Changing Humanities Courses to Entice More Gen Ed Enrollment: CHE Article

[polly_mer]

From a non-paywalled Twitter link: Can You Get Students Interested in the Humanities Again? These Colleges May Have It Figured Out

Tidbits potentially relevant to ongoing discussions:

[Purdue's] Transformative Texts series, said Melinda Zook, a history professor and Cornerstone's founding director, is different from the traditional rhetoric and composition courses, typically taught by graduate students, that all students take through their general-education requirements. For one, the courses are taught by some of the college's best teachers in a variety of disciplines, including anthropology, history, philosophy, political science, and sociology. And because they are built around classic works, the courses are designed to engage undergraduates in ways that a traditional composition class typically does not.

...
When the Transformative Texts courses were rolled out, in the fall of 2018, about 1,000 students enrolled and the wait list was long. This year, Purdue doubled the number of sections. Now, about 1,800 students — or about one-quarter of the freshman class — are enrolled.

Note that only a quarter of the incoming class is getting the good general education requirements taught by the excellent full-time teachers and that the listed disciplines have only one humanities discipline.

The only example of successfully changing the major comes from making it more like a different major.

Florida State University's English department used to have just two majors: creative writing as well as literature, media, and culture.

In 2009 it added a third: editing, writing, and media. At the time, the reason was fairly practical. The English department had recently developed a graduate concentration in the history of text technologies, said Taylor, the department chair, and wanted to deploy that faculty expertise more broadly. It also wanted to create a major that pulled together the department's strengths in rhetoric, creative writing, and literature.

Editing, writing, and media has proved so popular that professors are struggling to keep up with demand. The number of majors, 662, is more than the other two majors combined.
...
The major also includes an internship, allowing students to envision their professional futures. Some have worked at book publishers. Others have interned at literary magazines, media-strategy firms, or museums.

"We have added offerings that connect literature and culture to the 21st-century creative economy," said Taylor. "And that has proven to be amazingly attractive to undergraduates who are still interested in the things that have always attracted people to English departments."

Drawing more students into history or English or philosophy classes seems more doable. A number of universities are revamping introductory and intermediate-level courses as a way to lure more students.

At Virginia Tech, the history department watched the number of credit hours taken in the department drop from 14,000 to 8,700 in the span of five years, bottoming out in 2016. But since then it has seen its enrollments steadily climb — surpassing 14,000 credit hours last fall.

...
Gumbert, an associate professor of history and former associate chair, said her department's faculty members began experimenting with course redesign following a restructuring of the major and the introduction of a new general-education program.

...

They began by rebalancing their offerings. The department was top-heavy, said Gumbert, offering lots of upperclass courses but not enough lower-level ones. So a number of higher-level courses were redesigned as introductory or intermediate ones, proving popular with students from across the campus. An upper-level history-of-technology course, for example, hardly drew any students three years ago. The introductory version is now consistently full. The same is true of a sequence of courses in African American history.

Even freakin' Harvard is hoping to game the system.

This fall Harvard University's history department unveiled 16 new or revised gateway, or foundations, courses designed to draw more students, particularly freshmen, into the department. The courses have names like "The New Science of the Human Past" and "The Making of the Modern Middle East." They are centered on big questions, such as "What happened in the 20th century to make the U.S. the most powerful — and feared — country in the world?"

They also promise accessibility: No prerequisites are needed, and no historical-analysis skills are assumed. They will teach all that, including how to use primary-source material and make a historical argument.

...
To that end, the department has created a series of clusters, or groups of courses, to appeal to students who want to study history but also want to see a clear path to a career. The clusters cover law, business, journalism, government, activism, and the environment. A student interested in environmental issues can take a series of courses relevant to that career, such as one on the history of energy, while a business major could study, among other things, the history of women in economic life.

I have to ask why one would study history with one's strong interests in environmentalism that will lead to a good job after college since Harvard has related science and engineering majors that will remain relevant after this wave of flavor-of-the-month social cause passes. 

