The Provost’s Office announced further modifications to Purpose Leadership ActioN (PLAN), the Simmons required curriculum model, via email from Associate Provost for Curriculum, Assessment, and Accreditation, Kelly Hager on February 14.
The new requirements will be applicable to those entering Simmons in the fall of 2024 and beyond. Current students must follow the previous version of PLAN.
The new version of PLAN is designed to have Simmons intensive courses begin and end the college experience, with Key Content Area (KCA) and Key Skills Area (KSA) classes in between.
To fit this timeline, first-years will take Simmons 100: Explore and Writing Boston, courses intended to introduce students to the rigor of college writing, college academics, and the city of Boston.
In their sophomore and junior years, students are expected to complete their KCA and KSA requirements. KCAs requirements are made up of three separate courses in three areas of study: Aesthetic Literary Artistic, Scientific Inquiry, and Global Cultural.
KSAs are made up of four courses in four areas of study: Quantitative Literacy, Diversity Equity Inclusion Justice, Integrative Learning, and Leadership. A Writing Intensive KSA will also be offered, but is not required.
In a Feb. 20 follow-up email, Hager clarified that one course may only satisfy one KCA or KSA. Students will need to take seven separate courses to finish all KCA and KSA requirements.
Students will be required to take Simmons 200, a class combining the previously offered Simmons 201 and Simmons 301, in their junior or senior years. This course, designed to serve as a bridge to life after graduation, is intended to be taken after declaring a major.
Capstones are now major-specific requirements, as opposed to being general education requirements. With this change, the new PLAN will require students to take a total of 40 credits of general education. The previous version required 48-52.
Several of the KCA and KSA requirements are not new to Simmons students. Aesthetic Literary Artistic and Scientific Inquiry KCAs were already required. Quantitative Literacy was also a KCA, but is being redesignated as a KSA.
The Feb. 20 email also noted that KCA courses that current students have already completed will be counted under the KCA designation they held at the time of completion.
The Provost’s office included a graphic showing which new PLAN courses could fulfill old PLAN requirements in their email.
Sophomore Political Science and French double major Shelby Marston told the Voice that while they understand the new PLAN requirements, “the constant reformulation of them is becoming a little ridiculous.”
Marston said that this is particularly difficult for students in the language and arts departments, who are trying to finish their majors before they are phased out.
Junior Writing major Lili Kaula said she is unclear on what she “actually need[s] to graduate,” and why these changes were explained to her if they do not pertain to her.
Hager is holding PLAN office hours in Common Grounds from 11 a.m. to 12 p.m. on Feb. 27 and in Bartol Hall from 5 p.m. to 6 p.m. on Feb. 28. Her email also directs students to a Google Form to submit questions.
