SUBJECT: Important Updates Regarding DDC for AY 2024-2025

Greeting Colleagues: 

We, the members of the DDC subcommittee and the Office of the Provost, are writing this morning to outline an upcoming review of our general education program, the Dearborn Discovery Core (DDC) slated to begin in Winter 2025. The last full review of the DDC curriculum was in 2017-2018 and provided valuable improvements to the program. As of 2024, we now have more than 700 courses with a DDC attribute across the four colleges (including college and campus-wide programs). As faculty, you should be proud of all of the curricular work done in the last 10 years to develop robust DDC categories. 

This review, unlike the last, will consist of collecting and assessing data, considering faculty and advisor feedback, and developing any recommendations for editing or curating our DDC offerings so that they further a student’s path to graduation and provide a holistic liberal arts education. As a reference point, outcomes and updates from prior DDC reviews can be found here with a brief history of the program. 

This faculty-led review work will have implications for adding DDC attributes to courses during the assessment period - please note Fall 2024 will be the last semester for DDC designations for 2025-2026 Catalog. Applications will be largely paused until Fall 2026 (for the Fall 2027 catalog) as the subcommittee will be focused on review work rather than approving new applications for Winter 2025 - Winter 2026. Considerations will be made when exceptions are needed - such as brand new programs or first year experience courses, like Foundations. 

Deadlines for Fall 2024 - Submit any applications to the DDC Chair by September 13, 2024 OR by October 4, 2024. Please see the DDC Application website for application information. 

Please continue reading below for a more detailed timeline.

Beginning in January 2025, the DDC Subcommittee of Faculty Senate’s University Curriculum and Degree Committee will conduct a multi-semester review and assessment to: 

• Analyze compiled assessment data from DDC courses from 2021-2024
• Discuss faculty feedback and reflections from DDC Review Sessions in 2021-202
• Consider the implication of DDC requirements for the 3-4 credit hour conversation and upper-level DD
• Inventory DDC Master List of Courses for adherence to DDC Policies / Barrier
• Review all DDC policies for simplicity and accessibility
• Provide recommendations as they relate to:
  • Regularity of DDC course offerings in the schedule
  • Teaching strategies or pedagogy in DDC categories or learning outcomes
  • Curricular updates (credit hour or deactivation of attributes)

The timeline for this work will span until Fall 2027: 

We are hopeful that this work will lead to more improvements to the DDC program as the last evaluation did during the 2017-2018 academic year. This will be a narrower review in scope than the last one and we aim to address rising issues and assess overall course offerings to ensure students have access to the quality general education UM-Dearborn promises.
 
Gabriella & the members of the DDC Sub-committee 

Gabriella Scarlatta
Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs