Gen ed problems and future outlook

[Parasaurolophus]

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.

Agreed.

This sort of thing does still exist in the form of foundation year programs (but not the ones just aimed at introducing foreign students to local culture), but there don't seem to be many of those around, and they're often hosted at boutique universities. Too often, they just take the form of a great books program and mostly leave out math, science, and the social sciences.

[Wahoo Redux]

Some of the frequent jargon ("checking boxes") on the gen ed discussion seems to come from here:

https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2020/02/10/higher-ed-needs-redesign-gen-ed-real-world-opinion

I assume this has been posted somewhere already on these fora.  This guy uses some imprecise metrics (a tweet, a Google search) but seems to codify a lot of people's concerns.

So typical of these sorts of conversations, however, at the end I am not sure what we are really, actually, on-the-ground supposed to do.  Handstedt does offer this example:

Consider, for instance, the gen ed requirements at Worcester Polytechnic: the first-year experience involves a team-taught course focusing on complex problems like sustainability, epidemics, food and energy. Students also participate in an "interactive qualifying project," a real-world problem (some from overseas) that those from different fields work in small cohorts to solve, supervised by a professor. Senior year, students participate in "major qualifying projects," also focusing on real-world problems, also overseen by a faculty member, also working in small groups -- though generally drawing from just a single field. Besides some initial requirements in the humanities (arguably necessary at an engineering school), there is no distributional component to the curricula; the various divisions, their methods, contents and values, are woven into the larger projects, many of which are based on high-impact practices. Distribution exists, yes, but it doesn't drive the model.

But otherwise his piece is metaphoric play and proselytizing.  For instance, "the silo" approach to departments seems like a purely practical organization----how else are we supposed to organize our colleges?  Maybe like Oxford?

Right now I'm reading a "Student Perceptions of General Education Requirements at a Large Public University. No Surprises?" by Clarissa A. Thompson, Michele Eodice, and Phuoc Tran (2015).  It is available  on JStore.

My question would be, what would a revised college curriculum look like? 

I do want to point out that the Medieval monks saved learning for Western culture.  Without the monks?...I dunno, but it wouldn't be the world we have today.

[polly_mer]

My question would be, what would a revised college curriculum look like? 

There simply would be no general education requirements.  People could borrow major curricula from their colleagues in Europe and elsewhere who already do this.  Just cutting the year of gen eds leads to a three-year BA in many fields.  Other fields are still four years and those are in the US either zero free electives or five-year plans with a co-op/internship.

One reason we don't have substantial participation on these fora by Europeans is most of the discussions are irrelevant.  There's no teaching hordes of people who don't want to learn, but must pass any way for the faculty to keep their jobs.  Faculty profess and do their research as experts in their fields.

I do want to point out that the Medieval monks saved learning for Western culture.  Without the monks?...I dunno, but it wouldn't be the world we have today.

Monks are important, but we need so many, many other professions in the world as well.  We are all worse off if we have only monks and aspiring monks in the world.

[Wahoo Redux]

Monks are important, but we need so many, many other professions in the world as well.  We are all worse off if we have only monks and aspiring monks in the world.

Not the point, Polly.

The idealists, the monks, saved knowledge for the sake of saving knowledge.  We all benefited.  It's not an analogy, it is history.

[polly_mer]

What is your point?

New knowledge can never be developed because modern peoples are stupid?  The monks didn't save modern technology because that was developed later and accelerated long after actual monks had lost relevance.

Only Western knowledge is valuable?  The modern world might have been much improved if the European knowledge were discarded in favor of imported knowledge from other societies.

How many of those monks wasted their energy on inept pupils who could not possibly become the educated monks instead of nurturing the handful of future monks and letting the outside world just go to figurative hell?

How much of the knowledge that those monks saved really irreplaceable in terms of how humans and rhe natural world work and how much is just a specific instance of literature?

Yeah, we have stuff because having some idealists works out.  Having a whole society of idealists is not going to work out, no matter how valuable having a handful of idealists is necessary.

[Wahoo Redux]

It would seem apropos, Polly, since "monks" came up earlier in the thread, to point out that these religious scholars safeguarded knowledge for the sake of knowledge.   

If the monks were only concerned about the practical nature of their erudition----that the purpose of knowledge existed to create a better reeve or a more efficient mill----we would have lost a great deal of Western culture.

