Miami Plan Redesign

The Miami community is currently engaged in a university-wide conversation to examine its goals for liberal education and explore new models for its liberal education curriculum.  To become involved in this conversation, visit the Miami Plan Redesign web site. To stay updated on the work of the task force charged with proposing a new Miami Plan and updated on other forums related to the redesign project, join the libedmeans@listserv.muohio.edu listserv and/or “Like” our Miami Plan Redesign Facebook page. 

If you have any comments or questions about this effort, please contact John Tassoni, University Director of Liberal Education, at tassonjp@muohio.edu.

How to contribute: Miami Plan Redesign Task Force and web site

A task force of elected and appointed student, staff, and faculty members are currently working on ideas for a new Miami Plan. The team will be exploring various goals, learning outcomes, and designs for the new liberal education curriculum and will be bringing ideas back to the Miami community for feedback and for more ideas. Use the Miami Plan Redesign website to learn about the background of this project, updates on the process, and opportunities for you to remain involved.

Miami Plan Redesign web site
Log in using your Miami UniqueID and password. 

Miami Plan Redesign Task Force members

Teresa Barlage is the Associate Director of Residence Life.  Representing Student Affairs, she coordinates the residential living-learning communities and oversees First Year Academic Advising.

Mary Kupiec Cayton is Professor of History.  One of the four faculty members elected to this Task Force, she has extensive experience working on targeted curriculum issues in the Western College Program, the University Honors Program, the American Studies Program, the Department of History, and the College of Arts and Science, as well on Liberal Education and College of Arts and Science Task Forces.  A former chair of the Department of History, she currently serves as a member of the Executive Committee of University Senate.  She has presented or chaired panels on various curriculum issues at three different meetings of the Association of American Colleges and Universities.

Madelyn Detloff has been the Director of the Women’s Studies Program (now the Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program) at Miami since 2008.  One of this Task Force’s four elected members, she is a member of Miami’s AACU “Shared Futures: General Education for a Global Century” team, University Senate, Graduate Council, Council on Diversity and Inclusion, and Chair of the LGBTQ Advisory Committee.  An associate professor of English and WGS and Miami faculty member since 2002, she has published on pedagogy in two MLA “Approaches to Teaching” volumes, has co-authored an article on the Community of Practice for Engaged Learning in Learning Communities Journal,  and has an essay on Women’s Studies, the Humanities, and the “New Normal” forthcoming in Literature Compass.  She teaches courses in Gender and Sexuality Studies, Literature, Writing, Cultural Studies and Theory, and Literary Modernism from the 100 to the 700 levels at Miami.

Peg Faimon is currently Professor and Chair of the Department of Art and formerly Co-Director of Miami’s Armstrong Institute for Interactive Media Studies.  Representing the School of Creative Arts, Peg has been involved with interdisciplinary and liberal arts education since her arrival at Miami. She has taught three university capstones, has authored and taught in two thematic sequences, and two foundation courses. She has also been highly involved with developing interdisciplinary education at Miami through her work with AIMS, interdisciplinary courses such as Highwire, and chairing the Interdisciplinary Enhancement Committee. She is currently a member of the new Interdisciplinary Advisory Council.

Jennifer Kinney is a Professor of Gerontology in the Department of Sociology and Gerontology, and she represents the College of Arts and Science on the Task Force. Since coming to Miami in 1998, she has been extensively involved in curriculum development and revision, served as Chief Departmental Advisor for gerontology, been a member of Liberal Education Council and its appeals committee, and served on the Summer Reading Program Committee (which she currently co-chairs).  She teaches courses at the undergraduate, masters and doctoral level in addition to her research responsibilities.

Jim Kiper is Chair of the Department of Computer Science and Software Engineering and Professor in that same department.  Representing SEAS on this Task Force, Jim has been involved in various leadership roles at Miami University. He has served many years on the University Senate where he will serve as chair of the Executive Committee for the 2012-13 school year.  He serves on the Information Technology Strategic Advisory Council that is chaired by the university provost.  Jim has been involved in curricular issues at the department level and at the university level.  He helped in several revisions to the CSE Department’s curriculum including the new software engineering major. He was the primary author of a successful proposal to create an MS degree in Computational Science and Engineering.  At the university level, he served from several years on the university’s Liberal Education Council, served as chair of the University Courses and Curriculum Committee, and as chair of an ad hoc committee to revise the course approval process that helped move the university toward the use of student learning objectives in course specification and assessment.  He served on the Top Twenty-Five committee that reviewed proposals to revise and improve the pedagogy of the 25 courses with the largest enrollment. He is also interested in the scholarship of teaching and learning. In this area, he has published articles with colleagues at Miami University about quantitative literacy across the curriculum.

Mary McDonald is professor in the Department of Kinesiology and Health and is representing Education, Health and Society (EHS) with the Miami Plan redesign process. Her background includes service on several university committees including the Liberal Education Council. She also has worked across the university divisions in other ways as an affiliate faculty member in Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies, the Western Program, and American Studies.

