Interim Provost Dr. Michael Marsden discussed the importance of incorporating humanities and social sciences into the core curriculum in his Provost address last week.

“Dr. Marsden in his few months here has caught on to the essential mission of the college, which is that every student going to this school should get a quality education that puts her or him in touch with the humanities,” said Brother Sean Moffett.

“This opens to them ways of looking at, conceiving of and envisioning a whole different way of living,” he said.

The core review team, which is co-chaired by Dr. Tricia Mulligan of the political science department and Dr. Michael Jordan of the philosophy department, is in charge of drafting a new core curriculum.

The objective of the team is to implement a more effective, efficient core curriculum at Iona that will allow students to follow their passions.

Current core requirements, particularly in the Hagan School of Business, limit students’ ability to take multiple electives.

Students in the Hagan School of Business are required to take 57 core credits in addition to their major requirements. This gives little room for business students to take multiple outside electives.

According to the Core Review webpage, the team will look at the possibility of reducing the size of core, such as requiring students to only take one religious studies, philosophy, literature and history course instead of two.

The benefits to this include greater potential for double majors and minors and greater flexibility for students and faculty.

Marsden addressed other academic initiatives in his address.

He introduced the “three 90 percent” plan.

Marsden feels that Iona relies too heavily on adjunct faculty, so his goal is to eventually have 90 percent of classes being taught by full-time faculty members, have 90 percent of students enter Iona and remain and have 90 percent of students ultimately finish their degree in six years.

Iona has what is called a “four-four system,” which means full-time faculty members teach four courses in the fall and four courses in the spring.

Just as students are encouraged to get involved on campus, faculty members are also encouraged to participate on special committees, projects and so on outside of the classroom.

However, in order for faculty members to designate time to be on special committees, they have to take a course remission, which means they would teach one or two classes for the year instead of four.

Years ago, the faculty opted for class remission rather than a stipend.

A stipend means that faculty would get paid extra for doing extra, but they would keep the same four-four workload.

The problem with course remission, according to Marsden, is that it takes the more experienced faculty members out of the classroom, because ultimately, these are the preferred candidates to spearhead the committees and special projects.

“We want our best teachers in the classroom,” said Marsden.

Marsden opened his address by playing a video that explains how humanities are diminishing in the American education system.

The video is narrated by notable humanities professionals, some including documentary filmmaker Ken Burns, cellist Yo-Yo Ma and New York Times journalist David Brooks.

Norman Augustine, retired Chairman & CEO of Lockheed Martin Corporation, spoke in the video, saying the humanities are badly underfunded, and as a result, high school seniors and college graduates have such terrible misconceptions of what is going on in the world.

“If we never talk about great events of the past, I think the younger generation will have not only missed something important, but they are going to address the future with half a deck, if you will,” said Augustine in the video.

“A lot of people think that humanities are dispensable,” said actor John Lithgow. “But if you take that away from children, than you’re taking away one half of their essential development.”

The video defines humanities as disciplines of memory and imagination, and social sciences are defined as empirical disciplines of behavioral, interpersonal and organizational processes.

Iona offers courses like religious studies, philosophy, literature and history as humanities, and political science, psychology and sociology as social sciences.

Some faculty members fear that reducing specific humanities courses would cut down the rich tradition of humanities, which is what Iona is all about.

Marsden said that humanities should be covered in every course taught at Iona College.