Curriculum Quiet

I kinda expected fireworks as the full department got its first look today at a potential curriculum revision (see here for details of the "proposal").

No fireworks. Indeed, mostly I heard a consensus that the committee is on the right track.

About the only direct criticism came from the idea of combining law and ethics into a single class. The notion of front-loading ethics and law, that was fine, but combining the two into a single class was questioned by -- not coincidentally -- the two faculty who teach our mass comm law class. I don't want to spend a lot of time on this because, frankly, I'm not convinced it deserves a lot of time. The committee will no doubt weigh the comments and either shift back to the status quo approach (something it's tried hard to avoid) or insist on the ethics-law combo. I have no idea which way it may go. The arguments against the combo were not particularly compelling, but it may not be worth the fight.

Otherwise faculty poked and prodded but offered no deep analysis because, as a "working" document, there's not a lot to poke and prod. There was a certain level of bullshit, but nothing so deep as to wash over the top of your boots and wet your feet. All in all, a good meeting.