Panel lloks at curricular reform

Administrators from several undergraduate institutions held a seminar-style forum Monday night on the idea of an experimental college, which has recently been proposed as an alternative to the College of Arts and Sciences' General Requirement. About 50 faculty members, educators and students packed Kelly Writers House to hear former University of Chicago Dean Robert Streeter, who undertook the famous curricular reforms there from the 1940s through the 1960s, speak on his role in changing the face of education. Also in attendance were College Dean Richard Beeman, Temple University Vice Provost for Undergraduate Studies Susan Albertine, Penn English Professor Emeritus Robert Lucid and English Professor Al Filreis. In his opening comments, Streeter said the experiment in liberal education at Chicago tried to create enlightened individuals, rather than professionals. "[The goal] was to educate men and women as men and women," Streeter said. Comprehensive examinations -- created by someone other than the professor in order to prevent the professor from controlling the exam content -- determined grades for small discussion classes containing about 20 students, Streeter said. Streeter, who implemented the ideas of University of Chicago President Robert Maynard, said Maynard's general education experiment was meant to challenge students. Yesterday's forum comes at a time when School of Arts and Sciences faculty members are evaluating a proposed pilot curriculum which would reduce the number of courses in the General Requirement from 10 to four. The pilot -- endorsed by 33 SAS professors last spring with the stipulation that the Committee on Undergraduate Education return in December with a more precise plan -- would begin with interested participants from the Class of 2004 and would not affect current students. After Streeter concluded his remarks on the Chicago system, Albertine reminisced about her doctoral studies there in the late 1970s. "We absolutely have to have a sense of our connection to the past," Albertine said about the task of discussing curricular reform. Lucid, also a Chicago doctoral student under Streeter in the 1950s and one of the architects of Penn's college house system, said that Chicago's undergraduate examinations during the period were both revolutionary at the time and frightening for professors. And Beeman, who was a Chicago graduate student during the 1960s, spoke at yesterday's forum about Penn's proposed "radical changes" in liberal arts education. Calling Chicago's mobilization of its faculty toward one unified curriculum "impressive," Beeman said Penn currently faces similar challenges in reshaping liberal education. He said that because Penn's faculty members are so specialized in their fields, they have difficulty identifying what subjects should fall under a core curriculum. Also, with 12 professional schools, the University often runs the risk of devaluing the liberal arts. Following the responses to Streeter's presentation, Filreis moderated an open discussion between the panelists and those in attendance. Filreis and forum participants addressed teaching quality, distributed learning and interdisciplinary teaching during the course of the discussion. Filreis pointed to the advent of distributed learning, which could make possible the concept of students entering college at an early age. Beeman responded to a question about the difficulties of rewarding good teachers, noting that in the 31 years he has been at Penn, the value of teaching ability has increased. "We reward good teaching and punish bad teaching more rigorously than in the past," Beeman said. The audience felt yesterday's forums should promote follow-up events. Student Committee on Undergraduate Education Chairperson Aaron Fidler, a Wharton senior, stayed after the event -- along with many other audience members -- to chat with the panelists. "It would have been great if it could have gone on a little longer," Fidler said. Afterward, Beeman said that as the proposed experimental college progresses, the College will aggressively seek feedback. "We need to really engage with students," he said. And CUE Chairperson Frank Warner -- who is helping to spearhead the proposed pilot College curriculum -- said that while learning more about the Chicago experiment was interesting, he would have liked the panel to address the practicality behind such educational reform. The question of "How do you make changes like this?" was not asked, the Mathematics professor said.