of Brown graduates is testament to the value and rigor of the experience they had, even without distribution requirements, a fixed corpus of knowledge to be studied, or letter grades with pluses and minuses for every course. The report [on the open curriculum] sought to encourage students to learn how to learn so that they could and would continue their education throughout their lifetimes. We think that here too, Brown graduates provide evidence that the New Curriculum has been a success.
"The late 1960's were a time of great ferment in the United States. The debate over the war in Vietnam, the civil rights movement, the women's movement — all were contesting the prevailing views in our country. In a smaller way, the curricular reform movement was challenging the dominant model of higher education that had its roots in the general education movement of the 1940's and 1950's. The uncertainty about the future made it an opportune time to campaign for change; we were lucky to have been part of that debate and grateful to have had great colleagues in that effort." (Magaziner & Maxwell, 2011, p. iv)
"In the Fall of 1966, seventy students set out to rethink the way that undergraduates are taught at Brown University. Eventually joined by more students and a number of professors, the group (called Group Independent Studies Project, or GISP) conducted a yearlong study of college education, its history, and the latest ideas for making it better — all in the hopes of applying what they learned to Brown. The end result was a 400-page tome that presented the group’s research, proposed a philosophy of education, and set out the details of a new curriculum to implement that philosophy. Within three years, the student-centered philosophy of education presented in their report became Brown’s educational philosophy, and it endures to this day." (Magaziner & Maxwell, 2011, p. i)
Magaziner, I., Maxwell, E. (2011). The Magaziner-Maxwell report: The seed of a curriculum revolution at Brown. Open Jar Foundation.
"The late 1960's were a time of great ferment in the United States. The debate over the war in Vietnam, the civil rights movement, the women's movement — all were contesting the prevailing views in our country. In a smaller way, the curricular reform movement was challenging the dominant model of higher education that had its roots in the general education movement of the 1940's and 1950's. The uncertainty about the future made it an opportune time to campaign for change; we were lucky to have been part of that debate and grateful to have had great colleagues in that effort." (Magaziner & Maxwell, 2011, p. iv)
"In the Fall of 1966, seventy students set out to rethink the way that undergraduates are taught at Brown University. Eventually joined by more students and a number of professors, the group (called Group Independent Studies Project, or GISP) conducted a yearlong study of college education, its history, and the latest ideas for making it better — all in the hopes of applying what they learned to Brown. The end result was a 400-page tome that presented the group’s research, proposed a philosophy of education, and set out the details of a new curriculum to implement that philosophy. Within three years, the student-centered philosophy of education presented in their report became Brown’s educational philosophy, and it endures to this day." (Magaziner & Maxwell, 2011, p. i)
Magaziner, I., Maxwell, E. (2011). The Magaziner-Maxwell report: The seed of a curriculum revolution at Brown. Open Jar Foundation.
...and the CRC?
"Founded in 1976 to support the fullest use of the New Curriculum, today the CRC's Director, student coordinators and volunteers coordinate information sessions, community-building events, and individual meetings with students for advising about independent studies and concentrations, applying for funding opportunities, issues related to the sophomore year, and more." http://brown.edu/go/crc
CRC@40 [1976-2016]
In 1976 a group of students convinced the administration of the need to establish a center where students could advise their peers on how best to engage with the New Curriculum, established seven years prior as a result of Brown’s first student-led Group Independent Study Project (GISP). The mission of the Resource Center, now known as the Curricular Resource Center for Peer Advising, is to help students engage with the different possibilities offered by Brown’s curriculum. In celebrating the center’s 40th anniversary during the 2016-2017 year, we hope to take stock of the evolving significance of the Open Curriculum, as well as how our role as peer advisors has changed over time.