I'm reminded of the push at Super Dinky to have all the secondary history majors also get qualified in special education because then they'd have a leg up on being hired.  The patient explanations of (a) how special ed took a specific mindset and (b) that people who had both certifications would never teach history in the smaller school districts became less patient as time went on.

[marshwiggle]

This was interesting:

They began by rebalancing their offerings. The department was top-heavy, said Gumbert, offering lots of upperclass courses but not enough lower-level ones. So a number of higher-level courses were redesigned as introductory or intermediate ones, proving popular with students from across the campus. An upper-level history-of-technology course, for example, hardly drew any students three years ago. The introductory version is now consistently full. The same is true of a sequence of courses in African American history.

Coming from STEM, it's kind of mind-bending to imagine how a third or fourth year course could be redesigned as an introductory one and having any significant value. Without all of the research and analysis skills as well as the disciplinary context developed by other courses, wouldn't the first year course be a pale shadow of its previous incarnation?

[Hibush]

This was interesting:

They began by rebalancing their offerings. The department was top-heavy, said Gumbert, offering lots of upperclass courses but not enough lower-level ones. So a number of higher-level courses were redesigned as introductory or intermediate ones, proving popular with students from across the campus. An upper-level history-of-technology course, for example, hardly drew any students three years ago. The introductory version is now consistently full. The same is true of a sequence of courses in African American history.

Coming from STEM, it's kind of mind-bending to imagine how a third or fourth year course could be redesigned as an introductory one and having any significant value. Without all of the research and analysis skills as well as the disciplinary context developed by other courses, wouldn't the first year course be a pale shadow of its previous incarnation?

I thought about that angle as well. But the upper level courses were not drawing students. Teaching introductory material in your field to 30 students is likely to have more value than teaching advanced material to three students.

It is also a pipeline problem. If no introductory courses lead to your advanced courses, there is not much purpose to teaching them. Renewing the pipeline needs to come first. We have had that problem in STEM when faculty are convinced that we are especially well suited to teach advanced courses in a topic (which is true) but then only offer those advanced (400+) courses without having enough feeder courses and high-enrollment prerequisites.

The intermediate courses are of particular importance. If there is a no-prerequisite course that draws a wide array of freshmen to the department, then some will be interested enough to pursue the intermediate course that has the first one as a prereq. Then you might get 15 students (which is an OK number for in my system) to take the intermediate (200 or 300) course. That teaching provides satisfaction of getting some of the topic-specific information to a meaningful number of students.

[Caracal]

I continue to be struck by the way that, your denials to the contrary, you have this odd animus against the humanities. This stuff is really quite interesting but your take on it is just totally lacking in good faith.

Note that only a quarter of the incoming class is getting the good general education requirements taught by the excellent full-time teachers and that the listed disciplines have only one humanities discipline.

Reading comprehension problems here. Philosophy and history are humanities disciplines. Also they say, "including" so I assume there might be English or Classics professors teaching some of these courses. I know you have an axe to grind but some good faith might be helpful here.

The only example of successfully changing the major comes from making it more like a different major.

Florida State University's English department used to have just two majors: creative writing as well as literature, media, and culture.

In 2009 it added a third: editing, writing, and media.
...
The major also includes an internship, allowing students to envision their professional futures. Some have worked at book publishers. Others have interned at literary magazines, media-strategy firms, or museums.

"We have added offerings that connect literature and culture to the 21st-century creative economy," said Taylor. "And that has proven to be amazingly attractive to undergraduates who are still interested in the things that have always attracted people to English departments."

I know you don't know much about English majors, as you've demonstrated, but in fact, as the article says, there is actually a whole field of English that looks at print cultures. The point is that rigorous study of texts isn't actually incompatible with giving students marketable skills. In fact, reading and writing are marketable skills and they've found some neat ways of putting that into practice.

Even freakin' Harvard is hoping to game the system.

Gaming the system? They are trying to find ways to teach more courses that students want to take because they find them relevant to their lives and interests. Isn't that the point?