It's that simple.

[marshwiggle]

It would seem apropos, Polly, since "monks" came up earlier in the thread, to point out that these religious scholars safeguarded knowledge for the sake of knowledge.   

If the monks were only concerned about the practical nature of their erudition----that the purpose of knowledge existed to create a better reeve or a more efficient mill----we would have lost a great deal of Western culture.

It's that simple.

The question I've never heard anyone try to answer is this: If it's important that students be exposed to "knowledge for the sake of knowledge", on what basis can any reasonable determination be made of what knowledge should be included? By definition, human knowledge is vast, beyond what anyone could study in a lifetime, let alone in a few courses. So, if "knowledge for the sake of knowledge" is restricted to few courses' worth, and it's not going to depend on obvious utility, what remotely objective standard can be used to choose?

[Wahoo Redux]

It would seem apropos, Polly, since "monks" came up earlier in the thread, to point out that these religious scholars safeguarded knowledge for the sake of knowledge.   

If the monks were only concerned about the practical nature of their erudition----that the purpose of knowledge existed to create a better reeve or a more efficient mill----we would have lost a great deal of Western culture.

It's that simple.

The question I've never heard anyone try to answer is this: If it's important that students be exposed to "knowledge for the sake of knowledge", on what basis can any reasonable determination be made of what knowledge should be included? By definition, human knowledge is vast, beyond what anyone could study in a lifetime, let alone in a few courses. So, if "knowledge for the sake of knowledge" is restricted to few courses' worth, and it's not going to depend on obvious utility, what remotely objective standard can be used to choose?

Well, I think the current ideal is that students are given a series of choices within a rubric, and they then decide what knowledge they find most engaging and this will introduce them to the vast array of human knowledge.

We have come to a point in which people are challenging this ideal.

I am not sure what your question really is.

[marshwiggle]

It would seem apropos, Polly, since "monks" came up earlier in the thread, to point out that these religious scholars safeguarded knowledge for the sake of knowledge.   

If the monks were only concerned about the practical nature of their erudition----that the purpose of knowledge existed to create a better reeve or a more efficient mill----we would have lost a great deal of Western culture.

It's that simple.

The question I've never heard anyone try to answer is this: If it's important that students be exposed to "knowledge for the sake of knowledge", on what basis can any reasonable determination be made of what knowledge should be included? By definition, human knowledge is vast, beyond what anyone could study in a lifetime, let alone in a few courses. So, if "knowledge for the sake of knowledge" is restricted to few courses' worth, and it's not going to depend on obvious utility, what remotely objective standard can be used to choose?

Well, I think the current ideal is that students are given a series of choices within a rubric, and they then decide what knowledge they find most engaging and this will introduce them to the vast array of human knowledge.

We have come to a point in which people are challenging this ideal.

I am not sure what your question really is.

The point is that the areas of human knowledge that are covered by "humanities" courses represents a tiny fraction of human knowledge. The only argument supporting it seems to be along the lines of "whatever is, is best". (In other words, history has somehow determined that this body of knowledge is the important stuff, and we shouldn't mess with it. Even if we can't say definitively what the criteria are that "history" employed, and thus whether there might be completely different areas of knowledge that would be as good or even better now.)

[polly_mer]

It would seem apropos, Polly, since "monks" came up earlier in the thread, to point out that these religious scholars safeguarded knowledge for the sake of knowledge.   

If the monks were only concerned about the practical nature of their erudition----that the purpose of knowledge existed to create a better reeve or a more efficient mill----we would have lost a great deal of Western culture.

It's that simple.

I'm still missing the relevance to current educational practices or why Western culture preservation (really only parts of Western Europe and really only some cultural knowledge) is the key metric here.

Yep, people hoarded something interesting that is still interesting to some people today.

China has a fascinating culture that has been preserved by those who did so.

The Americas were not lacking human culture prior to 1492.

It's really handy to have read some literature, but starting every science class from Aristotle means students tend to latch on to non-physics.  Spending a lot of time with cultural practices that are now verboten seems similarly like putting the undesirable ideas into heads as what is valuable to retain from gen ed courses.

If your point is merely "here's a factoid from history that engineers couldn't possibly know", well, thanks for sharing.

