Adaptable Curricula

Drexel University is taking strategic steps to strengthen and define the University’s future, enabling us to deliver on our mission of providing a high-quality experiential education and advancing research-based solutions for communities and organizations. This plan entails:

• Restructuring our schools and colleges into integrated, forward-looking pillars of expertise;
• Transitioning to a semester calendar for all programs to support enhanced recruitment, retention and partnership;
• Defining and implementing core competencies, supporting pedagogical innovation and redesigning our curriculum to continually improve the quality of our programs and support student learning and outcomes;
• And working to develop greater consistency in practices and policies across academic units to support flexibility and collaboration.

• Drexel is enhancing its program performance review process by defining a set of standard data metrics that will be used consistently across the University for program initiation, revision, and assessment and will help create a platform more program and curricular innovation. The university is also launching a new program approval process that will ensure new programs align Drexel strengths with market opportunities and with Drexel's strategic vision.
• Drexel reports Financial Value Transparency (FVT) and Gainful Employment (GE) data to the National Student Loan Data System (NSLDS®) to help students and their families make more informed decisions about financing their education and potential outcomes.

In addition to transforming academic curricula, Drexel is re-envisioning curricula in collaboration with key strategic partners in industry, academia, government, and healthcare to support the education and training of diverse and talented students. A sampling of initiatives include:

• The cell and gene therapy job market in the Philadelphia region is projected to grow by as much as 94% over the next 10 years. As a result, Drexel launched the Cell and Gene Therapy Technology, Engineering, Analytics, Manufacturing & Science program which provides undergraduate and graduate students with a comprehensive knowledge base encompassing cell and gene manufacturing, regulatory requirements, analytical techniques, immune engineering, genomics and informatics and more.
• The College of Computing and Informatics’ Corporate Partners Program bolsters the development, recruitment and retention of top tech talent, including for global media and technology company, Comcast.
• The College of Engineering, through its Academic Industry Partnerships, is helping develop talent at Baltimore Gas & Electric (BGE), a subsidiary of Exelon Corporation, through the Power Systems Engineering Graduate Certificate program.
• Drexel University’s merger with Salus University  offers both Drexel and Salus students exciting opportunities in graduate health sciences, significantly enhancing our commitment to preparing future interprofessional health practitioners.

Through broad consultation, Drexel University’s Office of Global Engagement, also known as Drexel Global, is selecting a handful of existing strategic partners in key locations all over the world to deepen and scale up our collaboration, including research, education abroad, dual-admission degrees, recruitment, co-op, civic engagement, and alumni and industry relations. "Global Hubs: The Power of Partnerships for Global Impact, Innovation, and Inclusion” was the first proposal to receive Drexel 2030 Strategic Initiative Funding to support implementation of an inaugural global hub in India. Drexel welcomed its first cohort of students from SSN School of Advanced Career Education (SACE) in 2024 through the “Direct Pathway” program in biomedical engineering. More pathways are being developed with strategic partners in India.

As a result of recommendations from the Program and Curricular Innovation initiative team of Drexel 2030 Strategic Plan Implementation, the Council for Innovation in Teaching and Learning (CITL) was established to build greater strategic alignment across initiatives and promote inclusive, evidence-based practices that build upon Drexel’s distinguishing strengths to better meet the developmental needs of faculty and learning needs of students. The council draws together Drexel’s diverse expertise and resources to collaboratively advance pedagogical and curricular excellence and innovation across the university. A key initiative of the council, in collaboration with the Undergraduate Student Government Association (USGA), is to create a mechanism by which academic units can share standard course syllabi to allow students to make more informed decisions about course selection.

In 2023, a working group was formed and charged with developing a policy for Academic Integrity Pertaining to Artificial Intelligence to complement the current Academic Integrity policy and student conduct process and develop guidance for students and instructors around the use of AI in the classroom and in academic work. As part of the working group’s recommendations, a Standing Committee on Artificial Intelligence (SCAI) was formed to ensure a continual focus on the evolution of AI and implications and opportunities to advance Drexel’s academic mission. A key program of the SCAI was a spring 2024 half-day event, called the "Day of Faculty Conversation of AI" in which faculty gathered to discuss the impact of AI on pedagogy, teaching, and learning from a variety of perspectives.