ABSTRACT
Curricular Challenges—Guttman’s innovative curriculum has been the hallmark of the institution since its planning stage. At the center of the academic enterprise is the first-year experience (FYE), a series of courses designed expressly to integrate developmental skills building with credit-bearing coursework. The institution was designed expressly from a guided pathways model, with few major options and a limited number of electives to prevent students from wandering aimlessly from program to program, accruing excess credits, and wasting financial aid dollars. However, the founding faculty and administration were swept up in creating the FYE curriculum. By the end of its first year in operation, faculty were scrambling to construct major courses. In turn, there was no systematic approach to evaluating the evolution and effectiveness of the majors, an oversight that created wide disparities in outcomes, contributed to low post-transfer outcomes, and raised a series of red flags during the college’s first accreditation process. The absence of a strategic road map for the development of Guttman’s innovative curriculum and a systematic evaluation plan has generated significant instability in the academic enterprise. This chapter will document these blind spots, suggesting ways in which the college could have approached the curriculum differently in the planning stage and early operational years to yield more positive outcomes.
