This week marks a major milestone in the Committee on Undergraduate Education's comprehensive review of the College of Arts and Sciences general curriculum.
Hundreds of faculty members met Tuesday night to voice passionate opinions on this topic. Committee members hope the conversation will continue with equal vigor at a student meeting next week.
In an effort to better evaluate and implement changes to the College curriculum, Penn launched the pilot curriculum several years ago. In lieu of the standard curriculum's seven sectors, the pilot curriculum offers up to 200 randomly selected students in each class the opportunity to fulfill their general requirements with just four classes. These are chosen from a limited number of interdisciplinary classes, which are team-taught and designed specifically for pilot students.
Despite the drastic differences between the pilot requirements and the standard requirements, an interim report published last April revealed that students' experiences in the two programs showed little variation.
Given these results and the committee's comprehensive approach, CUE Chairman Dennis DeTurck stressed that the curriculum revision will not focus merely on how or if to adopt the pilot curriculum.
"We are also sort of starting the process from scratch," he said. "What comes out of the process may be completely different."
Yet, DeTurck said that while he expects the review to eventually result in significant curriculum changes, he does not expect that Penn's overall stance toward a liberal arts education will be redefined.
"I don't think there will be radical change," DeTurck said, noting that Penn will continue to fall in the middle of the spectrum between schools like Brown University, where there are essentially no requirements, and much more rigid schools like Columbia University, where students all take the same core classes.
"That works in the culture of those places, and I think neither of those systems would work particularly well here," DeTurck said. "We will see some changes. We are not going to end up with general requirement 'light' or something like that."
On Tuesday evening, a major element of the evaluation process took place -- a meeting attended by approximately 175 School of Arts and Sciences faculty members.
"Over 175 SAS faculty members in the same room all thinking about the same thing for two hours -- that was unprecedented, at least in my experience, and it was clear the faculty care deeply about this," DeTurck said.
While faculty participation has been passionate, some students do not feel that their experiences or opinions are viewed as important to the review process.
College senior Patrick Hook has views about the curriculum that he does not plan to contribute to the review process.
Hook said he feels strongly that being able to fill almost every requirement with Advanced Placement credits "was the best thing about my college career. ... I was able to take all these great electives, and as a result, I got to minor in two subjects."
College senior Victor Bonilla is also not planning to attend the curriculum review session. Bonilla was not even aware that the curriculum was under review.
Bonilla said he does not feel qualified to pass judgment on the curriculum, but voiced strong opinions on course requirements. While he said he personally does not like some sectors, he feels they are valuable to an overall education.
"I hate math, and I choose not to take it, [but] I think it would be better for other kids and make more sense to require it," he said.
DeTurck emphasized that this review process will not be easy.
"People have strongly held views, and they are not all the same, and often they're quite contradictory," he said. "It is sort of a delicate process that has to happen."
