U. Oklahoma to Cut Senior Capstone Experience and Replace With Mandatory Diversity Class
“department chairs objected to the move primarily on procedural grounds”
The Senior Capstone Experience was a course that pulled together the student’s educational experience and required a project like a paper. They are replacing scholarship with identity politics and making it mandatory.
The College Fix reports:
University of Oklahoma cuts Senior Capstone Experience to make room for mandatory diversity class
On September 2, University of Oklahoma Vice Provost for Faculty Jill Irvine sent an email to her colleagues announcing a change in curriculum: the campus would be adding a mandatory diversity, equity and inclusion course for all students beginning in fall 2021.
At the same time, OU would be eliminating the Senior Capstone Experience, a culminating course in which students complete a large-scale project in their major field, such as a 50-page research paper or a laboratory program.
“The General Education proposed changes will now be submitted to the Oklahoma State Regents of Higher Education (OSRHE) for approval,” wrote Irvine to faculty, adding, “We are hopeful that these changes will be approved at the upcoming meeting.”
But Irvine and other administrators had previously been warned against taking such actions by a cadre of department chairs in disciplines such as history, English, anthropology, philosophy, modern languages, and history of science.
Calling removal of the Capstone course “unacceptable,” the department chairs objected to the move primarily on procedural grounds.
“We understand that the purpose of the proposed changes to the GenEd requirements is to make room for a new required course on diversity, equity, and inclusion,” they wrote.
“We do not object to this goal,” they said, but argued eliminating Capstone is “unnecessary at the present moment and inconsistent with principles of shared government under the present circumstances.”
But the chairs’ pleas were ignored.
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Comments
More groveling and bowing down to the Exalted Minorities.
If I owned a company in this day and age, I would offer apprenticeships, and not hire college grads. Oh, and, veterans.
Well, that makes me happy that we eliminated University of Oklahoma from our short list last year. Excellent National Merit scholarship but I’m glad that my student is somewhere that this crap has yet to take hold. Yet.
They ran out of money to give National Merit full rides a few years ago. Already sliding down the diversity slippery slope, reallocating money to “more urgent” priorities like changing the complexion of the student bodies.
They are removing that capstone because no one wants to grade 50 pages from a senior college student that can’t write a coherent sentence.
I’ve read 10 page papers from seniors that made me wish I was at the dentist’s office for more than a routine exam.
Replacing it with diversity? That’s just a bonus for the woke mob.
It is a lowering of standards. Which will be helpful in boosting their “equitable” graduation rates. Employers will devalue the now-easier degree.
Agree 100%
Diversity is a guise under which incompetents are installed in every position in each public and private organization nationwide.
Not just incompetents. Activists. Everywhere you turn, there’s supposed to be an activist. Non-woke is not supposed to be OK.
Substituting political indoctrination for a senior capstone course is a perfect example of higher education abandoning its principles. It’s time for the concerned citizens of Oklahoma to lobby the Regents to kill this stupid proposal.
I sincerely hope this will be challenged- and quickly.