GE reform crucial for students to succeed in future

Tuesday, January 27, 1998

GE reform crucial for students to succeed in future

EDUCATION Graduates will be better equipped with skills that are
necessary in the real world

By Ed Berenson

For several months the campus has been swirling with talk of the
new GE (general education) system. The Bruin has already devoted
several articles to the issue, and faculty in virtually every
department have met to consider the proposed curricular changes.
The national media even picked up the story last year, inaccurately
declaring our proposal to reform general education a fait
accompli.

But as members of the campus community know, curricular reform
cannot simply be decreed; the faculty, acting through the Academic
Senate, has to approve. The purpose of the report, "General
Education at UCLA: A Proposal for Change," issued by the GE
committee last June, was to outline a set of concrete proposals. So
far, discussion has been enormously productive, moving us toward
improvements in general education.

But why devote so much time and energy to a part of the
curriculum that more than a few students and faculty would happily
ignore?

When properly conceived, general education forms the foundation
of a curriculum that prepares students for the endeavors and
responsibilities to come: undergraduate majors and graduate
schools; a dynamic world of work; and citizenship in our dizzyingly
complex democratic society.

To profit from specialized study, undergraduates need the strong
intellectual foundation that a good GE program can provide. Such a
foundation is no less important when it’s time to join the world of
work. After completing their education, students will enter a
rapidly changing economy, one in which some fields – the defense
industry, for example – can decline overnight and others can
replace them just as fast (multimedia, consulting, biotechnology).
The modern economy requires the kind of mental agility a rigorous
GE program can impart. And when it comes to citizenship, it has
always been important to possess a strong measure of general
knowledge and the ability to read, write, and think critically.
Now, in the information age, those skills are all the more
important, as are the ability to analyze quantitative data,
evaluate scientific findings, and navigate the information
highway.

So the question becomes: How would the new GE program improve
upon the current one in preparing students for this near future of
study, work and citizenship? The difficulty with the existing
curriculum is two-fold. Its smorgasbord approach to general
education often lacks continuity, depth and the ability to approach
a subject or set of issues from a variety of perspectives. And its
uneven attention to the crucial intellectual skills such as
writing, quantitative reasoning, and critical thinking does too
little to encourage students to sharpen the tools essential to
future success.

There is some utility in being exposed, however briefly, to a
variety of subjects but this should not be the exclusive diet of
general education. Research on the learning outcomes of university
students shows that undergraduates are most likely to retain what
they’ve studied when they take a sequence of courses in a
particular area of knowledge. Students need a measure of curricular
depth, and this is precisely what the new GE program provides.

In particular, the new GE program proposes to create a dozen or
more "first-year clusters" that extend throughout the freshman
year. Students would be required to select one of these clusters,
which would each be taught by two or more faculty and devoted to
themes of broad intellectual interest. During the fall and winter,
instruction would consist of lecture courses taught in concert with
discussion sections and English composition tutorials. In the
spring, each cluster would dissolve into a series of small seminars
whose topics radiate from the cluster themes. Every freshman would,
in other words, benefit from the intellectual interaction that only
a seminar can provide.

Several faculty members, many eager to learn from colleagues in
other fields, have proposed a number of fascinating
interdisciplinary topics. A cluster tentatively titled
"Cross-cultural Interactions" will consider the ways in which the
different racial and ethnic groups that comprise American society
have shaped the nature and meaning of U.S. culture as a whole.
Another proposal is to offer a cluster on the human genome project
in the context of its historical background and moral-ethical
implications. Will genetic engineering enable people to live for
200 years? And will it turn us – or at least the most privileged
among us – into a group of superior beings? This cluster will
address these and other questions.

A third cluster would consider the "Languages and Cultures of
Los Angeles," asking students to study the implications of Los
Angeles’ extraordinary linguistic diversity. Some 200 of the
world’s 600 active languages are spoken in our city, and that
reality creates a variety of fascinating – and often troubling –
problems, from generational conflict and cultural incomprehension
to social and political discrimination.

Yet another cluster would take students through the fascinating
history of social thought since the 17th century, allowing them to
delve into the work of the greatest thinkers of the modern era.
Because the cluster extends over a full academic year, students
will not be forced to fast-forward though a wealth of complex
material, as typical GE courses often require them to do. They will
have the time to give the work of thinkers from John Locke and Mary
Wollstonecraft to Simone de Beauvoir and Michel Foucault the close
attention it deserves.

The faculty who plan to teach these clusters rank among the most
accomplished professors at UCLA. Several have received
distinguished awards. They’re all doing cutting-edge research, and
the ideas and knowledge they have developed will undergird their
classroom work. The new GE program addresses this problem by
requiring that all clusters be taught by regular faculty members,
with preference given to our most distinguished
teacher-scholars.

It’s important to note that these courses would form the
centerpiece of a "freshman experience" in which the entire incoming
class would divide into 12 or more learning communities each with
its own interdisciplinary team of faculty, TAs, counselors and
tutors. Librarians and information specialists would help with
access to books and other course-related materials. Students would
be linked through a Web site that enables them to communicate with
one another and with faculty by e-mail and electronic bulletin
board. Since 93 percent of freshmen live in the residence halls,
there will be a great many opportunities for them to discuss what
they’re studying in common. Those who don’t live on campus would be
invited to affiliate with a residence hall of their choice so they
can actively participate in the crucial part of the learning
process that extends beyond the classroom walls.

Lest anyone think that the new GE system would require students
to take all their general education courses in three-quarter
blocks, there’s no need to worry. Fewer than a third of a student’s
general education courses would take the form of first-year
clusters. The bulk of the courses will remain as they are now:
single-quarter introductions to individual disciplines.

Members of the GE committee recognize that many existing GE
courses are excellent, and we want them to remain on the books. It
is likely, moreover, that many of these fine courses will form the
nuclei of several first-year clusters. We applaud the efforts of
some faculty to develop students’ writing and quantitative skills,
and the new GE will build systematically on their work. But we
don’t expect the campus community to accept the committee’s
proposals on faith. This year we have helped create a pilot cluster
on the global environment, and next year we will pilot three more
first-year clusters.

The new GE offers many new teaching opportunities for graduate
students and does so with sensitivity to the myriad constraints on
their time. Under the current GE system, many TAs are responsible
for 60 or more students each quarter; by adding $1.2 million
dollars to TA support, the new GE limits that number to 40 or less.
The new system would create dozens of teaching assistantships and
reduce graduate student workloads.

The new GE improves upon the current system without sacrificing
the variety of subject matter we currently offer. With this new
approach, UCLA will marshal its impressive resources in service of
its bright and ambitious student body. In doing so, our campus can
fulfill its promise not only as a premier research university but
as a center of undergraduate learning second to none.