Educating Women at Ursuline College Curriculum, Collaboration, and Growth

In the early 1990s, Ursuline College, a Catholic women's college in Cleveland, completely redesigned its core curriculum to maximize access, retention and success. Ursuline's predominantly female, commuter, non-traditional-aged and ethnically diverse student body constitutes a typical example of today's college population. The Ursuline Studies Program was structured around the theoretical framework presented in the landmark book Women's Ways of Knowing. The core consists of fourteen writing-intensive interdisciplinary courses that emphasize both developmental and academic goals. To assess the validity of the program, a team of researchers followed a group of fifty students through the Ursuline Studies Program over the past five years, interviewing them at various stages. The findings presented in this study support the theories upon which the curriculum was designed and add a valuable contribution to the scholarship of educating women.