I have to ask why one would study history with one's strong interests in environmentalism that will lead to a good job after college since Harvard has related science and engineering majors that will remain relevant after this wave of flavor-of-the-month social cause passes. 

You have to ask because you are profoundly ignorant about the discipline of history. There is a whole separate field in History of Science. There's another one in History of Medicine. They have both been around for a long time. Many of the people in these fields have extensive backgrounds in science disciplines, Public Heath or Medicine. These things are extremely relevant and important because science and bio medicine both play a really large role in our world and understanding the dynamics of this can be really important.

You're also having reading comprehension troubles again. The point is that someone can in fact be an engineering major or a biology major, but also take a humanities course that is directly relevant to their discipline. Do you really think that it isn't useful for someone who is a STEM major interested in issues around the environment to have a sense of the larger historical perspective?  You've been complaining that gen ed requirements are pointless, but here is a chance to make them directly relevant and yet you don't like it.

[Wahoo Redux]

Reading comprehension problems here. Philosophy and history are humanities disciplines. Also they say, "including" so I assume there might be English or Classics professors teaching some of these courses. I know you have an axe to grind but some good faith might be helpful here.

I know you don't know much about English majors, as you've demonstrated, but in fact, as the article says, there is actually a whole field of English that looks at print cultures. The point is that rigorous study of texts isn't actually incompatible with giving students marketable skills. In fact, reading and writing are marketable skills and they've found some neat ways of putting that into practice.

You have to ask because you are profoundly ignorant about the discipline of history. There is a whole separate field in History of Science. There's another one in History of Medicine. They have both been around for a long time. Many of the people in these fields have extensive backgrounds in science disciplines, Public Heath or Medicine. These things are extremely relevant and important because science and bio medicine both play a really large role in our world and understanding the dynamics of this can be really important.

You're also having reading comprehension troubles again. The point is that someone can in fact be an engineering major or a biology major, but also take a humanities course that is directly relevant to their discipline. Do you really think that it isn't useful for someone who is a STEM major interested in issues around the environment to have a sense of the larger historical perspective?  You've been complaining that gen ed requirements are pointless, but here is a chance to make them directly relevant and yet you don't like it.

Polly and Spork are extraordinarily ironic posters, primarily because they read and infer what they want to read and infer rather than what the text says or implies.

Maybe that's why they don't like the humanities.

Damn textuality!!! 

[Caracal]

Coming from STEM, it's kind of mind-bending to imagine how a third or fourth year course could be redesigned as an introductory one and having any significant value. Without all of the research and analysis skills as well as the disciplinary context developed by other courses, wouldn't the first year course be a pale shadow of its previous incarnation?

This is a disciplinary difference. In STEM the content and the skills are closely linked, or maybe even the same thing. It wouldn't make sense to redesign an advanced course as an intro course because nothing about electromagnetic theory is going to make any sense if you haven't taken classical mechanics . (I just pulled that out of the catalogue, is that even a good example?) History doesn't work that way. The difference between a 3000 level course and a 1000 level course isn't really about the topic. The differences are going to be in the amount and sophistication of the reading and the difficulty of the writing assignments. For some upper level courses, it wouldn't be possible to teach the subject with less difficult or shorter readings, but others can be adapted with some work.

[Wahoo Redux]

Coming from STEM, it's kind of mind-bending to imagine how a third or fourth year course could be redesigned as an introductory one and having any significant value. Without all of the research and analysis skills as well as the disciplinary context developed by other courses, wouldn't the first year course be a pale shadow of its previous incarnation?

This is a disciplinary difference. In STEM the content and the skills are closely linked, or maybe even the same thing. It wouldn't make sense to redesign an advanced course as an intro course because nothing about electromagnetic theory is going to make any sense if you haven't taken classical mechanics . (I just pulled that out of the catalogue, is that even a good example?) History doesn't work that way. The difference between a 3000 level course and a 1000 level course isn't really about the topic. The differences are going to be in the amount and sophistication of the reading and the difficulty of the writing assignments. For some upper level courses, it wouldn't be possible to teach the subject with less difficult or shorter readings, but others can be adapted with some work.

