Amanda Smith
Lantern Staff
As the semester begins to wind down, faculty and staff begin to look at the newly implemented PD courses that freshmen took this semester. The goal of these courses was to allow students to better understand Pathways, which emphasizes the courses that are required for different majors and the relevance of those courses.
“I think they went really well,” Associate Professor of English Cory Teubner said. “There were some units that really seemed to have a noticeable impact on students, and they’re savvy about navigating higher education, navigating Butler.”
Teubner also saw that students who took the class had better prepared meetings with advisors for spring enrollment. Most of the professors that instructed the courses want to teach it again in the spring and would like to see the program expanded. Freshman radiation therapist major Amy Werak was enrolled in Engaging in Health Sciences and saw the advantages of taking the course.
“It was actually a pretty good class,” she said. “It somewhat helped push you to decide the major you want and other options if you still want to stick with health science.”
While Teubner, the instructors and many students see the benefit of the courses, they also see changes that could be made, one of them being reducing the repetitive workload. The PD courses lasted 12 weeks and were worth one credit hour, and some students believe that the amount of work was not worth one credit hour.
“I feel as though my PD course was pretty irrelevant to my major, and I don’t really see the benefit in taking it,” freshman Greta Lies said. “The amount of homework was definitely too much.”
Although there are some tweaks that need to be fixed, overall Teubner thinks that the courses met their goals. Now, he will work with a team to analyze the impact that the courses have on students. This will include comparing students who took the course and those who did not and looking for trends in these groups.
He is hopeful that the courses have the same impact that they did at other institutions that implemented the courses and that students will be retained at higher rates.
“Our experience this semester combined with research from other institutions has decided for us that we want to expand this program and see what can be gained by maxing it out,” Teubner said. “I think they went really well. There were some units that really seemed to have a noticeable impact on students and their savvy about navigating higher education, navigating Butler.