Students to see new mission-focused courses this fall

After going in to register for next year’s classes, students may have noticed something a little different. It has been decided that the VUSM 200 and 300 courses are to be refocused and revamped to fit current issues in the world. Jackie Herbers, Core Curriculum Director at Viterbo, answered questions about these changes. 

What is the change that is occurring? 

“In January 2022, faculty voted to eliminate the generic version of VUSM 300 and replace it with a variety of courses that fall into a new category: social justice and equity (SJE). Those classes will be specific and offered within departments and still fulfill the required three credits for the 300-level mission seminar.” 

What brought about the change? 

“All programs go through a program review and the core curriculum goes through it, too. The core director at the time submitted the materials pertaining to the core and a peer committee looked at the core curriculum and gave recommendations on how to make it better. As part of the review process, the program review committee suggested looking at reviewing, revising, or even condensing the 200/300 level seminars. The university started a new strategic plan and as part of that plan they wanted to infuse more SJE-focused curriculum. The faculty wanted more SJE-focused courses and all things came together. Last fall I organized some working groups to look at the mission seminars to make improvements while at the same time trying to meet goals for a better focus on SJE. The result of that is completely revising VUSM 200 and strengthening that class and having some brand new things in the fall. VUSM 300 will move from serving the common good to offering more specific classes in each discipline so each student can see how each field looks at SJE.”  

How will this affect students and staff in registration? 

“Credits do not go away. Students will still need to take three credits in the category of SJE, still approved in the curriculum tagged in the catalog as SJE. The classes no longer have VUSM prefixes; they will have different prefixes for each field. We had a number of departments put forth courses to get approved for the fall. ECAS and Music and Sociology and Psychology and History had great submissions, so when students are looking for classes in the catalog look for the SJE Designation.”