Marshy is also ironic because he's...well, he's Marshy.  It's what he does.

[spork]

[. . . ]
Polly and Spork are extraordinarily ironic posters, primarily because they read and infer what they want to read and infer rather than what the text says or implies.

According to my wife and several of my colleagues, I tend not to be ironic because by default I initially process everything as literal.

Maybe that's why they don't like the humanities.

[. . .]

I don't understand where this "spork hates the humanities" comes from. I probably took more history courses as a doctoral student than most people on this board and now teach courses that cross-list as history. As a doctoral student, I became proficient enough in a foreign language to interview native speakers without an interpreter. I have quite a bit of humanities study under my belt.

Guess what? Due to the decline in the number and proportion of undergraduates majoring in the humanities, humanities departments are now being forced to abandon the traditional model of "tenured faculty teach a few dozen majors per year in upper-level courses while adjuncts and grad students teach the 100-level gen ed courses." Humanities departments are being told by administrators that they can either increase course enrollments or be eliminated because running a major with X number of tenured faculty members and < X students in the major is just too damn expensive. As a short-term stopgap measure these departments are tinkering with the names and content of their 100-level courses that count toward gen ed requirements, to demonstrate more bodies in seats, and because of the hope that some of those bodies will decide to enter the major. But few if any will -- instead of being forced to choose a field outside of their major that might be of interest, and taking 3-5 courses in that field to gain some in-depth knowledge and skills that relate to it, students instead are required to take one course each in a bunch of different fields, courses that the vast majority of students march through without interest only because they are required for a bachelor's degree.

I was listening to Marketplace on the radio this evening, and heard this story about high school civics education in the USA. Only forty percent of Americans could name the three branches of government, while 20 percent couldn't name a single one. I assume that Annenberg knows how to run a valid survey and that survey respondents included a representative number of college graduates -- who presumably all checked off the "American government/society/history" box in their gen ed requirements.

[Wahoo Redux]

I don't understand where this "spork hates the humanities" comes from.

Because of statements such as these.

I assume that Annenberg knows how to run a valid survey and that survey respondents included a representative number of college graduates -- who presumably all checked off the "American government/society/history" box in their gen ed requirements.

[spork]

You're not able to distinguish between a person "hating" something and a person pointing out that a system isn't achieving its stated objectives.

[Wahoo Redux]

You're not able to distinguish between a person "hating" something and a person pointing out that a system isn't achieving its stated objectives.

No, that I can do.

I can also point out irony in detail when it presents itself.  Example:

Your previous post is ironic because A) you claimed to be too literal to be ironic, and then B) you reified my earlier statement that you infer what you want from what you read (you made a whole series of assumptions about surveyor and the surveyed to fit a preconceived notion) which is pretty ironic considering that...

...if you had read your own story, it is really about how civics programs are being defunded...

...specifically high school programs...

...and holes this lack of education may be causing...

...and, damnit, if you actually read the link in your own story to the Annenberg Public Policy Center, the people who administered the very "survey" you are talking about entitled "Americans' Civics Knowledge Increases But Still Has a Long Way to Go," you would have read this:

The good news is that amid all this, the American public knows more about the Constitution and the separation of powers than in the recent past, according to the 2019 Annenberg Constitution Day Civics Survey.

On various topics, the latest Annenberg civics knowledge survey finds more U.S. adults responding correctly to questions about civics and constitutional rights. Although many still show a surprising lack of knowledge about the Constitution, there are signs of improvement.[/b]

Just see for your own damn self!
https://www.annenbergpublicpolicycenter.org/americans-civics-knowledge-increases-2019-survey/

You inferred what you wanted to infer, not what the text actually said.

You acted out the irony.

[polly_mer]

Summary for those who won't read a long post: In many cases, it's not negative feelings against the study of the humanities so much as frustration about fixating on the wrong problem at the expense of solving the right problem.  One of the right problems is fixing K-12 education in regions where being a HS graduate does not ensure basic literacy, numeracy, or indeed much knowledge at all for 13 years of schooling.  Another right problem is getting enough graduate educated people in human knowledge areas where access to a library and being literate is insufficient to self-educate for most people, regardless of how motivated one is.  At no point is the right problem rejiggering general education requirements to continue to keep humanities professors employed.

