SCUE elects new chairperson, board

The branch of student government responsible for bringing preceptorials, the Course Majors Fair and "Take a Professor Out to Lunch Week" to the University has a new spokesperson. The Student Committee for Undergraduate Education voted College junior Ari Silverman its new chairperson yesterday during closed elections. As chair, Silverman is the only member of SCUE permitted to discuss the committee's work with outsiders. SCUE's approximately forty members also elected five others to its steering committee. College junior Laura Schulman will serve as vice chairperson, College, Wharton and Engineering sophomore Eugene Huang as treasurer, College junior Jason Marbutt as secretary and College sophomore Rachael Goldfarb and Wharton freshman Aaron Fidler as members-at-large. Looking back on a term that included the organization of a SCUE at Howard University, outgoing chairman and Wharton senior Ben Nelson said he is pleased to step down from his post and let Silverman take over. As chairperson, Silverman said he will proceed with the focus on individual students he started as chairperson of the experimental education committee of SCUE. He points to the previously founded preceptorials and undergraduate advisory boards as examples of his goal. In particular, Silverman said he wants to see an official policy on the education of teaching assistants, which the teaching subcommittee of SCUE is presently pursuing. SCUE will also continue work on its 1995 White Paper, a five-year policy plan. The plan contains initiatives which range from revamping student transcripts by adding professors' names, course sizes and grade distribution terms to the installation of a Speaking Across the University program -- similar to the Writing Across the University program which already exists. The University will offer pilot SATU classes next fall and plans to hire someone to teach speaking advisors. SCUE is also working to amend the University's calendar, which calls for a spring semester five days longer than its fall counterpart, resulting in fewer reading days in the fall. The committee will continue its involvement in the 21st Century Project in order to obtain residential reform. The most controversial reform that SCUE proposes, however, involves curricular changes in the University itself. The group wants to implement a three-semester sequence of three courses beginning in the first semester of the freshman year. The first course would focus on "asking questions and finding answers," while the following two would be concerned with "varying perspectives over time and space" respectively. Next semester, SCUE will offer ideas for how the sequence could be incorporated into the General Requirement. Nelson said this course sequence will "give students skills for any and all disciplines." He added that while SCUE's planned sequence has been called "revolutionary" and "having a pulse on trends for the next 50 years" by various sources, the administration is slow to act on it. "[The University] is afraid to implement something this radical even though it makes perfect sense," Nelson said. SCUE will hold information sessions for students in all four schools interested in joining on Thursday, January 23 in the Bowl Room and Sunday, January 26 in the Smith-Penniman Room in Houston Hall. Interested students can also pick up applications at the SCUE office in Houston Hall. All applications are due by Wednesday, January 29.