In my office in Dunning Hall, there’s an image of an ampersand hanging on the wall. I’m fond of ampersands. Beside the fact they just look cool, the ampersand (&) is for me a kind of value statement. It’s a guiding star. To me, that “&” is an icon for one of the things I love the best about the Faculty of Arts and Science (FAS). We’re a Faculty of Arts and Science. We’re one of only five big Faculties of Arts and Science in Canada and one of two in Ontario—the other being the University of Toronto.
In summer 2023, as a Faculty, we started thinking about our curriculum, about our programs and our courses and how they’re organized and how they’re taught. As the Faculty and the University faced financial challenges, it was clear some change would be necessary. But rather than just cut things and simply be “less,” we have the opportunity to make choices about change that are driven by who we are and what we care about.
Our number one priority driving any change is to provide an excellent student academic experience. As students, you need to be well-prepared for your future, whether that’s graduate studies, a professional qualification, or entering the workforce. Other priorities were supporting faculty and staff to maintain reasonable teaching workloads, and protecting time and energy for research.
That ampersand also represented one of the priorities on this list: Leaning into our strength as a Faculty of Arts and Science. We’re always going to be stronger and more resilient if we can be interdisciplinary and interdependent.
Through more than 500 hours of iterative consultation, over more than a year, with students, staff, and faculty across FAS and the University, we developed an adaptive strategy for curricular change that we’re now calling the “Modular Degree Framework.”
As part of the process, we conducted an environmental scan of our comparators—University of Toronto, University of Ottawa, Western University, McMaster University, and University of Waterloo—these are sibling universities with whom we share common features. Broadly, what we discovered when looking at their curricula and their plan structures is that a Queen’s “Major” is relatively quite large, in terms of course credits and requirements, and is referred to as a “Specialization” elsewhere. A Queen’s “Minor” is almost equivalent to a “Major” at these other schools.
Our Specializations are much more intense—some require as many as 105.0 units—and have very few comparators at other institutions. In talking to students, it became clear that this poses an equity issue. Students in the Faculty of Arts and Science need to be accorded the proper recognition for the work they’re putting in by earning degrees with the right nomenclature. This will ensure your diplomas and resumés accurately reflect your experience and hard work.
A degree from Queen’s will still retain its distinctiveness by the unique combination of courses offered here and the particular expertise of our faculty.
With this idea in mind, each academic unit in FAS worked to modify their degree plans accordingly, taking into account the learning outcomes for their specific programs. The Modular Degree Framework outlines some shared parameters for this work.
Specializations will be a minimum of 60.0 units. The Bachelor of Arts Honours (BAH) Major will be a minimum of 48.0 units and the Bachelor of Science Honours (BScH) Major will be a minimum of 60.0 units. The minimum for an Arts Minor will be 24.0 units and a Science Minor will be 30.0 units. The overall degree requirement of 120.0 credits will remain unchanged. To ensure continued academic quality, each department has exercised its own disciplinary expertise to make decisions about the shape and size of their new curriculum.
In terms of benefits to students, the principal feature of the new Modular Degree Framework is that it’s, well, modular. This is where the “&” comes in. For me, this is the exciting core of the new framework. Under the new framework, with the slightly smaller plan components, you will be able to create new plan combinations that currently don’t exist because they previously wouldn’t fit in a 120.0 unit degree.
For example, starting next year, a Minor can be added to a Specialization. You could add a Major to one or two Minors. Part of the proposal is to replace the Joint Honours degree option with a true double Major, and it will be possible for the first time to do a double Major: two Science Majors or an Arts Major and a Science Major. It’s your choice.
Each year, I attend quite a few events for University Admissions and Recruitment, and I get to talk to prospective students. What I hear over and over again is a desire from them to “do all the things.” These are students who seem to be interested in everything. They want to have agency over their choices and put together flexible combinations that feed their curiosity and their passions.
A recent article in The Queen’s Journal points out that we have a special opportunity at Queen’s in the Faculty of Arts and Science to really lean into the “&.” Science and Arts need each other.
As the author writes, “Science isn’t just science—it’s also inquiry, communication, and problem solving, all of which are substantial elements of humanities courses. Sure, you can use mathematical equations and scientific laws to explain how the universe works, but the humanities are aptly named they’re purely human. They’re a product of our species. They encapsulate our distinct understanding of the world around us curated from experience and existence. What people often fail to comprehend is both of these fields rely upon one another, they’re wholly and undeniably symbiotic.”
I 100 per cent agree. This is who we are and who we want to be. Megan di Muzio, ArtSci ’25, the Arts and Science Undergraduate Society (ASUS) governance officer, and a student in Biology and History, said to me: “The Modular Framework is a perfect opportunity to get the best of both worlds from Arts and Science. Maybe I want to do a double Major, and then I can take some electives that I’m interested in too. So, I think that it just makes the degree itself more flexible and you’re getting more experience out of it too, which is great because that’s what companies want to see nowadays.”
The approval process for the Modular Degree Framework is underway. To date, more than two-thirds of the departments have already submitted their final plans for approval by the FAS Curriculum Committee. There are nine faculty members and six students on the committee. Once adopted, the modular degrees will be available for plan selection by first year students as soon as May 2025. Students who are currently in second and third year will be getting more information in the Winter term from your respective departments about how you can transition to the new plans if you wish to take advantage of those possibilities.
Please know this is your choice. If you want to stick with the plans you’re in, that’s fine too. Stay tuned for more detailed advising information.
The move to the Modular Degree Framework is the culmination of thousands of hours of creative effort by countless people across FAS to imagine a new way of delivering the excellent student experience that we’re so proud of at Queen’s. The opportunities for crossovers between disciplines and the synergies of new combinations are exciting. I’m looking forward to seeing all the possibilities of what embracing the “&” will bring.
Jenn Stephenson is the Associate Dean (Academic) in the Faculty of Arts and Science.
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Arts and science, Faculty of Arts and Science, Jenn Stephenson, Modularization
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