ubertuber

Here's where I see issues things that seem like they aren't very well thought out. This is structural stuff about the department, but I think it leads to predictable reactions from students (who like to react to things) and to predictable criticisms to which UD has a hard time refuting.

Curricular vs. Programming Models

The difference is in the type of educational setting. Programming is generally voluntary, which means that you have to couch your education inside something that is attractive, like food, games, or social events. Curricular modals are generally mandatory in some way (usually by providing a range of things to choose from and requiring completion of a set of them), and typically features lectures, seminars, etc. Most places use a programming model or a mixed model. The mixed model is what I'm most familiar with. There is a great reason that the curricular model is not widely used by itself - the people who work in residence life and student affairs aren't education professionals - they're administrators in an educational environment. Residence Hall Directors aren't really trained to understand how to design and implement a curriculum, much less actually teach the content. They just aren't experts on the subject matter. So what you typically do (what I did when I was in this position) is go out and find a bunch of experts to come in and talk about packaged topics - the overall composition of the package of topics makes the content of your curriculum and you somehow induce students to go to an appropriate variety of these things. Going out and getting experts was easy for me because I had the resume carrot - people wanted to be able to say that they had presented or taught something at Juilliard. Because of this, I was able to get people from places like the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and do 75+ seminars for less than $2k. Schools without that prestige draw have to do it the old-fashioned way, which is buy experts' time. That's expensive. The UD program is problematic from the get-go because they are designing, implementing, and teaching a program with 100% in-house talent. That's not the most solid ground upon which to build something that may be controversial.


Exposure vs. Indoctrination

There's a difference between exposing students to ideas and indoctrinating them. That difference is especially acute with college-age people because they are very prickly, moderately activist about their laziness, and quick to become self-righteous. The UD program is mostly on the side of exposure, but there are a few places in which they cross the line - and here I'm only talking about the design on paper, not the implementation, which itself can invite more trouble. It is one thing to expose people to ideas of social justice, inequity, and even things like sustainability. I mean, those are relatively slam-dunk issues in our society... However, it's another thing to require them to espouse a certain package of beliefs as a condition of the curriculum. Put it this way - an academic class about Christianity can require you to recount beliefs for a test, but they can't really make you go out and get baptized. Requiring students to say certain things, participate in particular projects (without having alternatives or justification), and reveal personal information crosses the line.


Implementation

This is the real doozy, and it's the place where I have to wonder WTF the UD residence life folks were thinking. They went out and designed a very extensive program. Formally speaking, they did their homework. There is a pretty good amount of material supporting how and what they were planning to do. HOWEVER... They aren't really staffed to accomplish the things they wanted to accomplish. The biggest problem is that they were using their RAs, who are students, to accomplish their indoctrination. This is problematic in and of itself, because getting a bunch of student staff members on the same page and performing at an adequate level is like herding cats. It's much worse when you're really talking about requiring change in personal views. The RAs are not trained to teach, they aren't experienced in these types of interactions, and frankly, they don't have any authority with the content. The lunacy here is that a large part of the program was being enacted through one-on-one meetings, essentially interviews. So you require students to meet with someone who is untrained, unqualified, and inexperienced - in essence their peer - and discuss extremely personal information. Information that skirts topics which, in actuality, you can't pry into - like sexual identity, etc. That's a recipe for disaster. No matter how good your training of your student staff is, this is going to produce problems - and the student staff, in that they are acting in the fulfillment of their job descriptions represent UD to the students, definitively. So you end up with a situation in which, in a situation explicitly described as "curricular" and "outcome based", UD asks someone when they discovered their sexual identity. It's not really rocket science to figure out how people will react to this.

There's more to the situation, and I'm still reading through the documents. However, I don't really think it is possible to characterize the whole thing as nothing more than a political "hit". There were actual problems with the program as designed and implemented.

Oh yeah, roachboy is right in that the central administration probably didn't know the extent of the idiocy being enacted. They hire residence life folks and student affairs folks to not do things in a way which is effective but also keeps them out of trouble. In this case, those people stuck the university's neck way out, and I bet that the full nature of it wasn't understood until after the shit started hitting the fan. In that circumstance, I might also offer a flaccid defense. A more vigorous one would invite questions about how something so complex gets enacted without more common sense.

__________________
Cogito ergo spud -- I think, therefore I yam