Correction: A news article published on Jan. 17 titled “Warren Proposes GE Changes to Create College Identity” incorrectly identified Alex Miller as chair of the Warren College Student Council. In fact, Miller is the chair of the Warren College Concert Commission.
The UCSD Academic Senate’s Committee on Educational Policy
approved a faculty-drafted, five-point proposal last month that would alter
education requirements, despite opposition from members of the Warren College
Student Council who argued that they should have been involved in the process.
If approved by the Academic Senate, incoming
be allowed to take one interdisciplinary program of concentration course
offered by the Education Abroad Program, the humanities department or the
science and technology perspectives in the social science program. The formal
skills requirement for arts, humanities and social science majors will be
integrated into their program of concentration, which essentially eliminates
taking two additional courses. Transfer students will have an additional third,
noncontiguous upper division course requirement.
In addition, students pursuing a B.S. in engineering will be
required to take one more upper-division area of study course, where a
lower-division course was previously acceptable. A lower-division ethics and
society class, offered through the philosophy and political science
departments, will be restructured into a two-course sequence.
Warren Provost Steven Adler has been examining the general
education requirements since he began his term in 2004. In collaboration with
the Warren Executive Committee of the Faculty, Adler had been discussing
changes in the current curriculum since May 2007.
“Requirements need to change and evolve because they should
reflect the faculty’s wisdom as to where education should go at any given
time,” Adler said. “We were determining whether the general education
requirements were still serving our needs, which is inextricably linked to an
examination of
identity.”
While these changes are not drastic, they would enrich
students with a deeper understanding of
mission statement through an additional course in ethics, and decrease the gap
in requirement distinctions between engineering and nonengineering students, he
said.
“We felt that the extra quarter of ethics and society would
better serve the students with a greater foundation in ethics,” Adler said.
“The other four proposals would make the students’ education better
well-rounded. It’s to give our students a better education, to make them better
scholars and to prepare them for the challenges they will encounter after they
graduate.”
CEP, the division of the Academic Senate that oversees any
course changes requested by colleges or departments, voted 8-1 on Dec. 7 to
approve the changes. The only dissenting voter was the committee’s sole
undergraduate representative, A.S. Associate Vice President of Academic Affairs
Long Pham, who said that his vote represented students’ sentiments on the
issue.
“I tried to convey what I heard, which was that students
generally didn’t want these additional classes,” Pham said.
CEP Chair Kim Griest said that the committee considered
Pham’s arguments, but that the colleges have the primary responsibility of
determining the kind of education they want to offer.
“Since the college had already voted and gone through this
whole process to make this change, we believe that colleges and departments
should be able to create the kind of education that they want,” Griest said.
“We are just the monitoring body. We just check to make sure that everything is
fair.”
Griest said that the proposal underscored the need to create
an identity in
core courses, which the course changes would help to expand.
“They argued that it was a step in the right direction,” he
said. “
has always been a bit of an anomaly. It always had less general education
requirements than the other colleges.”
Pham presented the changes to WCSC on Jan. 10, where
councilmembers expressed mixed reactions to the news. Contrary to their initial
understanding of the meeting, Pham was there to inform them of the changes, not
to obtain their input.
WCSC Chair Alex Miller said that the student body is
supposed to be included in the decision-making process for issues relevant to
its colleges.
“Student input has always been given in the past,” Miller
said. “The only thing we have seen specifically was talk of the first point.
Everything else was floated by the council in the past couple of years. So, my
problem is that no student was introduced to this specific proposal before it’s
been approved.”
Because the proposal requires changes in the bylaws, it must
pass through the Academic Senate. If the Academic Senate approves the proposal
this year, the changes will take effect in Fall Quarter 2009.
“It certainly would not affect any student currently
enrolled,” Adler said.
