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In March 1995, an ad hoc General Education Review Committee recommended that the College of Arts and Science substantially revise its requirements for General Education. The proposed changes are currently being considered by the Educational Affairs Committee of the College of Arts and Science. Later this year, the changes will come before the Arts and Science College Senate and the University Faculty Senate.
The Delaware Association of Scholars (DAS), a local affiliate of the National Association of Scholars, is sending this memorandum to all faculty in the College of Arts and Science. These comments were drafted by our own committee on general education, a group of DAS members who are professors in the College. The officers of the DAS have endorsed these comments and voted to distribute them.
The DAS, like our parent organization, is strongly committed to general education. Indeed, one of our founding principles is to "enhance the quality and content of the curriculum." We are therefore gratified that the College of Arts and Science is undertaking a re-examination of Delaware's general education program, and we appreciate the time and energy that the Review Committee has invested. We find many of the Committee's proposals thoughtful and worthy of discussion. But we also have some serious reservations. We wish to call these to your attention, and we wish to raise questions about some of the underlying assumptions of the report.
In its report, the General Education Review Committee specifically recommended the following changes in the current general education requirements:
1. That students still be required to take at least a few courses in each of four different fields (history, humanities, social science, and natural-science) but that the number of required general education credits be reduced from 49 to 37.
2. That some courses in the humanities and social sciences should count toward satisfaction of the requirement in natural science.
3. That students who do not make a passing score on the mathematics skills test should be allowed to substitute a non- mathematics course that deals with "symbolic reasoning."
4. That at least 12 of the 37 remaining required credits in general education should be related to one "of 15-20 integrative themes that link work in different disciplines and from different perspectives."
5. That the number of required credits in multi- cultural studies be increased from 3 to 6.
6. That students should be encouraged to participate in at least one "learning experience outside the typical classroom" -- experiences such as independent study, study abroad, community service, or "career exploration."
7. That all students should be required to complete a three-credit course that includes opportunities to develop their oral communication skills.
8. That students should be offered the option of satisfying the second semester of a required sequence in English composition (what is now called "the second writing course") by taking a writing course in their own major field.
To support these changes, the Committee mentioned a number of considerations. There is a risk of oversimplification in summarizing the rationale of the Committee's 31-page report, but, essentially, the Committee maintained: that "many students and faculty" think the existing general education requirements are too "demanding"; that "some people" believe the existing program is "too conservative and tradition-driven"; that a reduction in general education is needed to accommodate "a demand to increase the amount of time devoted to studying the major"; that there has been, in a general way, what the committee calls "a loss of confidence in the liberal arts."
This is not the place for an extended discussion of educational philosophy. The DAS, however, questions the assumption that general education has become an anachronism. We think, on the contrary, that general education courses which deal with large concepts and perspectives are especially relevant in the modern world.
The DAS also wishes to emphasize that many of the specific recommendations of the General Education Review Committee are problematical. In addition to minor matters that can be adjusted, there are two transcendent problems. The proposed changes raise the specter of politicizing the curriculum, and they also represent a retreat from higher standards.
1) The DAS has no major objections to recommendations 7 and 8. Students should be encouraged to develop their oral communications skills (although the report of the Committee is vague when it comes to explaining how this admirable goal should be achieved). More departments could profitably offer "second writing" courses, although there is a danger that some students would be taught to write in the style and jargon of a specialty. When it comes to general education, we think undergraduate students should learn to communicate in the public idiom, and we would expect most students to continue the present practice of satisfying this requirement with courses in English or History.
2) Recommendations 4, 5, and 6 are more problematical. They propose to double the multicultural requirement, to mandate that at least 12 credits must be related to an integrative theme, and to require a "learning experience outside the classroom." None is supported by a compelling rationale, but all have the potential for either politicizing or watering down the curriculum.
The General Education Review Committee is doubtless correct in noting that most "multicultural" courses fall into one of two categories: those that deal with foreign cultures (as long as they are, in the words of the Committee's report, linon-western" or "third world"), and those that deal with American minorities (which the Committee defined in terms of "gender, class, race, and [or?] disability"). We question why multiculturalism is defined so narrowly. Why is it "multicultural" to study the angst of modern career women but not to study the problems of ethnic working men? Why is it acceptably multicultural to study the culture or history of modern Mexico or Japan but not to study the early history or culture of Greece or Rome or Christendom? The call for a second course in the study of cultures might have more merit were it to encourage study across the full range of cultures around the world and throughout history.
