Jamie Cromartie, Associate Professor of Entomology, has recently contacted the Stockton community about opportunities presented by J. Scott Lee, the Executive Director of the Association for Core Texts and Courses (ACTC).

The first opportunity is becoming involved in the ACTC annual conference in New Brunswick in April 2010. Stockton College will be co-sponsoring this conference. Among the benefits that accrue to co-sponsors include an “all-institution” panel, where those faculty at RSC who are interested in core texts can form one panel and explain their use of core texts in their classes. Stockton’s efforts would also be publicized in the ACTC newsletter, and the ACTC makes every effort to recognize the work of an institution on behalf of ACTC and core text, liberal arts education.

A second opportunity is for Stockton to join the ACTC Liberal Arts Institute and participate in the Institute’s general education review process. The Institute is composed of leading institutions, including Columbia, St. John’s College, and Saint Mary’s College of California, that support the Institute well beyond the annual contribution of membership in ACTC. The Institute has a Board (which is under the governance of the entire ACTC Board) that recommends initiatives, informs supporting institutions of our activities, and helps to make our initiatives a reality through participation in various projects.

This is particularly timely as Stockton is undertaking a general education review. One of the projects which the Institute frequently undertakes is general education curriculum review, sometimes involving reviews of specific core text programs. The Institute has available a national database of 81 institutions which captures much of the evolutionary activity in general education between 1978 and 2004 in 81 institutions across the United States. It also has a ongoing research efforts in the field of general education.

Jamie Cromartie believes that expanding our involvement as a member institution of ACTC to a higher level would allow us access to data and expertise that is generally not available at such a reasonable cost. He asks that interested faculty contact him at Jamie.Cromartie@stockton.edu, and also communicate their support to Stockton’s Senate and to colleagues involved in 2020.