AU to restructure general education requirements

Alfred University is undergoing the prudent process of restructuring the general education curriculum for its College of Liberal arts and Sciences.

The initiative to review the general education requirements within Alfred University’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences began shortly after Dean Mary McGee took her position as Dean of CLAS in 2008.

Possible restructuring of general education requirements has been an issue since the college was last inspected by the Middle States Accrediting agency in 2004. While there were not threats to the University’s accreditations, eyes were opened.

The current general education requirements were created 35 years ago by faculty and staff of CLAS, many of who have since moved out of the Alfred University community. The requirements are based on a Distribution Requirement Model. This application is more rigid than alternatives in that it supplies students with a list of requirements from which students then choose from. Hence the laundry list feeling many get from their "gen eds".

As Dean McGee stated “[CLAS] Gen eds haven’t changed in 35 years and there is a lot that has changed.”

Not only would a restructuring of the "gen ed" requirements be welcomed by the students, but many liberal arts professors are pushing for action as well.

McGee explained that as the current curriculum was instituted well before many of the current Alfred faculty have been teaching here, there is an understandable distance between themselves and the requirements they are obliged to teach.

“We need to be not afraid to do this,” McGee stated, “Change can be scary, but we ask students every day to learn critiques, [to] evaluate your selves and we need to do the same.”

The self-evaluation of CLAS may lead to more freedom for students as well as faculty. Restructuring the general education curriculum may yield more, less-conventional, connected courses, or courses meant to be paired with each other.

Also being considered are the ways other colleges and universities have structured their "gen eds", from which consideration the idea of developing a theme for the requirements fashioned after AU’s mission arose.

All this equates to greater ownership of the requirements by faculty and more interesting options for students.

Though the project is very much in the developmental stage McGee is willing to prove her ability to think outside the box. Open-mindedness within the initiative has led to further student involvement as the campus has been covered with flyers and emails inviting students to discussions on gen eds.

While the ideas are flourishing and many faculty are advocating change, the general sentiment on the situation is prudent. Dean McGee is looking into creating a steering committee dedicated to the restructuring of general education requirements that can begin working in the fall semester.