I will share https://youtu.be/QcbR1J_4ICg

[Ruralguy]

Personally, I value something of a "core." I could go into details, but they will just be refuted, so why bother?

I value electives as well, but of course those could be anything, so I won't get into that much either.

But I do agree that things really seem to be evolving toward "big specialized majors" in a narrow set of practical fields, at least for now. While that trend continues and small colleges that are too focused on what students don't really want consolidate or go under, I think we really do need to concentrate the gen ed requirements at most schools.

Elites can do what they want, and that's where you'll have to go to study Classics. Does that mean no more mediocre student Classicists in the hinterlands? Probably, but lets be honest, there weren't really very many of those any way and the number was decreasing all the time.

[polly_mer]

But I do agree that things really seem to be evolving toward "big specialized majors" in a narrow set of practical fields, at least for now.

Define "narrow set of practical fields".

The humanities are far from dead as undergrad fields of studies.  Consolidating programs to give great experiences to all enrolled students is a victory, not a tragedy.  The worry I see there is more the large percentage of people who then choose graduate school instead of a college-degree-required job.

The three-year degrees in Europe are fine.  We can do that as well to accommodate complicated lives where three years may be doable where four is not.

Change isn't necessarily bad, but pining for the old ways instead of exploring change can be the end.

[Ruralguy]

Your last sentence, Polly is the critical one. Though I am not so much pining for the old days when I say I really value some gen eds, I do see that digging in heals to retain the 40/40/40 credit splits will likely not be helpful to most schools, even SLACs (especially?).

I mean that as an undergrad, majoring in most languages, especially classics, will not be possible outside of elites.  English might survive since we in US especially speak it, write it and value it, but it will probably consolidate with the other languages at many schools (that is, consolidate with the languages that survive).  Some of the most esoteric (meaning not so practical) sciences will be out (such as Astronomy, unless a gen ed in sciences is kept).  And so forth.

What is in? Business and Econ for sure. Medical and engineering related sciences and math. Depending on the nature of the school, maybe psych, political science.

As you suggest, maybe it means not *everything* is out, especially at elites, small schools with specialized (and funded!) missions, and universities with enough of a grad program.

But especially at the small schools, as you've written about extensively, I don't see them surviving with the same-old same-old stuff. Maybe they won't survive anyway, but concentrating on what people want might help, if they can afford it (some of those practical fields are very expensive fields!) .

[Wahoo Redux]

The point is that the areas of human knowledge that are covered by "humanities" courses represents a tiny fraction of human knowledge. The only argument supporting it seems to be along the lines of "whatever is, is best". (In other words, history has somehow determined that this body of knowledge is the important stuff, and we shouldn't mess with it. Even if we can't say definitively what the criteria are that "history" employed, and thus whether there might be completely different areas of knowledge that would be as good or even better now.)

What percentage of human knowledge is "humanities"?  The "humanities" as we now define them literally go back to the beginnings of civilization----and before, actually, if we take in all of history.

You, my friend, may not know as much as you think you do.  And for some reason you are very defensive and resentful about the humanities.  I've noticed this defensiveness before in STEM people----I don't understand it.

Regardless, the way we teach and what we teach has changed every generation.  Subject matter in all disciplines is always in flux.  We are teaching for the now.

Or perhaps you are talking about someone like Shakespeare?  We teach The Bard precisely because of history and his seminal place in it.  Shakespeare will always be important.

Again, I just don't know what you are on about.

[polly_mer]

I don't see it as that bleak, Ruralguy, unless elite now includes places like New Mexico State and University of Wisconsin-Platteville.

I see a lot of consolidation for programs.  Yeah, not all the directional states will offer all of astronomy, chemistry, physics, English, history, and philosophy majors, but all of those programs will be available in the state for students, not just at the flagships.

Another trend that will help transform the programs is larger institutions.  Many of the colleges under 2000 enrollment will be gone, but having 10-15k students means it's more likely to be able to be a true university.  If you have quarter to half the state college students enrolled, then you likely do have a hundred English majors and a great program.

There's still a place for a true liberal arts education for those who pick those colleges.  I don't see that going away for the smaller places that have the immersive learning community as an experience.  Some people want to study that way, but it's likely a small fraction (max 10%) of all college students and those places haven't been struggling.  They kept programs like English and philosophy to draw from a much larger area as a mission, instead of just mouthing the platitudes of a liberal arts education.