GUEST COLUMNIST: Gen Req revamp is only half-baked

I would like to express my strong disagreement with the Proposal for a Pilot Curriculum in the College of Arts and Sciences. Standing Faculty in the School of Arts and Sciences were provided with this proposal only within the last few days. Although the recommendations prepared by the Committee on Undergraduate Education evidently have been under discussion for months, the SAS faculty is being asked to vote without any opportunity for measured discussion on this important issue. My reasons for objecting to the Pilot Curriculum mainly concern the four required courses: "Freedom, Equality and Community," "Science, Culture and Society," "Earth, Space and Time," and "Imagination, Representation and Reality." I have both general and specific concerns. Although some of my colleagues are of the opinion that broad-based integrative courses are the best way to introduce freshmen and sophomores to the exciting intellectual atmosphere within SAS, I am of the view that the courses, as they are now described, will be superficial and non-rigorous. I would much prefer that students meet the General Requirement mainly with excellent discipline-based courses (e.g., a Philosophy course in Ethics, a History course in Ancient Greece and Rome). To me, it makes little sense to try to make connections between disciplines without teaching the actual material that the connections are all about. The four new courses have been described as a "common experience." Since the description of the courses is rather vague and the actual topics emphasized will vary according to the section and the recitation leader -- most likely a graduate student -- it is possible that the main common experience will be total confusion about the core of knowledge that students will be responsible for. How will such courses be graded, being almost completely concerned with a subjective body of information? Only one of the proposed courses is science-based; another deals with science and culture and really could be described as an introductory History and Sociology of Science course. Although I have no objections to a non-science major taking only one science course, I would rather not have this course designed as a science smorgasbord which will cover no area in any depth. Are we sending a message to our undergraduates that hard science is to be avoided? Do we want to educate a generation of students who do not know the fundamental physics, chemistry or biology that is absolutely needed to make informed decisions on health and environmental policy? The Pilot Curriculum course appears to take a step backwards in terms of broadening non-science majors' contact with real science. We should also be encouraging an exploration of depth in multiple areas. The Pilot Curriculum will in effect delay the experience of taking intermediate and advanced courses within a major. I would like to suggest a new approach -- replace the General Requirement with a requirement for depth in two areas in fields quite removed from a student's major. For example, a Biology major taking four Philosophy course and four Art History courses would fulfill the General Requirement as would an English major who takes four Economics courses and four Biology courses. Finally, I would like to address the argument that the Pilot Curriculum is only an experiment and that the SAS faculty will have a chance to evaluate the program before extending it to all students. Unfortunately, the criteria for evaluation are not specifically stated. My prediction is that once this program is instituted, the lack of precise criteria for evaluation will make the termination of the "experiment" almost impossible. A much better approach would have been for CUE to first develop the courses and offer them on a voluntary basis to students at any undergraduate level. Real experience could then be used as a basis for discussion of whether such integrative courses would be effective. I hope that other SAS faculty members will join me at the meeting on April 20 to express concerns about the lack of open debate on this issue and to urge a rethinking of how to make the General Requirement more effective and meaningful.