Mission

The Curriculum Resource Center (CRC) is the Central European University's external and internal resource, consultancy, and training unit in curriculum development and related issues with a special emphasis on social science and the humanities in post-communist higher education systems. The CRC is a part of Special and Extension Programs (SEP), CEU's Outreach Department and future Department of Continuing Education.

CRC Mission:

To develop the 'Scholar in the Classroom' concept within the post-communist higher education systems in order to form a bridge between research and the classroom, global approaches and the local context, the state of the discipline and the learning experience, universal knowledge and critical thinking. At the center of this vision is the internationalization of the curriculum based on the CEU experience.

Whilst the CRC aims to provide support from the introductory to the advanced level, our primary focus is on the deepening of professional skills in curriculum and related issues, and the exploration of the scholarship of teaching (*), particularly within a collaborative framework with our strategic partners. To this end, as a long-term goal, the CRC plans to become part of a future department of continuing education of the Central European University.

The strategic goals of the CRC are:

1. Capacity building for university educators
   By
   • Providing trainings in course design, issues related to course design (eg. assessment, evaluation, teaching practice), curriculum and degree structuring for academics in social sciences and humanities
   • Sustained support and development of selected faculty through course development grants
   • Organizing workshops, events and conferences that explore innovative trends and 'cutting edge' topics within the curriculum development context
   • Offering access to academic fora to promote discipline expertise
   • Using our experience for consultancy activities related to curriculum issues to enable decision-makers to build reform at the local level
   • Preparing CEU's graduate students for successful teaching career at universities in the region
   
   
2. Providing targeted technical assistance for university teachers in the region to overcome the material and mobility limitations to course development and innovation
   By
   • Sharing the resources of CEU (library, syllabi, readers, teaching faculty) with academics in the region
   • Providing targeted resources (books, articles, methodological material) to enable academics to innovate in their course design and content
   • Assisting in the networking of academics on curriculum and related discipline reforms (e-discussion forums, discipline groupings, CRC/CEU partnership scheme)
   • Collation and dissemination of regional and international models, examples and support material for course development (regional and international syllabi collection, regional university webpage site, virtual resource center)
   • Extending CEU's resources related to teaching and learning in higher education by gathering training and book resources and Internet information
   
   
3. Promoting and facilitating higher education reform in curriculum related issues
   By
   • Providing workshops and trainings in contemporary and comparative trends in higher education for senior academics and decision makers
   • Promoting debate on the present and future of specific disciplines within regional universities
   • Disseminating best practices in higher education in cooperation with our partner programs
   • Researching and adapting the best existing models and approaches in higher education to match the specific needs and contexts of our target region
   • Developing internal specialisations in order to provide consultancy and expertise to our partners
   • Producing publication on the curriculum and teaching related issues based on our experience in the region (working papers)

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(*)

The 'scholarship of teaching' approach in higher education contributes to the professionalisation of course design and course implementation in order to make possible the continuous and self-reflexive development of the teaching academic. The scholarship of teaching puts the focus on the teaching aspect of an academic profession in a way that parallels and balances the research aspect: teaching is an informed enquiry into the subject matter, designed around key debates and issues, asking specific questions of the content. However, a course also needs to be contextualised for the needs of a particular student body and educational system/region/university, implemented with attention to student learning experience and evaluated self-reflexively in order to feed back into the course design. Moreover, courses produced with this approach in mind become a shared academic resource that are valuable in providing a means of academic quality control and peer evaluation of teaching.

© Curriculum Resource Center
http://web.ceu.hu/crc/mission.html