EDITORIAL: Hear students on SAS pilot

Input from current students and those involved in the pilot curriculum will be vital over the program's five-year trial. The focal point of the plan is the reduction of the number of required courses from 10 in the current General Requirement down to four. The challenge for the faculty is to develop broad, interdisciplinary classes that also provide depth and intellectual rigor. And no constituency in this process is more equipped to advise the faculty than the student body. The problem with the current General Requirement is that the courses from which students can choose bear little relevance to their real-world goals, particularly in the hard sciences. But many faculty members resent so-called "rocks for jocks" or "physics for poets" classes. The key, then, is for professors to design courses that are academically sound but also appeal to students' interests, and that can only be achieved with a heavy dose of undergraduate involvement. But the process will not really start until next year, when real students -- 200 a year beginning with the Class of 2004 -- are enrolled in what at Penn is largely an experiment. Then, the eventual success of the program will depend on how students respond to the pilot curriculum and how specific course concerns are addressed by the faculty. We trust that the students who participate in the pilot curriculum will receive at least the same standard of advising and academic support as the rest of the student body. But the process of gauging their response to the new courses should be a dynamic, interactive process, rooted in frequent course evaluations and not just an end-of-the-year survey. The volume of discussion about the curriculum's effect on department funding at the vote indicates that what benefits students may not be paramount on everyone's agenda. And the low turnout yesterday -- fewer than 70 professors voted from a standing faculty of more than 400 -- is not a heartening sign that the faculty consider this an important issue, no less that they will try to ascertain the students' point of view.