Assembly decides to decrease GE requirement, increase units

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By Noah Grand
Daily Bruin Reporter

General education is getting a facelift for the first time in 20
years.

The Academic Senate approved cutting four courses from the
College of Letters & Science GE requirements and changing most
GE classes from four units to five at its Legislative Assembly
meeting Tuesday.

“We believe it may be the case that GE had deteriorated in
that time,” English professor David Rodes, who chairs the GE
governance committee, said of the 20 years it has taken the College
to change its curriculum.

Before the change, the College required 82 of the 180 units a
student needs to graduate to come from GE courses. Now students
will only need to take 74 units of GE.

The number of courses were reduced, Rodes said, because the
amount of GE the College required “was way out of line”
when compared to other UC campuses. UCLA currently requires 21 GE
classes, while UC Berkeley only requires 12.

Cutting the unit requirement will also allow students more time
to take upper division classes in their major or to acquire a
minor, Rodes said.

Many university officials and faculty have also said that the
cutting down of required GE courses and the switch from four to
five-unit courses are meant to get students graduating ““ and
out of an overpopulated campus ““ faster.

Freshmen entering the university in fall 2002 will be required
to take four fewer GE classes, with one humanities, one social
science and two science classes cut.

All students will still be required to meet minimum college
requirements, such as Writing I and II courses, and satisfy three
quarters of a foreign language.

“It had long been our hope that a reform of this kind may
be made,” said undergraduate council chair Raymond Knapp.

The change did not include a diversity requirement ““
something all other UC campuses require ““ but such a
requirement could be added, Knapp said.

The Undergraduate Students Association Council lobbied for a
diversity requirement a few months ago, but the GE committee
rejected it because it felt diversity education is already
integrated into each class.

Bryant Tan, academic affairs commissioner for USAC, was expected
to argue for adding a diversity requirement to the proposal but
left Tuesday’s Legislative Assembly meeting to attend
class.

“What I wanted to say was to encourage faculty that if
they support (the GE changes) then they should see it through to a
diversity requirement as well,” Tan said.

Rodes said his committee had trouble previously finding students
to work on the committee.

This year, Tan designated two students to attend all meetings
and has met with Rodes and Knapp himself several times.

At least one student representative has been present at all of
the committee’s meetings this year, Rodes said.

“This year we’ve had really good student
representation because we have a student government that’s
assigned people to our committee,” Rodes said.

Though Tan still has concerns, he said the change is a good
effort to concentrate the amount of GE courses students need to
take.

All humanities and social science GE courses will be five units
starting next fall. Any science course with a laboratory or Writing
II component will also be five units.

Science GEs in some departments will stay at four units, because
those departments do not want to change to five-unit classes.

Tan is concerned that many GE classes are already rigorous
enough as four-unit classes. One unit is defined as three hours of
classwork per week.

“Some students may fall through the cracks with the amount
of work required in a five-unit class,” Tan said.

The greater benefit will come from having to re-evaluate all the
classes, Rodes said. All courses must be re-evaluated and reports
submitted to the Academic Senate by May 1 so the registrar can make
next year’s schedule.

In passing the proposal, the Academic Senate formed three
working groups ““ Foundations of the Arts & Humanities,
Foundations of Society & Culture and Foundations of Scientific
Inquiry ““ to evaluate proposed classes.

Each group has student representation, and Rodes said he will
meet with the students on Feb. 22.