Gen ed problems and future outlook

[polly_mer]

People coming from a liberal arts idea of college education being 40 credits of major, 40 credits of free electives, and 40 credits of gen eds requirements met from lengthy lists of options may not be prepared for the realities of being in the gen ed program serving other majors that are extensively prescribed even to which gen ed "electives" to take.  Many of the large popular majors nationally only have perhaps two or three true electives outside their major.  That means much less demand for humanities and social science professors.

A shift that is well underway is loss of those gen ed service jobs as gen ed requirements are scaled back to accommodate:

* majors with many requirements and state-imposed max 120 credit hours.  Those larger majors will cut free elective slots and work hard to make non-major prerequisites count as the relevent gen ed requirements. 

* transfer-friendly policies that encourage students to meet gen ed requirements elsewhere, including through AP and dual credit in HS.

* articulation and other agreements with course providers who specialize in gen ed so the university can focus on majors and prerequisites for those majors. These courses are most likely course-in-a-box.

The movement towards course-in-a-box as a way to improve quality of courses while still relying on minimally qualified instructors willing to work for peanuts should be alarming to people currently teaching geneds.
https://www.theregister.com/2021/01/27/online_prof/ is not an isolated example of course-in-a-box where the instructor of record will be interacting with students, but not be professing or teaching.  There's no need for the highly qualified, experienced PhD professor once the course has been set up.  The whole Quality Matters mechanism calls for a review of the course every few years, but not PhD instructors making each instance of the course their own.

Even before Covid, about 30% of on-campus students were taking at least one online course.  The examples given are usually gen ed courses and often as course-in-a-box.  Thus, the potential pool of adjuncts then is greatly increased beyond local qualified people.  Course-in-a-box is also more likely to be given to TAs with a professor overseeing in case of problems.  One professor can oversee many TAs delivering sections of the same course.

The mental model of general education and free electives being the majority of college education is flat out wrong for the majority of recent college graduates and even a substantial fraction of faculty and administrators guiding curriculum changes.  The humanities aren't doomed as human knowledge, but many, many current humanities faculty jobs are doomed and the job loss for teaching/service jobs is accelerating.

I am focused on getting out the message about gen ed because so much discussion focused on convincing the general.public of the value of the humanities and a liberal arts education.  Getting a job teaching students who have chosen a liberal arts education is a better use of one's effort.  Getting a professional career other than being gen ed faculty is a better use of one effort.  The jobs in humanities gen ed are being lost and propping them up temporarily only provides time to get another job.  There is no foreseeable future next decade that those jobs aren't lost in droves.

[mleok]

Indeed, articulation agreements allow students to fulfill their general education requirements during the summers at community colleges, which hire armies of contingent faculty. My former student is a department chair at one of the nearby community colleges, and his department only has about 4 or 5 full time faculty, who seem to primarily serve as administrators to keep the department running, while simultaneously managing the army of contingent faculty.

[Ruralguy]

My SLAC in the last few years has trended toward creating bigger majors (think STEMy stuff). We are also considering a review of the curriculum which I suspect will reduce the core in some ways. I think part of the acceptance of this is the overall view at my school that this is the trend of academia (reduction of traditional cores/gen ed and not requiring many electives, and just filling the space with bigger majors). I fear that we won't be able to keep up with the trends.

However, I will say that one primary reason some academics beat the drum for the liberal arts is that they find value in the liberal arts.  I think they are aware of the trends but want to fight the good fight because they think its actually important.  I get that it might be like preaching the life of a monk in the middle of Times Square, but that doesn't make the monk necessarily wrong. It might very well mean he won't see very many monks in the next generation though.

[marshwiggle]

My SLAC in the last few years has trended toward creating bigger majors (think STEMy stuff). We are also considering a review of the curriculum which I suspect will reduce the core in some ways. I think part of the acceptance of this is the overall view at my school that this is the trend of academia (reduction of traditional cores/gen ed and not requiring many electives, and just filling the space with bigger majors). I fear that we won't be able to keep up with the trends.

However, I will say that one primary reason some academics beat the drum for the liberal arts is that they find value in the liberal arts.  I think they are aware of the trends but want to fight the good fight because they think its actually important.  I get that it might be like preaching the life of a monk in the middle of Times Square, but that doesn't make the monk necessarily wrong. It might very well mean he won't see very many monks in the next generation though.

Or maybe that instead of copying manuscripts, they'll be web designers.

[mleok]

I am actually rather ambivalent about the haphazard general education distribution requirements, and would be more supportive of a reduced but well thought out set of core requirements that every student takes.

[marshwiggle]

I am actually rather ambivalent about the haphazard general education distribution requirements, and would be more supportive of a reduced but well thought out set of core requirements that every student takes.

