Blogs

By CAP Component Coordinators

With its innovative curriculum, the Common Academic Program (CAP) is a unique learning experience that is responsive and adaptive to the changing times while remaining grounded in the Habits of Inquiry principles and Catholic and Marianist intellectual traditions at the University of Dayton.

In 2020, COVID-19 brought new realities and challenges, especially to the student-centered classrooms and personalized educational experiences that CAP attempts to craft and deliver. As tomorrow's leaders, our students must understand the complexities of the world and the crises of the now and the future. CAP is meant to teach them how to respond thoughtfully to such challenges, crises, and opportunities, and to do so with creativity, compassion, and their whole selves. CAP introduces key questions and topics across a wide range of academic disciplines, challenging students to value and synthesize diverse points of view and to examine issues critically with an open mind.

The 2021 Learning Teaching Forum — 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Friday, January 8 — will focus on the most important lessons that educators at the University of Dayton have learned about teaching and learning since the spring 2020 semester. 

The CAP Component Coordinators — Christopher Brough (Social Sciences, SSC 200), Youssef Farhat (Diversity and Social Justice), Elizabeth Mackay (Humanities Commons), and Cassandra Secrease (Principles of Oral Communication, CMM 100) will reflect on how CAP at large and these components specifically offer and/or create opportunities for faculty and student learning and development.

In this session (12-12:45 p.m.), the panelists will introduce themselves to campus community and address a series of reflective prompts:

• What each individual CAP component (SSC 200, CMM 100, HC, and DSJ) is designed to do for students and faculty, as well as the University community at large, given the foundational aspects of CAP experiences.
• How each component pivoted (or didn’t or couldn’t) in Spring 2020 in the remote learning environment.
• What that moment taught us about our components and CAP communities and where we are taking that learning as we are moving forward in this academic year (2020-21).
• What role CAP coordinators played in supporting faculty in adapting to and addressing arising changes in the classroom.
• How, under the circumstances of the pandemic, the CAP coordinators are becoming a more formal, organized, and collaborative group.
• What our collaboration can mean for the larger CAP community.

We hope that you will join us to learn more about the CAP program, its innovative design, and its value in preparing students to understand the complexities of the world and the crises of the now and the future; and meet the CAP Component Coordinators and learn about their roles and strategies supporting faculty in course design, development, and learning assessment while adapting to changes in the classroom.

Christopher Brough, CAP Social Science (SSC 200) Coordinator, and Lecturer in the Department of Political Science.

Youssef Farhat, CAP Diversity and Social Justice (DSJ) Coordinator, and Lecturer in the Department of Political Science.

Elizabeth Mackay, CAP Humanities Commons (HC) Coordinator, and Associate Professor in the Department of English. 

Cassandra Secrease, CAP Principles of Oral Communication Course (CMM 100) Director, and Senior Lecturer in the Department of Communication. 

Photo Credit: College of Arts & Sciences