Future UT-Austin students would have fewer classes to choose from to meet graduation requirements under a proposal university leaders presented Thursday.<\/p>\n
The plan to remake the flagship campus\u2019 core curriculum replaces the sprawling menu of classes students can now take to meet core requirements with a more structured core curriculum organized around the humanities, social sciences and science, technology, engineering and math. <\/p>\n
But how the overhaul connects to UT-Austin\u2019s new Center for the Humanities remains unclear.<\/p>\n
A report<\/a> from a 22-member faculty task force appointed by UT-Austin President Jim Davis proposes 12 requirements across the core areas, compared with the current 10.<\/p>\n Davis described the existing core to the University of Texas System regents as a \u201chaphazard grab bag of classes,\u201d pointing to a course on the history of college football as an example of a specialized class that may be a worthwhile elective but, in his view, should not to fulfill half of a student\u2019s U.S. history requirement. <\/p>\n UT students would have to take courses focused on Western civilization, great questions of human life, the principles of American politics, world politics and cultures, great ideas in science and computer science and artificial intelligence, according to the proposal.<\/p>\n Recommendations include creating a \u201cTexas 40: Great Thinkers\u201d list for courses on great questions of human life and three separate 40-author lists for British, American and world literature courses. Great questions courses would have to draw at least two-thirds of their content from the thinkers list.<\/p>\n Faculty members would have a chance to shape their own courses with their creativity and expertise, one of the taskforce members, Richard Reddick, told The Texas Tribune.<\/p>\n \u201cAcademic freedom is a big piece of this,\u201d Reddick said. \u201cI can\u2019t imagine telling our faculty colleagues, \u2018Here\u2019s your syllabus, teach this.\u2019 It\u2019s not going to work.\u201d <\/p>\n The task force recommends students complete four of the proposed requirements at UT-Austin, rather than accepting transfer or dual-credit coursework from elsewhere. That would include the great questions of human life, principles of American politics, great ideas in science, and computer science and artificial intelligence.<\/p>\n The new requirements would take 36 credit hours, down from the current 42. That would leave students six additional hours for electives, courses in their major or other classes. <\/p>\n Under the proposal, specialized classes not selected for the new core would remain available as electives, but university leaders acknowledged their future could depend on whether enough students enroll.<\/p>\n The taskforce also recommended UT-Austin offer a small-class option for every core requirement over time, prioritize in-person teaching and limit fully online core classes.<\/p>\n University officials plan to begin offering new courses in fall 2027 and make the redesigned core mandatory for a new incoming class in fall 2028. The taskforce has not yet identified which courses would qualify. Its report recommends three faculty-led committees decide what proposals meet the new standards.<\/p>\n Earlier in the meeting, three UT-Austin students criticized Davis and regents for what they described as a lack of transparency and meaningful student and faculty input into recent academic changes. <\/p>\n They pointed to the consolidation of gender and ethnic studies; plans to move biology operations to make room for the School of Civic Leadership; and the closure of the Physics, Mathematics and Astronomy Library. <\/p>\n \u201cYou have shown how little you regard the wants and needs of students, staff and professors by bulldozing prominent institutions without allowing feedback from the people they affect the most,\u201d said Elise James, a government major who is a member of the Students for a Democratic Society.<\/p>\n University officials said the review included student input. Reddick, a professor of higher education leadership and policy in the College of Education, and Kristin Patterson, an associate professor of instruction in biology and undergraduate studies in the College of Natural Science, served on the core-curriculum task force.<\/p>\n Patterson and Reddick told the Tribune that the group met weekly for an hour and a half and heard from students and faculty across campus as well as from outside experts. Students generally praised the classes they had taken but found the current core difficult to navigate, the professors said. <\/p>\n Under the proposal, each requirement could be fulfilled by multiple courses, and faculty members from all departments would be invited to develop them. <\/p>\n UT-Austin officials are reviewing the courses all undergraduates must take after a 2025 state law<\/a> required public university governing boards to certify that those courses prepare students for civic and professional life and support workforce preparation. <\/p>\n The law also requires boards to consider the courses\u2019 potential cost and effect on students\u2019 time to degree. The boards must complete their first review by Jan. 1 and repeat it at least once every five years.<\/p>\n The regents did not vote on UT-Austin\u2019s proposed changes. Davis said he would return to the board for approval as officials develop and staff the new courses.<\/p>\n Last week, the Texas State University System regents were the first to act under the new law, approving revised core-course lists for its seven institutions. At Texas State University in San Marcos, the review changed the learning outcomes for 115 courses to focus on what students should be able to do after taking them \u2014 rather than particular attitudes, beliefs or values \u2014 and removed eight Honors courses that were no longer taught.