Unfolding Understandings: A History of the Alverno Learning Process

 

8 Abilities Overview

 

Alverno’s curriculum is based on eight core abilities that  every student must acquire for graduation from Alverno.  The mastery of the eight abilities is not only essential to becoming a successful student at Alverno, but the abilities become central to an individual’s success as they move beyond the classroom and school.

The eight areas of what was then called "competence" first outlined in Alverno’s  early Competence-Based Learning or CBL program were: effective communication; analytical capability; problem-solving ability; facility in forming value judgments; effective social interaction; understanding of individual/environment relationships; understanding the contemporary world; and educated responsiveness to the arts and humanities.

As the curriculum has evolved over the past forty plus years, the identification of Alverno’s abilities has been honed and refined. Below, is a page from the May 1992 issue of  Alverno Magazine which highlights the Alverno abilities as they were known at that time.

Below is a link to a printable version of this page. [PDF]

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History

Early in the 1970-1971 school year, then president, Sister Joel Read, challenged the faculty with five critical questions:

• What kinds of questions are being asked by professionals in your field?
• What are you teaching that is so important that students can't afford to miss it?
• If we expressed general education requirements in terms of expected outcomes what would your department contribute?
• How do you see your department in relation to other disciplines?
• For professional departments such as nursing or education: in what way are courses in your department integrated into the liberal arts?

These questions are summarized in more detail in the memo (below) sent to faculty from then Academic Dean, Sister Bernarda Handrup:

Here is a link to a printable PDF copy of the memo.

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For the rest of that year, faculty met regularly in order to hear each department explain and explore its contribution to undergraduate education. As a result of these sessions came a major question, "What are the outcomes for the student, rather than the input by the faculty?" This became the focus for the year-end faculty institute. As a result of the discussions at that faculty institute, four broad outcomes were defined: communication, valuing, problem solving, and involvement. The curriculum committee was charged in the following year with breaking these broad outcomes into a more detailed system. An early working document which started with these four broad outcomes and fleshed them out was Liberal Learning in a Management Context. A copy of this document is available in the Alverno College Archives.

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By the third year, an expanded list of "competences," now known as "abilities" was given to an academic task force for shaping into a curriculum. Here is a photo of members of the Academic Task Force with the then Academic Dean, Sister Bernarda Handrup.

Back Row Left to Right: Sister Georgine Loacker, Sister Austin Doherty, Jack Cooper. Front Row Left to Right: Brian Nedwek, Sister Bernarda Handrup

 

At the same time, one section of a required first year course in each discipline was used as a laboratory for developing the means to teach and assess selected abilities. The task force's January 1973 report further broke down each of the eight abilities into six developmental levels. The curriculum was implemented in Fall 1973.