Linda J. Borish, Mitch Kachun, and Cheryl Lyon-Jenness

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Linda J. Borish, Mitch Kachun, and Cheryl Lyon-Jenness | Rethinking a Curricular "Muddle in the Middle": Revising the Undergraduate History Major at Western Michigan University | The Journal of American History, 95.4 | The History Cooperative

Rethinking a Curricular "Muddle in the Middle": Revising the Undergraduate History Major at Western Michigan University

When the Department of History at Western Michigan University (WMU), along with eight other institutions, participated in the Association of American Colleges/American Historical Association (AAC/AHA) initiative entitled Liberal Learning and the History Major in the early 1990s, the department was poised for change.¹ WMU was the largest institution in the AAC/AHA project, and its curricular issues were varied and complex. The numbers of students in the department's three undergraduate programs—secondary education, public history, and liberal education—had been steadily increasing for several years, and in 1992 the department added a Ph.D. program to its well-established M.A. graduate offerings. New faculty, in turn, enhanced the department's capacity to diversify course offerings into areas such as material culture studies, Native American history, and African American history. New and existing faculty alike were eager to create a curricular framework that included new historical perspectives and sources.	1
As faculty grappled with the aac mandate to create a coherent connection among introductory-, intermediate-, and advanced-level history courses in the undergraduate curriculum, the department focused on three strategies. We began with an intellectual framework for the revisions, using a set of courses corresponding to introductory, intermediate, and advanced skill levels. Those courses included the introductory-level Historians in the Modern World (designated History 1900), which was a new three-credit gateway course (replacing a one-credit version of the class) designed to introduce history as a discipline, cultivate appropriate research and writing skills, and offer an overview of professional options for historians. The Study of History (History 3900) was revised to complement Historians in the Modern World by focusing on historiography and by further honing research and writing skills at the intermediate level. Options for capstone experiences included a teaching methods course for students in the secondary education curriculum; a senior seminar or senior thesis for liberal education students; and a required internship for public history majors.² In addition to those foundation courses designed to frame the student's academic progress, an array of new classes ranging from the Harlem Renaissance to Women in European History encouraged students to develop diverse historical perspectives. Finally, to help students construct a coherent academic program, the department instituted an advising system in which undergraduate history majors and minors were assigned faculty mentors. Together, professor and student were expected to select appropriate curricular choices and, ideally, discuss professional options, internships, research opportunities, and other matters that would enhance student engagement with the department, faculty colleagues, and the discipline of history.	2
Although the history faculty enthusiastically endorsed and implemented the thoughtful revisions of the early 1990s, the need to scrutinize and adjust the department's curriculum persisted. By the early 2000s, growth in the numbers of history majors and minors; concerns about student skill levels and content knowledge; assessment expectations at the university and state levels; and the faculty's experience with implementing the reforms all pointed to ongoing curricular challenges.	. . .

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