As College of Arts and Sciences faculty members review the school's new curriculum proposal, questions abound about whether a new emphasis on cultural analysis will be included in the revamped curriculum and, if so, what shape that new emphasis will take.
Cultural analysis is just one aspect of a proposed curriculum overhaul that will be voted on by College faculty members on April 19 and will apply, if approved, to the freshman class entering in the fall of 2006.
Nearly a year ago, a campus group calling itself Student Movement for Change proposed creating a "United States Cultural Analysis Requirement" that would function similarly to the Quantitative Data Analysis requirement. Instead of requiring students to take an additional class, it would allow the various College departments to deem already-existing classes appropriate. These classes could also be taken to fulfill a sector or major requirement.
Since then, SMC leaders have been meeting with faculty and administrators at various levels. The cultural analysis proposal was raised at the University Council's March meeting and has been addressed at recent College faculty and student forums for the new curriculum.
According to College Dean Dennis DeTurck, a cultural analysis proposal is difficult to articulate clearly.
"As soon as you have two people in the room, you can't define whatever the cultural analysis proposal is," DeTurck said. "For some people it is USCAR and different cultures within the United States, and for some people it's global awareness and cultural encounters across international boundaries."
According to College Assistant Dean and Associate Director for Academic Affairs Eric Schneider, the faculty appears to be leaning toward a cultural analysis proposal that would be global in focus.
DeTurck said that out of the 150 College faculty members surveyed at a forum, about 40 percent thought that there should be a global requirement, while most of the remaining 60 percent said classes falling under that category should just be encouraged.
"The sense is that as we look toward the future in the 21st century, students need to understand their position in a diverse world in which people are going to be interacting across national boundaries and cultures much more intensely and routinely than in the past," Schneider said. "There is the sense that while diversity and difference here is very important, we need to look outward rather than inward."
Schneider said that in terms of student feedback, there seems to be more support for a focus on America, although he has still come across significant divisions.
The student architects of USCAR have been pushing for a domestic focus, partly because they feel it will help students better understand the multiculturalism on Penn's campus.
"At Penn we're constantly put into a situation where we meet people from diverse backgrounds," SMC member and College senior Jesse Salazar said. "American society today is still very divided along cultural lines. There is a reason, for example, that all the black kids sit together at some cafeterias. It's about understanding the processes involved in them deciding to sit there."
Salazar expressed discontent with the idea of cultural analysis being encouraged rather than required.
"I think it's a tremendously bad idea," he said. "Students aren't known to take voluntary classes just for their own sake. This is not making a strong statement of value that we are academically interested in diversity and that this is not just lip service."
Salazar added that the manner in which the question of cultural analysis was posed to faculty could make the survey numbers misleading.
"Anyone who has taken a stat class knows that depending on how you formulate a question, you will get a different answer," he said. "If it was asked, 'Do you think students should learn about U.S. culture or global culture?' ... It almost looks [by the way the question is phrased] like U.S. culture would be taking some superiority over global culture."
DeTurck said, though, that the issue is not settled and that the proposal will be voted on separately from the rest of the curriculum at the April 19 University Council meeting. He said that he is prepared for the chance that faculty members may suggest that cultural analysis be encouraged or made more focused on the United States. He said the faculty might even choose not to decide on the proposal until the fall.
"We don't want the rest of the curriculum to be held up by that one aspect," DeTurck said, adding that it was possible that at the April 19 meeting "the faculty will have a mail ballot, so [the curriculum] won't actually be decided that day." In the case of a mail ballot, faculty members would mail in their votes at a later date and use the meeting for discussion purposes only.
DeTurck said that he will continue to discuss the new curriculum, including the cultural analysis proposal, with members of Penn's community in the week leading up to the April 19 meeting.
Tonight at 7 in Houston Hall, students can attend an open forum about any aspects of the curriculum changes.