Main Post
Caracal wrote a lot.  I'm not going to disentangle all the mangled quotes.

The important points I see are:

1) The Florida English major that is very popular looks a lot more like journalism or communications to me than English, especially with the internships. It's good for the students to have something they like that is likely to provide job-relevant experiences and skills.  I don't see how that's "saving English" so much as relabeling to capture a different market.

2) My main complaint with the humanities is the false, or at least very misleading, assertions made for requiring humanities classes for everyone or getting an undergraduate degree. 

Much of the article indicates playing the game to keep humanities professors employed much more than changing the general education requirements based on what modern students need.  Again, I'd be much less annoyed all around if there were some agreement on what educated people need to know that accords with the current realities that only 30% of the US adult population has a college degree and therefore we have many competent adults who didn't learn that competency through college-level, humanities-based general education.  Other countries don't have US-style general education requirements and thus that's clearly not an integral part of a university education, no matter how many times humanities professors assert it.


I look at results like

• Larger proportions of adults in the United States than in other countries have poor literacy and numeracy skills, and the proportion of adults with poor skills in problem solving in technology-rich environments is slightly larger than the average, despite the relatively high educational attainment among adults in the United States.

• Socio-economic economic background has a stronger impact on adult literacy skills in the United States than in other countries. Black and Hispanic adults are substantially over- represented in the low-skilled population.

• Literacy skills are linked not only to employment outcomes, but also to personal and social well-being. In the United States, the odds of being in poor health are four times greater for low- skilled adults than for those with the highest proficiency – double the average across participating countries.

...
U.S. performance is weak in literacy, very poor in numeracy, but only slightly below average in problem solving in technology-rich environments.

Source: https://www.oecd.org/skills/piaac/Country%20note%20-%20United%20States.pdf

and sigh heavily about all the angst wasted on humanities-based general education at the college level that should be put into fixing the K-12 education system.  In many cases, it's not negative feelings against the study of the humanities so much as frustration about fixating on the wrong problem at the expense of solving the right problem.  You can keep searching for the keys under the lamppost, but that won't find them lying in the driveway where they were dropped.

None of the institutions mentioned in the article are famous for working with underprepared students who need support.  Instead, all those institutions rely on the filtering mechanisms to have prepared enough students with reasonable motivation to continue into the middle class.  That completely neglects the tragedy that is our K-12 system in many places where resources would be much better spent to ensure a high school diploma means literate, numerate, and ready to be a competent adult, whether that includes college right away or not. 


3) In the big picture, I'd be much less annoyed if people made the pitch for studying history/English/philosophy/languages focused on what is unique about those fields and how being proficient in the skills of those fields makes a better life.  History of science is very cool as a field as are many of the specialties in history.  So why jump on a current buzzword instead of spreading the joys of studying <long established history specialty X>? 

Assertions like

[Studying philosophy] teaches critical thinking, close reading, clear writing, and logical analysis; it uses these to understand the language we use to describe the world, and our place within it.
...
Students who learn philosophy get a great many benefits from doing so.  The tools taught by philosophy are of great use in further education, and in employment.  Despite the seemingly abstract nature of the questions philosophers ask, the tools philosophy teaches tend to be highly sought-after by employers.  Philosophy students learn how to write clearly, and to read closely, with a critical eye; they are taught to spot bad reasoning, and how to avoid it in their writing and in their work.  It is therefore not surprising that philosophy students have historically scored more highly on tests like the LSAT and GRE, on average, than almost any other discipline.

source: https://phil.washington.edu/why-study-philosophy

are pretty easy to find and usually are near the top of any description instead of starting with the joys of studying philosophy in particular.  Again, the causes (one has to have a pretty decent K-12 educational background, a good bit of brain power, solid motivation, and a fairly stable home life with adequate support to graduate with a philosophy degree) tend to be attributed to the study of the field instead of the initial filtering to only have people who have high probability of being successful in the world.

