Provost

 Ramapo College’s curriculum is based in large part on four mission pillars.

Interdisciplinary Education 

Interdisciplinary education is the interaction, integration, or synthesis of knowledge and learning across disciplines.

Corresponding with the fundamental principles of liberal arts education, interdisciplinarity creates a dynamic learning environment that encourages critical inquiry, collaboration, and integrative thinking.  Indeed, the College’s founding vision included an “interdisciplinary approach (that) transcends the limits of the traditional departmental organization and encourages the student to see the parts of a problem in relationship to the whole, to think in broad but related terms.”   Ramapo College reaffirms the value of a collegial environment that promotes integrative and cross-disciplinary discourse and learning

Experiential Learning 

Experiential learning is a purposeful process of engaged, active learning in which the student constructs knowledge, skills, or values by means of direct experiences in authentic, real-world contexts.

Experiential learning often includes the following components:
•    Hands-on or minds-on engagement
•    Facilitated, guided practice
•    Multi-dimensional growth/development
•    Reflection
•    Application of theory/classroom knowledge
•    Student learning goals, assessments, and documentation
•    Service to a larger community

Intercultural Understanding 

Intercultural Understanding is both an approach and an outcome of the learning process. It promotes critical sensitivity to cultural differences among peoples within nations as well as across nations. This approach promotes equal value in all human life and serves for preparation for membership in a diverse and pluralistic global community.

International Education 

Students attending Ramapo College will have the inclination, knowledge, and skills to thoughtfully engage their own cultures and cultures that are not their own with respect, understanding, and openness, and critical analysis.

Sources: Task Force Reports, 2007 

The all-college learning goals and outcomes express what all undergraduate Ramapo students should know or be able to do upon graduation. All undergraduate majors have mapped their goals and outcomes to the all-college goals and outcomes to demonstrate the integration of goals and outcomes at the programmatic and institutional levels.

MISSION PILLARS 

Students will be able to:

• Evaluate, integrate and apply disparate sorts of knowledge.
• Create and employ innovative, interdisciplinary approaches to identify, comprehend, and address contemporary problems.

Students will be able to:

• Identify how prior content and concepts have been applied to their experiences and how their experiences will enhance future academic study and personal, professional, and civic development.
• Reflect on their experiences individually and collectively by challenging assumptions and hypotheses about their beliefs, outcomes of their decisions, and actions they have taken, and by sharing their insights.
• Understand and articulate the structure, relationships between, and impacts of the multiple communities and organizations with which they interact.

Students will able to:

• Understand and negotiate the complexity and diversity of cultures in their various contexts (local, national and global).
• Recognize the importance of communicating orally and in writing in more than one language.
• Comprehend the causes and consequences of the disparity in the global distribution of power and resources.

Goal: Critical Inquiry  

Students will be able to:
 

• Think and engage analytically.
• Assess theoretical arguments, data and other evidence.
• Read, analyze and understand written, oral and visual works of art from across the arts and humanities, and from across a range of historical periods and cultures.
• Evaluate scientific evidence and the scientific arguments generated from it.
• Develop competence in quantitative reasoning and in the application of arithmetical, algebraic, geometric and statistical methods in solving problems.
• Recognize that taking risks in academic enquiry fosters creativity and innovation.
• Develop a historical perspective that includes the ability to place events in the context of time and place and acknowledges that historical interpretation is influenced by social, economic, political, and ideological considerations.

Students will be able to:

• Present coherent written and oral arguments with correct grammar and syntax.
• Apply computer technology to depict concepts and data visually.
• Access needed information effectively and efficiently
• Evaluate information and its sources critically, and incorporate primary and secondary sources into essays, reports and other forms of communication.
• Recognize the economic, legal, social and ethical issues surrounding the use of information.

Students will be able to:

• Demonstrate proficiency and depth of knowledge in their major field of study

Students will be able to:
 

• Understand the basic fundamentals of scientific methods that are used to comprehend and explain natural phenomena, and be aware of the place of science knowledge in contemporary culture and history.
• Study and analyze social phenomena.
• Recognize the properties and importance of a healthy environment, and the benefits of environmentally sustainable practices.

Students will be able to:

• Become more aware of their own individual values and ideals, and to think and reflect on the moral and civic dimension of issues, problems and matters of individual and public concern.
• Appreciate the perspectives of others on issues of individual and public concern.

Students will be able to:

• Act and communicate critically about issues, problems and matters of public consequence.
• Use both political and non-political processes to promote community well-being.

Curriculum 

The current General Education curriculum, which is described in the College Catalog, consists of three required courses as well as courses in seven distribution categories. The three required courses-Critical Reading and Writing II, First-Year Seminar, and Readings in Humanities-are also writing-intensive courses. The Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) website provides more information about writing-intensive courses. In addition, the document entitled General Education Goals, Outcomes, and Curriculum Map (DOC) provides general-education goals and outcomes and maps them to the curriculum. 