<\/p>\n The law did more than require universities to review their core curriculums. At UT-Austin, it also replaced the Faculty Council, an elected body that advised university leaders on curriculum and other matters, with faculty advisory groups appointed by the president, including the core-curriculum task force.<\/p>\n But the push to reshape what UT-Austin students learn predates last year\u2019s law. <\/p>\n Republican state leaders have long argued that Texas\u2019 public universities are too liberal or too focused on ideas that do not prepare students for careers. <\/p>\n In 2021, lawmakers gave UT-Austin $6 million to create the Civitas Institute, a think tank focused on individual liberty, limited government, private enterprise and free markets. Two years later, UT regents created the School of Civic Leadership<\/a> to house the institute before lawmakers could vote on a bill that would have required the university to do so<\/a>.<\/p>\n The school and the institute had or were set to have 42 tenured or tenure-track faculty members as of Aug. 3, according to records obtained by the Tribune, nearly triple the 15 positions lawmakers proposed requiring. Its major, Civics Honors, enrolled 103 students when it began last fall<\/a>.<\/p>\n As UT-Austin built up the School of Civic Leadership, it accelerated plans to consolidate seven College of Liberal Arts departments<\/a>, including African and African Diaspora Studies, American Studies, Mexican American and Latino Studies and Women\u2019s, Gender and Sexuality Studies, into two new departments by fall 2026. <\/p>\n Davis said the restructuring followed a review that found wide disparities in student-to-faculty ratios across the college.<\/p>\n Lauren Gutterman, whose appointment as chair of American Studies ends Saturday, said she expects to become an associate professor in the new Department of Social and Cultural Analysis.<\/p>\n Gutterman said she was not aware of any faculty members in the consolidated units losing their jobs, though she added that some staff members were fired or reassigned. She worries university leaders will not replace professors who leave, retire or receive outside offers.<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re not going to kind of fire us wholesale, but find ways of chipping away at the faculty within these units,\u201d Gutterman said.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Davis and university leaders have said little publicly about the Center for Humanities<\/a>, whose website notes it will focus on teaching and research tied to the core curriculum. <\/p>\n Davis did not answer questions after the regents\u2019 meeting. UT spokesperson Mike Rosen did not respond to questions about who created, approved or funded the center or how it will fit alongside the existing Humanities Institute<\/a>, which was established in 2001 to support humanities research.<\/p>\n The Austin American-Statesman first reported the center<\/a> this month. The center\u2019s website was created July 8, according to its underlying code. Eight of the 11 faculty members listed on the website work at the Civitas Institute while five previously worked at the University of Florida\u2019s Hamilton School for Classical and Civic Education, a state-backed program that later became a college<\/a>. Neither Center for Humanities Director Robert Ingram nor Humanities Institute Director Tanya Clement responded to a request for comment.<\/p>\n Patterson and Reddick said the core-curriculum task force\u2019s work is complete. They did not know about the Center for Humanities or what role, if any, it will play in the core-curriculum overhaul, the professors said. The task force\u2019s written report lists both Ingram and Jill Ingram, a professor of humanities at the Center, as members.<\/p>\n Before the 2025 law, a major academic initiative \u2014 such as a new center \u2014 would generally have been developed with faculty input and presented to the Faculty Council for discussion and a vote before moving to university leaders and regents, said Liliana Garces, a professor in the UT-Austin\u2019s College of Education.<\/p>\n \u201cI was very surprised, to say the least, to learn about the center from a news article,\u201d Garces said.<\/p>\n At Thursday\u2019s meeting, regents praised Davis\u2019 core-curriculum proposal and his leadership. <\/p>\n Board Chair Kevin P. Eltife said UT-Austin had \u201clacked that in the past.\u201d Board Vice Chair Janiece Longoria said Davis was \u201cproving that we\u2019re capable of doing hard things\u201d by replacing a core that had grown \u201clike an amoeba, way out of control.\u201d<\/p>\n The Texas Tribune partners with Open Campus on higher education coverage.<\/p>\n Disclosure: Open Campus, Texas State University and The University of Texas System have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in The Texas Tribune\u2019s journalism. Find a complete\u00a0list of them here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Future UT-Austin students would have fewer classes to choose from to meet graduation requirements under a proposal university…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":406088,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,134,133,11538,114097,293,2688,4102,2691,2877],"class_list":["post-406087","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-austin","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news","tag-state-agencies","tag-texas-higher-education","tag-texas-legislature","tag-texas-state-university-system","tag-university-of-texas-board-of-regents","tag-university-of-texas-system","tag-university-of-texas-austin"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406087","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=406087"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406087\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/406088"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=406087"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=406087"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=406087"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}