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From nursing to theatre, Colorado Mesa University is fortunate to have academic programs notorious for their rigorous curriculum.
But what is academic rigor? A definition from the University of Houston website calls academic rigor, “Difficulty and/or challenge(s) presented in any academic setting.”
In many academic settings, study time and class preparation are essential to developing deep understanding of class material. According to the National Survey of Student Engagement, senior engineering majors and professional degree students spend the most time preparing for class. The biological sciences, physical sciences and arts and humanities majors are second in class preparation hours, or studying.
However, academic rigor is not solely defined by time spent preparing for class.
Assistant Vice President of Academic Affairs and biology professor Steve Werman sees rigor as a complex phenomenon.
“Rigor is a multifaceted thing,” Werman said. “When you look at rigor, you have to look at learning objectives in the course, the level of the course [and] instructor preparation. Do they have Ph.D.s or masters degrees for their particular programs? How are programs compared to other institutional programs? And also the passion the faculty have for teaching. There’s probably 20 different things that add into the rigor of a course and making a program rigorous. But I don’t think you can tease out one thing like chemistry being difficult, or biology having a lot of memorization.”
Courtney Willis, Physics Professor Emeritus at the University of Northern Colorado, has a simpler idea of how courses are academically rigorous.
“A rigorous course has defining material that professors, students and others accept,” Willis said.
By Willis’ definition, it is possible to outline rigor into three different facilities: mental, emotional and physical.
At Colorado Mesa University, physics may be the most mentally challenging major.
“Physics is notorious for flunking students,” Willis said. “Physics itself has a tendency to not be a single thing. You have to implement facilities of mathematics and chemistry and really understand them.”
Willis expected a minimum of eight to 10 hours of study from his students each week.
“I know there were some students who would do far less time than that,” he said. “They didn’t do well in class. Many students did what I required, many did much more. I remember giving out a test where the scores ranged from 2 percent to 98 percent. The person who received a 98 percent studied much more than 10 hours a week.”
Tyler Boyd, a physics student at CMU, finds his major extremely challenging. Boyd describes his day as continuous—from when he arrives at his first morning class until five in the afternoon, he focuses on school. When he arrives home, he continues to study physics.
“Leisure time isn’t really among my vocabulary,” Boyd said. The amount of time he must spend on the material, and the material itself, makes the program rigorous.
Although the biological sciences are on par with physics in terms of hours spent studying, Willis believes the material is not as difficult.
“Many biology majors don’t have facility with mathematics. Nowadays, math is becoming important in biology,” he said.
Biology is part of the rigor of nursing programs, which, although very mentally rigorous, are emotionally draining as well.
“You have to know your information so you don’t accidentally kill someone,” said Carlota Cortez, who has a bachelor’s degree in psychology and is pursuing a second degree in nursing at the University of Northern Colorado. Both the UNC and CMU nursing programs have access to quality hospitals for training.
“At the training, any time you lose a patient, it’s denting. If you work in intensive care, you spend the whole day with a patient. You develop connections. I remember losing a patient, and I went home feeling so sad,” Cortez said.
The nursing degree is also physically rigorous considering that nursing majors spend all day on their feet while training at hospitals, in addition to lifting and moving patients. Nonetheless, the dance degree is among the most physically rigorous major at CMU. With a minimum of 32 dance technique classes and constant rehearsals for dance concerts, dancers are constantly active. Kailyn Miller, a CMU double major in psychology and dance, finds the workload challenging.
“I have found that I am challenged more in my dance classes,” she said. “With my academic classes, I can apply it to my everyday life already, so it seems easier to learn and understand. I feel like it takes more work for perfection, and the stress to be “good” is higher.”
Dancers must develop an awareness of their bodies that other majors rarely have to consider when preparing for class.
No matter how rigorous a program, professors at CMU agree that each student adds his or her own rigor to each respective discipline.
“Rigor comes from the institution,” Calvin Hofer, head of CMU’s music department, said. “And it’s got to come from the student.”
mschreib@mavs.coloradomesa.edu
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