General Education Curriculum Committee (GECCo) 

GECCo is charged with (1) faculty-driven, holistic oversight of the General Education curriculum and (2) developing and implementing an on-going Gen Ed assessment on a multi-year cycle.

Faculty Assembly created GECCo in fall 2009. GECCo reports to the Faculty Assembly Executive Council and makes any recommendations about curriculum to the Academic Review Committee (ARC).

Each General Education category has a representative on GECCo, chosen by the convening group, school, or faculty-at-large. There are two or more representatives per school. The Library is also represented.

The GECCo Website provides more information about GECCo, in particular its current assessment work. In addition, General Education 2006-9 provides an overview of the development and assessment of the current General Education program from 2006-2009.

New Courses

Faculty members may propose new courses at any time, but in order to be considered for the next academic year, ARC must receive proposals by October 15.
For detailed information about how to propose new courses, consult the ARC Manual.

New Programs

Faculty may propose new programs at any time; the review time varies.

For detailed information about how to propose new programs, consult the ARC Manual.

President Mercer has indicated that all new graduate programs must meet the following criteria:

• They must demonstrate a clear societal need;
• They must build on the existing strengths of the undergraduate programs; and
• They may not drain resources from the undergraduate program.

In addition, new adult and graduate programs must develop detailed enrollment and budget models so that they can serve as independent cost-revenue centers.

In academic year 2011-12, Ramapo College piloted an adult degree-completion program (the social science contract major with a concentration in justice) for returning adults who wished to complete their baccalaureate degrees after having accumulated approximately 64 credits.

In academic year 2012-13, Ramapo College will officially launch this program with the intention of adding new majors when feasible. The current major in social science with a concentration in justice will be offered in sequential four- and seven-week terms in the evening and online.

To learn more about this program, visit the following links:

• SSHS Adult Degree Completion Proposal 
• SSHS Adult Enrollment Model 
• Adult Degree Completion Programs 

Description:  

CASP reports to the Vice Provost for Curriculum and Assessment, who has final authority over the items brought to CASP for consideration. CASP is comprised of two faculty members, a Dean, an Associate Vice President of Student Affairs, the Registrar, and the Associate Director of Academic Advisement. Representatives from EOF, Athletics, OSS, and Counseling and Health Services will serve as ex-officio members. Committee members will serve two-year terms. The Vice Provost for Curriculum and Assessment serves as the chair of CASP.

Charge:  

• The primary role of CASP is to uphold Ramapo College standards for academic progress. At the end of each regular (i.e., Fall and Spring) semester, CASP will hear petitions for Immediate Reinstatement from students who have been placed on Academic Suspension or Academic Dismissal due to poor academic progress.
• A successful petition results in Immediate Reinstatement; the student is placed on Continued Probation for the upcoming regular semester.
• An unsuccessful appeal results in the enforcement of the Academic Suspension.

Secondarily, and as needed, an Academic Integrity subcommittee of CASP will convene to adjudicate academic integrity cases referred from the Office of the Provost. The subcommittee consists of two or three faculty members and the Vice Provost (ex-officio).

For relevant policies in the College Catalog, see the following:

• Academic Standing
• Academic Integrity

The Curriculum Enhancement Plan (CEP), launched in the fall of 2006, sought to increase curricular rigor and to integrate more fully Ramapo College’s four pillars, general education, the school core, and the major. Majors should have reduced to approximately 17 courses, minors should have reduced to 5 courses, and courses now bore four rather than three credits. The Course Enrichment Component (CEC), the hallmark of the shift from three- to four-credit courses, required students to engage in five hours of unsupervised course-related activities out of class to compensate for the difference between 3.6 credits (classroom seat time) and 4 credits (credits earned). To accommodate these curriculum changes, many majors and school cores underwent revision, and the College implemented a new general-education curriculum.

Goals of CEP

• Create a consistently rigorous curriculum
• Create a curriculum that reflects the four mission pillars
• Create a curriculum that integrates general education, school core and major/minor
• Decrease the adjunct rate
• Revise course syllabi to include Course Objectives
• Enhance faculty scholarship
• Redesign majors and courses to reflect the reduced number of courses but increased depth in courses (i.e., the transition to 4-credit courses)
• Reduce faculty reassigned time

Academic Integrity Policy (Link)

 Academic Integrity Reporting Form  (WORD)

Ramapo College values excellence in written communication. To that end, all-college, general-education, and programmatic goals and outcomes reference written communication as an important skill. In addition, the Writing Across the Curriculum program ensures that students have multiple opportunities to develop this skill. Finally, the Center for Reading and Writing supports all students in their quest for excellence in reading and writing.