The Committee further recommends that all students be required to take at least 12 credits that are related to "[an] integrative theme'selected from a group of 15-20 alternatives." To illustrate this requirement, the Committee identifies ten themes, almost all of which focus on current social problems. The first of these themes is "Ecology and Society" (where the first course mentioned is ENGL/WOMS 380, "Ecofeminism"). The list of themes then proceeds through topics such as "privacy," lithe family," and "the city," before concluding with "Native American Culture.1'
Greater coherence in core educational requirements is an idea that we applaud, but the integrative themes that the Committee mentioned are currently faddish topics of narrow scope. They do not cultivate a breadth of perspective or understanding. To illustrate, the Committee's proposal is a far cry from the integrative themes that are used at other colleges. At Colgate, students are required to choose from among four to six core themes -- themes like "The Hellenistic-Roman World," "The Judeo- Christian Tradition," or "The Anglo-American Experience." At Stanford, students are required to take a year-long course on the development of one or another of the world's major civilizations -- civilizations such as those just mentioned and also, as an alternative, the civilizations that produced Confucius, Mohammed, and the Bhagavad Gita.
But Delaware's General Education Review Committee explicitly distinguished its proposal from what it called the "historically organized core courses" at Colgate. The Committee apparently does not want a curriculum that, in its own words, is "too conservative and tradition-driven." Instead of requiring students to become familiar with the development of one of the world's major civilizations -- all of which have arguably manifested elements of racism, sexism, and exploitation -- the Committee on General Education has opted for a piecemeal approach, isolating questions of race, class, and gender from their historical context.
The DAS believes that the Committee's proposal with respect to "integrative themes" must be modified. As it stands, this proposal points toward requiring a new compulsory chapel where students must worship a Modern Trinity: Race, Class, and Gender. Nor would it be better if the integrative themes were structured to emphasize, say, Religion, Free Enterprise, and Limited Government. The proposal for integrative themes raises the possibility of using the general education requirements to serve the purpose of indoctrination.
The recommendation for non-classroom experiences similarly opens the door to politicization, but our greatest concern is that it will dilute academic standards. There may be a place for non-academic experiences in some majors, but the general education requirement should not be directed to such purposes. Moreover, we question the feasibility of effectively monitoring the educational merit of non-classroom experiences for such a large number of students.
3) The DAS also has reservations about the first three proposals of the General Education Review Committee. We think they would lower educational standards at the University. Some adjustments may be needed to accommodate the aptitude of weaker students and to make it easier for students to graduate in four years. But we look with suspicion on the Committee's proposal to count courses in History or Philosophy toward satisfaction of the requirement in Natural Science. We also question the Committee's proposal to allow students to satisfy the skill requirement in Mathematics by taking courses in Communications, Geography, Philosophy, or Political Science.
The DAS further believes that the General Education Review Committee has not made a persuasive case for reducing the number of required general education credits from 49 to 37. As W. E. B. Du Bois once noted, "the job of the educator is not simply to make men carpenters, but to make carpenters men." Of course special training is important in our modern world, but we must also continue to teach our students about the riches of history and civilization. Now, perhaps more than ever, courses in general education are important for helping students to understand the direction and the accelerating pace of change.
Finally, we wish briefly to raise a general question about the philosophical underpinnings of the Committee's report. The curriculum it projects would, to its credit, continue the process of structuring and focusing our undergraduates' educational experiences. This we applaud. We do our students no service when we present them with a cafeteria-style list of undifferentiated courses, and ask them simply to fill their trays according to their own unformed tastes. The DAS would like to see the College discuss the merits of establishing a genuine core curriculum for general education at the University of Delaware. Although the report notes in passing that the Committee considered and rejected this alternative, we believe it deserves wider discussion. A well-constructed, genuinely integrative core curriculum puts the responsibility for ensuring general education squarely where it belongs, with the University's faculty. is this an easy option? No. Core curricula are difficult to design. Long meetings and heated discussions are guaranteed. Faculty are required to be creative, to stretch beyond the comfortable environs of their own departments and work with colleagues in disciplines in parts of the campus that they may never even have visited. But in our view the rewards are commensurate with the efforts, for faculty and students alike. Designing and teaching a core curriculum is far more likely to help us -- and to help us help our students -- meet the challenges of the next century than are adjustments to our current departmentally rooted smorgasbord of "general education" courses.
Fifteen years have passed since our last broad consideration of general education. Given the nature of academic decision- making, it is likely than ten or fifteen more years will pass before we are inclined to undertake another serious review. Now is the time to eschew the course of incremental adjustment, to seize the opportunity to rethink basic premises, and to rededicate ourselves to the principle of excellence in undergraduate education.