That Harvard history department thing greatly annoys me because it's advertising the wrong bits. If they were advertising specialities like history of science or history of medicine, then I'd quietly nod and murmur, good on them.  Those are interesting fields and folks should study them.  People with an undergrad degree from Harvard who play the game well are likely to end up with a middle-class job that requires a college degree, regardless of major.  However, the buzzword-heavy claim that one should major in history and take the environmentalism focus to land a job doing something that will be in environmental areas is much less valid as a true career plan than advising someone to major in a relevant STEM field and take some policy classes.  History is much less relevant as a minor for a goal in doing something to fix environmental problems than political science or government. 

4) I am beyond annoyed at the blanket assertions that the humanities teach critical thinking, communication, and other skills that are important to being a competent adult.  Again, the filtering aspects of getting people into college plays a huge role in the outcomes.  It's not that studying the humanities makes one intelligent and good at applying lessons learned in one context to another; it's much more that people who are intelligent and good at things related to the humanities are drawn to the humanities and then use their strengths out in the world.  As one of my colleagues used to put it, the students you could lock in a barn for 4 years and they'd be fine are not the ones who most need good college teachers.  The cause and effect relationship is muddled and often asserted as the cause being the humanities courses instead of intelligent people who are now N months older with new experiences.

Taking a targeted communications class is indeed a wonderful thing, but I again wonder why that's held back until college when speech is routinely taught in high school and writing is taught all through K-12. The National Forensics League has competitions for middle school and high school students. Incorporating more of that instruction and practice for all students in 6-12 grades would be a better use of resources than insisting on taking a pick-a-mix of humanities courses that will include some practice.

Presentation and writing skills alone are insufficient when one doesn't have the content.  Taking humanities courses is much less useful in learning the necessary content.  In terms of practicing writing and presenting, good courses in a relevant major with feedback is likely to be more useful than the same amount of practice in an unrelated humanities course with the same level of feedback.  One is no worse off if one then takes a random job in the world instead of using that major because that unrelated humanities course was also not practicing the correct context.

Therefore, a related huge annoyance is critical thinking is not a transferrable skill because it requires substantial background knowledge in a given topic.  Many rhetorical and communication structuring and delivery techniques can be explicitly taught, but the hard parts of communication also rely on substantial background and context knowledge to gauge audience and focus on the important parts.  One can know many techniques cold, but if one doesn't know, for example, why computational model validation is important and how glaring the omission is from a proposal/report/presentation, then it doesn't matter how good the grammar was or how carefully the report was organized because anyone with good critical thinking skills in a relevant area will immediately reject the report.

[spork]

[. . .]

...and, damnit, if you actually read the link in your own story to the Annenberg Public Policy Center, the people who administered the very "survey" you are talking about entitled "Americans' Civics Knowledge Increases But Still Has a Long Way to Go," you would have read this:

The good news is that amid all this, the American public knows more about the Constitution and the separation of powers than in the recent past, according to the 2019 Annenberg Constitution Day Civics Survey.

On various topics, the latest Annenberg civics knowledge survey finds more U.S. adults responding correctly to questions about civics and constitutional rights. Although many still show a surprising lack of knowledge about the Constitution, there are signs of improvement.[/b]

Just see for your own damn self!
https://www.annenbergpublicpolicycenter.org/americans-civics-knowledge-increases-2019-survey/

You inferred what you wanted to infer, not what the text actually said.

You acted out the irony.

Since you seem to have problems understanding quantitative information, the webpage also says this:

"The survey, conducted in August by the Annenberg Public Policy Center, finds that 2 in 5 American adults (39%) correctly named the three branches of government: executive, legislative and judicial. That is the highest in five years, statistically the same as the prior high of 38% in 2013 and 2011 and a substantial increase over last year, when 32% could do the same."

