THE PATTERN OF CLUSTER COURSE OFFERINGS

As an important step in our ongoing efforts to improve the methodological and conceptual coherence of the tens of courses that comprise each of the 26 thematically-defined clusters that constitute the "middle" of University Studies, we realized it was important to get our hands on solid data as to the frequency with which the courses that make up each cluster are actually offered. That is, we wanted to determine whether a cluster that is formally composed (for example) of 30 courses actually "delivers" those 30 courses on a regular basis. Actual course offerings would tell us several things. First, it would tell us what subset of any cluster's courses actually "defined" the cluster. Second, it would tell us what range of disciplinary contents and methods students experience (on average) within a cluster. Third, and particularly important for purposes of the curriculum development work necessary to produce greater intellectual coherence amongst the courses comprising any cluster, what subset of courses ought to be the object of focus when clusters are asked to go through a process of rearticulation and reapproval. What we have found is that a number of clusters are comprised of courses that are rarely offered. We also found that cluster courses most frequently offered are from the social sciences, comprising 70% of the cluster courses overall as compared to 25% from the humanities and only 5% from the natural sciences.

Again, the aim in retrieving these data was to get a reasonably precise measure of the operational, “effective” size of UNST clusters. Several things stood out when we examined these data:

(1) With rare exception clusters are effectively much smaller than cluster course listings indicate they are.
(2) A number of clusters are well below 50% of their official size, with four at only a quarter of official size (European Studies, Medieval Studies, Nineteenth Century, and Renaissance Studies).
(3) A significant number of courses (almost 100) have never been offered.
(4) Roughly 400 courses are likely offered too infrequently to be “seen” by students as real options.
(5) The relatively small number of often-repeated courses offer as much availability as hundreds of the least often-repeated courses. Indeed, the 29 courses that are offered at least twice a year or more provide about 25% of the “opportunities” students have to choose a cluster course.

These data then suggest that any plan for reauthorization of clusters take a close look at those clusters that may be “effectively” too small. The data also suggest that clusters which are otherwise “doing well” (that is, are serving the students that have elected them) could be reduced in size, thus making the job of working on cluster coherence an easier one. It is clear that several clusters (American Studies, Family Studies, and Women’s Studies are the most notable examples) may be “defined” by a relatively small number of the total courses that comprise them, being characterized in students’ minds by the courses that are offered so frequently that nearly every student electing the cluster is likely to choose them.