Curriculums Change at Bennett College
Bennett College Departments keep up with societal and technological changes by changing their curriculums. The Journalism and Media Studies and the Computer Science departments recently updated their curriculums in an effort to make sure their students could compete for jobs in an ever-changing job market.
The Computer Science department added a new concentration: Computer Information Technology. Like computer applications, this is a combination of computer science and information systems.
“As technology changes, content is always in evaluation,” says Byong Lee, chair of the Mathematics and Computer Science department.
The department reconstructed the content of some courses including numerical method and programming classes.
“The program class sequence was a 2 semester long course, but now it is broken into 3 semesters,” says Lee.
This change took place to help students be more successful, and not get overwhelmed by the influx of new information and technologies. Lee says students need more lab time, so the credit hours also increased from 3 to 4 credits.
Changes to the Computer Science department were implemented in the fall 2009 academic semester. Many students, who were freshwomen or sophomores when the new curriculum was updated, have just begun to take core classes.
When asked if the new curriculum has been more effective, Lee says it’s too early to tell. “We are in a transition period,” she says.
Lee says some students have changed their focus from computer science to information technology because of the heavy math background with computer science.
“Plus, it’s very time consuming,” she adds. With this major students concentrate on how to use computer software for business and applied areas.
“There has been an increase in computer science majors,” says Lee. There are about 14 majors in the department, 7 of whom are freshwomen.
“I think more students are realizing math is the foundation of any area nowadays,” she says.
Lee discloses the curriculum committee is trying to raise the standard at Bennett. Next, they plan to revise Math 110,120, and 130 courses to improve student’s math skills.
Another fast- paced field is journalism.
Yvonne Welbon, chair of the Journalism and Media Studies department, looked at the curriculums at top journalism programs across the country to update offered courses.
“Our goal is that our graduates will have the skills to do whatever they want in the new journalism world,” says Welbon.
Before the changes, JMS majors could focus in print reporting, public relations, production, and/ or media sales and marketing. Now, JMS majors will be required to learn all fields.
“We are also meeting now about new minors, in science and health reporting and strategic communications,” says Welbon.
Welbon also recognized the new need for social media specialists in the industry. She now requires her Senior Portfolio class to publicize campus events and deliver news through social media websites.
“Within the last few years, social media has challenged us to be more creative in how we receive and deliver the news. Youtube, Facebook, and Twitter are now apart of our everyday lives as journalists,” says Carmen Smith, senior Journalism and Media Studies major from Greenwood, S.C.
“News has changed because people always tell me how they found out news via twitter,” says Smith.
The new JMS curriculum was implemented in the fall semester of 2010. It took about a year to finalize, however the process of adding new relevant courses is ongoing.
“With JMS electives, this allows us to create courses for new classes that come along,” says Welbon.
Two years from now, the department is hoping to add web development and computer coding to its requirements.
Welbon attended a New Curriculum for a New Journalism conference at Poynter in Jan. 2010. Poynter is an institute dedicated to teaching and inspiring journalist and media leaders.
Esther Terry, provost and vice president of Academic Affairs, says the department faculty makes up their individual curriculum based on their expertise, and what they believe will help students succeed once they graduate.
“This is apart of the operation of a college,” she says.
“It moves as fast as new information and technology. You do not want a stagnant curriculum. The information today is not what someone will be studying two years from now.”
As fast as curriculums change, the college must still honor the course catalog the students entered in under.
Within the journalism department sophomores had a choice to begin core courses under the new or old track.
Sophomore class president and JMS major, Delrisha White chose to study the newest curriculum.
“I wanted to be versatile in everything before I graduate, plus studying one thing would bore me.”
The progress to change a department’s curriculum is time consuming. The department faculty must research and develop the changes. Then the changes are sent through a number of voting bodies to offer critiques and suggestions. The final version is then presented to the academic council for a vote. If the proposed curriculum passes the council, it is then sent to the academic provost’s office for final approval.
“Students should see the care faculty take in changing curriculums,” says Terry.
“Changes in emphasis and focus mean folks are doing their jobs.”
By: Myeisha Essex
As a Computer Science major at Bennett College, I’m excited that the Computer Science department restructed the content of the programming classes to allow students to gain the skills to compete for great high salary technical jobs. I strongly encourage that the CS department continue to evaluate the curriculum to determine areas for improvement to include HOT technical topics (e.g., Cloud Computing and Cyber Security) in order to develop well rounded CS students.