Over a five year period, approximately 3/5 to 2/3 of those surveyed (U.S. adults) could not name the three branches of government, an extremely basic question to which any fifth grader ought to know the correct answer. There was a one-year improvement of 7% in the proportion able to answer correctly, but only a 1% improvement over the previous high in 2013. So effectively no change since 2013 -- as the webpage says, "statistically the same." Only about 1/2 to 3/5 of survey respondents have given correct answers to other questions since the survey was first administered in 2006. Where I come from, if 40-50% are not able to demonstrate the most basic level of proficiency, there's a problem.

The director of the Annenberg Public Policy Research Center describes the survey results as "dismal."

I would argue that these numbers indicate that far too high a percentage of the American public is not learning essential civics knowledge in either K-12 or college. The system that claims to be supplying that education isn't working effectively, whether at the primary, secondary, or post-secondary level.

[marshwiggle]

Coming from STEM, it's kind of mind-bending to imagine how a third or fourth year course could be redesigned as an introductory one and having any significant value. Without all of the research and analysis skills as well as the disciplinary context developed by other courses, wouldn't the first year course be a pale shadow of its previous incarnation?

This is a disciplinary difference. In STEM the content and the skills are closely linked, or maybe even the same thing. It wouldn't make sense to redesign an advanced course as an intro course because nothing about electromagnetic theory is going to make any sense if you haven't taken classical mechanics . (I just pulled that out of the catalogue, is that even a good example?)

I'd use "thermodynamics and waves" as required for EM theory, and classical mechanics for quantum mechanics, but yes, that's the idea.

History doesn't work that way. The difference between a 3000 level course and a 1000 level course isn't really about the topic. The differences are going to be in the amount and sophistication of the reading and the difficulty of the writing assignments. For some upper level courses, it wouldn't be possible to teach the subject with less difficult or shorter readings, but others can be adapted with some work.

It's still hard to imagine that there isn't context that needs to be covered before certain topics. For instance, if you're talking about the American constitution then the discussion would be vastly different based on whether students have studied the British parliamentary system or not. If not,   isn't it mostly a high school civics class warmed over? On the other hand, if they've studied European history, including the British parliamentary system, then all of the division of powers and checks and balances can be set clearly in the context of the kinds of problems that they were trying to prevent, which had previously occurred in Europe.

To go back to the physics example, quantum mechanics without classical mechanics would be basically a magic show. "Wow! Look at this cool thing that happens!" All of the background to explain why something happens or why it's interesting would be "beyond the scope of the course". 

By the same token, I'd assume that an upper-level history course would include a lot of references to material from previous courses which could be taken as common knowledge, whereas in an introductory course all that could be said is "Trust me, there's a reason for this."

And in terms of skills, there is the issue of a 20 page research paper becoming a 5 paragraph essay. Can that promote any of the desired deliberation and reflection?

[Hibush]

Coming from STEM, it's kind of mind-bending to imagine how a third or fourth year course could be redesigned as an introductory one and having any significant value. Without all of the research and analysis skills as well as the disciplinary context developed by other courses, wouldn't the first year course be a pale shadow of its previous incarnation?

This is a disciplinary difference. In STEM the content and the skills are closely linked, or maybe even the same thing. It wouldn't make sense to redesign an advanced course as an intro course because nothing about electromagnetic theory is going to make any sense if you haven't taken classical mechanics . (I just pulled that out of the catalogue, is that even a good example?)

I'd use "thermodynamics and waves" as required for EM theory, and classical mechanics for quantum mechanics, but yes, that's the idea.

If I may bend you mind a bit. This argument sounds the same as the historians', namely "this subject that I know in such detail can only be understood with a large amount of specialized prior knowledge." The counterargument to that is that people who are not specialists teach those very things at an elementary level (in other fields).

To use EM theory as an example. For a particular subtopic in my field, it is relevant how light is absorbed and why wavelength matters to the system we study. Those are essentially electromagnetic effects, but the students are NOT physicists by any stretch. Nevertheless, I can cover the essential parts of EM theory at their level in about 10 minutes. That coverage gives them the grounding to understand the subject the I know in such detail.