I've thought for a while that a well-designed scientific literacy course would be a great idea for non-science students, and it would be far more useful than any ordinary introductory science course.

[Wahoo Redux]

I am actually rather ambivalent about the haphazard general education distribution requirements, and would be more supportive of a reduced but well thought out set of core requirements that every student takes.

I've thought for a while that a well-designed scientific literacy course would be a great idea for non-science students, and it would be far more useful than any ordinary introductory science course.

Actually, Marshy, that is a great idea.  I'd love to take a course like that now.

[kiana]

I am actually rather ambivalent about the haphazard general education distribution requirements, and would be more supportive of a reduced but well thought out set of core requirements that every student takes.

I've thought for a while that a well-designed scientific literacy course would be a great idea for non-science students, and it would be far more useful than any ordinary introductory science course.

Honestly, I think the math appreciation course that I'm teaching now is a hell of a lot more useful to non-STEM majors than trying to have them go through college algebra. I would feel the same about a good scientific literacy course as compared to having people flounder through whichever of the intro courses for majors they find least unappealing.

[Ruralguy]

If we aren't teaching them scientific literacy in a science intro course now, we probably aren't doing our jobs correctly.

[mleok]

I also wonder whether the current associates degree program makes sense, and whether two-year colleges should be viewed as providing the first two years of a four year degree program, when we know that many students do not transfer to a four year college. In particular, should community colleges be revamped so that the two years of higher education they offer is useful even if students don't go on to a four year degree?

[marshwiggle]

If we aren't teaching them scientific literacy in a science intro course now, we probably aren't doing our jobs correctly.

I've created a separate scientific literacy thread for this specifically. The reason we aren't teaching them scientific literacy now is that it involves several different disciplines; an introductory course in one discipline will only touch on a few elements of scientific literacy.

[spork]

[. . .]

The mental model of general education and free electives being the majority of college education is flat out wrong for the majority of recent college graduates and even a substantial fraction of faculty and administrators guiding curriculum changes. 

[. . . ]

This systemic error in thinking is common among many of my colleagues and is a major reason that my employer is headed toward insolvency.

[Ruralguy]

I don't think this is *the* reason my school is having trouble, but perhaps a sense that the curriculum is rather 
20th century is contributing to students losing interest in my college.

[Caracal]

I don't think this is *the* reason my school is having trouble, but perhaps a sense that the curriculum is rather 
20th century is contributing to students losing interest in my college.

I tend to think that a much better approach would be to have interdisciplinary courses or course sequences team taught by faculty from different departments exploring interesting questions and topics. You could have a course about concepts of race and genetics taught by a biologist and an anthropologist or historian. Classes on physics and science fiction. Sports and statistics, etc etc.

The problem right now is that at most schools the gen ed system is just underfunded and poorly designed. No wonder students just see it as an annoying hoop to jump through and don't usually learn much. There's no connection to the rest of their studies or their interests.

[polly_mer]

However, I will say that one primary reason some academics beat the drum for the liberal arts is that they find value in the liberal arts. 

Sure, but the problem still remains that almost no one in modern US is getting a liberal arts education, even those majoring in traditional liberal arts fields.  Instead, we are moving to the more typical model of other First World higher ed systems where a university degree is specialized knowledge after a solid primary and secondary education in which people learn cultural knowledge.

One observation that smacks me in the face frequently is how few of the people advocating for a liberal arts education really include math and science at the level of proficiency that they value for history, philosophy, and literature.  Many of those folks have an excellent specialized humanities education, with a good general education memories and an internalized message about the outsized value of whatever it is they teach at this the university level.

I get that it might be like preaching the life of a monk in the middle of Times Square, but that doesn't make the monk necessarily wrong. It might very well mean he won't see very many monks in the next generation though.

If the monks were merely recruiting for the next generation of monks by selling life at the monastery, then I wouldn't be so worried about the current aspiring, novice, and journeyman monks.

The analogy I see is monks insisting that everyone should spend 2-4-8-10 years studying at the monastery seeing if they'd like to be monks before leaving as a washed out monk to do something else.

We've been doing monastery-lite for decades because listened to the monks about what a good education entailed.  The monks are right about the monastery, but they are drastically wrong about midwives, farmers, butchers, bakers, and candlestick makers.  Some monks may do those things as part of becoming a monk, but the relevant apprenticeships don't require studying with the monks.

I remember one forumite who was probably crying as she asked why students couldn't just study in draughty classrooms with leaky roofs so she could have a full-time job teaching the literature she loved.  She took a full-time job at one point and it was terrible because most of the job was wrangling adjuncts for gen eds and how to game the system to ensure students didn't fail in droves despite doing no study in the courses.