Nick Miller is a junior from Toledo, Ohio.  He serves as the Secretary for Academic Affairs and, on the Task Force, represents the Associated Student Government. He is majoring in Social Studies Education with a minor in History and Political Science, and his interest in the field of education and securing a better future for Miami students motivates his presence on this Task Force.

W. Rocky Newman, a professor of supply chain management at Miami University since 1987, currently coordinates the Farmer School of Business’s highly ranked Supply Chain Management Program. Rocky teaches in the areas of operations management, supply chain management, and manufacturing strategy.  His research interests include manufacturing strategy, organizational issues in supply chain management as well as supply chain management strategy.  He has authored several popular textbooks in the field of Supply Chain Management and, while at Miami, has served on the University Graduate Council (two terms), University Senate (two terms), University Fiscal Priorities and Budget Planning committee (four terms). He has served on a variety of divisional committees including the Undergraduate Studies, Liberal Education, Research, Teaching, and Careers committees. He developed and directed the FSB’s Summer Business Institute for 8 years as a thematic sequence.

Glenn Platt is Director of Interactive Media Studies and a Professor of Marketing. He is one of the four faculty-elected representatives on the committee. He has served extensively on Liberal Education Council and University Senate as well the IT Strategic Advisory Committee. He has also won a number of teaching awards, including the Knox Award. He has presented in a variety academic and professional venues on the future of higher education curriculum and has provided advice/consulting for other universities about managing current changes in Higher Ed. He is also uncomfortable writing about himself in the third person.

John Tassoni is Professor of English and, since July 2009, University Director of Liberal Education.  Formally Director of College Composition, Co-Coordinator of the Center for Teaching and Learning at the Middletown campus, and winner of the College’s Distinguished Educator Award, John has designed curricula for the Top 25 Project and organized multiple campus events related to issues of access and democratic empowerment in higher education.  Aside from chairing this Task Force, he is leading the university’s Shared Futures Project in conjunction with the Association of American Colleges and Universities to help Miami draft a mission statement and set of shared learning outcomes for its various global learning efforts.

Rich Taylor is a professor in Chemistry and Biochemistry.  A faculty member at Miami for 33 years, he has served on the liberal education council and its appeals board and is finishing terms on the ID committee and the advisory committee to the Howe Center for Writing Excellence.  He has been active in undergraduate and graduate teaching and research activities at all levels, from first-year to doctoral.  One of the four faculty members elected to serve on this Task Force, he has received the College Distinguished Educator Award and has active consultancies with area businesses.

Beth Dietz-Uhler, Professor of Psychology and Assessment Associate for CELTUA, has been at Miami University since 1994 and is representing the regional campuses.  She has experience in the areas of assessment, the use of technology in teaching and learning, and the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning.

The Liberal Education Council will work closely with the task force to facilitate this university-wide dialogue.

Miami Plan Redesign tentative timeline

• January 2012: Senate Endorses Principles for Redesign
• February 2012: Revised Process Proposed to Senate
• February – March 2012: Open Forums; Website set up to house resources, ideas, and feedback from university community
• March — April 2012: Forums on Liberal Education; task force members selected to begin work in summer 2012
• Summer 2012: Task Force reviews university-wide conversation, drafts consensus principles for discussion
• August 2012: Task Force begins regular meetings, explores new models along with continued university-wide discussion
• Late Fall/Early Spring: Alternative liberal education models developed and discussed
• March 2013: Draft of new lead model posted and discussed
• May 2013: Plans drafted for approval and implementation of new lead model submitted

Note: The above timeline is tentative.  The university-wide dialogue may prompt revisions to this timeline.  Regardless of any changes in the timeline, the process must remain be open, transparent, and inclusive.

A full description of the process can be downloaded as a pdf.

Through spring 2012, the university community will explore the learning goals upon which to base our liberal education curriculum and consider possibilities for new curriculum models that reflect and inform the national conversation on liberal education. Open, transparent, and inclusive, the conversation will comprise multiple university assemblies, engage national leaders, alumni groups, and Miami community members will be able to exchange ideas facilitated by a LEC-sponsored website. In addition to the on-going website dialogue, and the broader national engagement, university forums comprised of individuals and groups will contribute their vision for liberal education at Miami.

During this period, a task force comprised of faculty members from each division, student representatives, student affairs representative, and four university-wide elected faculty elected will draw on ideas posted on the LEC website, presented by forums, on models developed at other colleges and universities, and on current scholarship and existing data to articulate Miami’s goals for liberal education. Beginning fall 2012 through spring 2013, the task force aim is to discuss a menu of curriculum designs that the Miami community has identified to meet essential learning aims. The Task force is then charged to draft alternative models to the current Miami Plan.

Task force members will foster diverse perspectives to ensure that each of their proposed plans represents the interests of different cognate areas and divisions on campus as well as the diverse needs of the Miami student population. In spring 2013, with input from the University community and all participants, the task force will develop one final proposal to be discussed through a university-wide dialogue. Upon further revisions, a plan will be drafted for approval and implementation to be submitted by May 2013.