Faculty supports IDEAs in Action curriculum
In a separate vote, Faculty Council decided to take no further action on the proposed School of Civic Life and Leadership.
At theFeb. 17 meeting of Faculty Council, Chair Mimi Chapman said she wanted to “decouple” two issues in the discussion about a School of Civic Life and Leadership proposed by the University Board of Trustees in aJan. 26 resolution.
One issue is the need to support theCommunication Beyond Carolina coursesrequired for all undergraduates as part of the IDEAs in Action curriculum, “a problem everyone agrees needs to be solved,” she said. The other is the creation of a new degree-granting school.
In support of this separation, the council took the unusual step of dividing a proposed resolution,“On Supporting the Implementation of the IDEAs in Action Curriculum and Disapproving the Creation of a New School at UNC-Chapel Hill”into two separate votes. Council members in person at the auditorium in the Hooker Research Center and online were polled first on their support of the curriculum, which they approved. The second vote also passed, on taking “no further action” on the proposed school “until such a time as a proposal from the faculty towards this school is developed and then properly discussed.”
To provide historical context before the vote on the resolution, faculty and administrators involved in the development of the University’s newest school, the School of Data Science and Society, discussed that process. That school’s development began in 2017-18 and included the widespread participation of more than 100 faculty members on committees as well as feasibility and implementation studies, they said.
