Letter to the editor

Eric Hill’s opinion editorial “It’s About Time California Students Protest Tuition Hikes” is an interesting call to action to other students. Unfortunately, he did not do critical background work on some of the details in his column. He asks, what is “Focused Inquiry,” and then answers by saying “it’s a 1-credit excuse of a course.” Clearly Mr. Hill did not take Focused Inquiry, a six credit two semester sequence required since fall 2007 as part of our new Core Curriculum.

Mr. Hill seems unaware that VCU, a major research university, has chosen to step beyond almost all other research universities and deliver something very special to all its students. Focused Inquiry is a small class with a maximum enrollment of 22 students that targets five skill areas necessary for successful college students. Writing and oral communication, critical thinking, collaborative work, information literacy, and ethical reasoning are the foundations of the course which Mr. Hill says have no relevancy to the rest of a college career. I can only surmise that Mr. Hill’s vehement complaint has confused Focused Inquiry with a different course or experience.

Our Core Curriculum also includes UNIV200 (formerly English 200) which is again a small enrollment class of 25 targeting research writing in the upper division. So, while we have been struggling with budget cuts every year for the last three years (over 65 million dollars), Virginia Commonwealth University has chosen to offer ALL its students three courses with small enrollments taught by full time faculty (not part time faculty or graduate students as noted in the editorial). We are the envy of large universities throughout the country with regard to the resources we have pumped into undergraduate education over the last three years.

These are hard and frustrating times for students, faculty, and administrators alike. For those of us who have dedicated our lives to higher education the challenge to be creative and responsive to the needs of our students are paramount in our work each and every day. Focused Inquiry and the Core Curriculum are an adventure in educational change and exploration. It is a work in progress, but it has been a resounding success as measured by both retention (now over 84%) and the academic success of our past two first year classes. Over 90% of our first year students are in good academic standing after their first semester; this is the highest it has ever been in our 40 year history. There are certainly areas in which we need to move resources, but this is one area where the President and the Provost have been most generous. The result has been in the interests of our students and timely graduation rates, which are also the highest they have ever been.

Dr. Joseph Marolla, Vice Provost for Instruction and Dean of University College