GROUP 3 GENERAL EDUCATION PROPOSAL

Revised Draft--Feb. 9, 1998

Part I

Keep the existing GenEd requirements in English composition, foreign

language, and mathematics/logic (24 hrs, total).

Rationale:

Available evidence continues to indicate that many entering students at the

College are deficient in both writing and formal reasoning skills. South

Carolina secondary school training and/or degree requirements in foreign

languages continues to be inadequate, so that most students come to the

College ill-equipped to meet the second half of General Education Draft Goal

#4 ("Students...are expected to...develop...basic communication skills in a

language other than English.") It is the majority sentiment of Group 3

participants that demonstrated proficiency through at least the fourth

semester of elementary foreign language instruction is the minimal level

necessary to satisfy this requirement. Moreover, in the case of the foreign

language requirement in particular, the reduction or elimination of this

requirement would run counter to the President's declared initiative to

internationalize the curriculum.

Drawback:

The foreign language requirement, the only one of its kind in the State, is

unpopular with many students and some faculty. It's unpopularity can be

traced in part to insular attitudes about the necessity of reaching out to

other cultural traditions. Group 3 members regard this as a reason for

supporting rather than rejecting the current requirement. On the other

hand, the requirement's unpopularity also owes something to a fairly

widespread, if perhaps mistaken, perception that elementary language

instruction does not effectively achieve the stated goal of securing basic

communication skills for the students enrolled in those courses. In order

to alleviate that prejudicial attitude against foreign language courses,

Group 3 urges the various foreign language departments to take whatever

steps they think appropriate to demonstrate that elementary language

instruction is being delivered effectively. (The language departments

themselves are best equipped to determine the most appropriate methods to

establish this evidence, whether it be in the form of standardized

end-of-semester proficiency exams requisite for promotion to the next

course, random sampling of student performance for assessment purposes, or

some other method.)

Part II

As an optional alternative to the existing two-semester laboratory science

sequence, students may instead choose to take an unordered sequence of three

3-hour natural science courses in Life Science, Physical Science, and

Planetary Science. The last of these three courses is itself comprised of

three options: Earth, Space, or Environmental Science. (8 or 9 hrs.)

Rationale:

This is a more attractive & well-rounded way to package science literacy for

non-science majors. Making this an optional alternative rather than a

requirement enables science majors to avoid taking courses which they might

regard as otiose.

Drawbacks:

Requires natural science departments to create & staff three new courses

with massive enrollment demand, & to scale back conventional lab science

sequence offerings accordingly.

Requires non-science students to take one extra credit hour of natural

science over current configuration, and thereby increases overall number of

GenEd hours required of those students by one credit hour over current

total. Science students will effectively have one hour less of GenEd

obligation than non-science students.

Part III

Replace the existing GenEd requirements in History, Humanities, and Social

Sciences (24 hrs, total) with students' choice of four courses apiece from

any two interdisciplinary exploratory clusters (12 hours each), and allow

students to exercise an alternative option of doing all 24 hours within a

single cluster.

Some additional provisions for Part III:

(a) Students must choose courses from at least two different disciplines in

a 12-hour cluster, & at least three in a 24-hour cluster, with no more than

12 hours in any one discipline. (See Appendix below for possible cluster

groupings).

(b) Clusters will typically be undertaken during sophomore & junior years.

(c) Students must take either one or two gateway courses in a cluster

(depending on the cluster) before enrolling in any other courses in that

cluster. Students should have taken at least two previous courses in a

cluster prior to enrolling in any 300-level course in that cluster.

(d) Clusters will be populated primarily with courses from the humanities &

social sciences, but select courses from other disciplines might be added as

appropriate. They will all have a historical component (at least as an

option), & in general the courses selected should have a fairly broad scope.

(e) All instructors offering courses that fall within a cluster will meet at

least once in the previous semester to exchange content ideas & prospective

course syllabi. (I.e., a minimum of one meeting of each "cluster committee"

per semester.)

(f) A new standing faculty General Education Committee will be created to

oversee the logistics of (e), to evaluate cluster enrollment data, and to

review proposals for changes in cluster course lists.

(g) Existing interdisciplinary minors, with the possible exception of

Environmental Studies, may serve as alternative cluster options (in addition

to those listed below).

Rationale:

Parts I & II are designed to enable students to "acquire basic knowledge of

mathematics and the natural sciences" (General Education Draft Goal #1), and

to help them "develop effective reading [and] writing...skills in English,

and basic communication skills in a language other than English" (General

Education Draft Goal #4). But Parts I & II alone do not adequately address

the remaining elements of General Education Draft Goal #1 ("acquire basic

knowledge of the arts, humanities,...and social sciences"), or General

Education Draft Goal #2 ("acquire interdisciplinary understanding of major

contemporary ethical, political, economic, social and scientific issues and

movements including their origins, implications and interrelationships.")

Group 3 believes that the cluster concept, by focusing primarily on courses

in the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, satisfies the remainder of

Draft Goal #1, and by requiring students to investigate a particular area of

study in some historical and interdisciplinary depth, provides the best

method of addressing Draft Goal #2. In this respect, interdisciplinary

minors, focusing as they do on liberal arts courses, primarily in the areas

of Humanities and Social Sciences, serve the same set of pedagogical goals

as the general education clusters listed in the appendix below: a unifying

cross-disciplinary theme which exposes students to liberal arts learning

both in different areas and in some depth. Moreover, this option makes it

easier for students to accumulate multiple majors and minors, a prospect

which many students find attractive.

Drawbacks:

While the clusters listed in the appendix below strive for some

disciplinary balance across clusters, they make no pretence of doing so

within particular clusters. (E.g., 'Political Economy' is heavy on

Economics and Political Science courses, and 'Human Nature' is heavy on

anthropology, psychology, and sociology courses.) The idea is to provide

students with a fairly wide range of choices that might be tailored to their

interests, while sustaining (hopefully) something not too far removed from

the current overall distribution of course demand (although the actual

demand which results from this revision will be pretty hard to predict). A

GenEd reform of the sort envisioned here does mean that a particular student

could choose clusters and cluster courses in such a way as to devote all 24

hours to social science courses, or instead load up on History & English

courses at the expense of taking none in other disciplines in the Humanities

and Social Sciences. There's still a considerable amount of diversity in

the GenEd requirements, taken as a whole, but it is perfectly conceivable

that particular students will wind up addressing Draft Goal #2 only in one

or two specific areas. E.g., one student might focus on the origins and

implications of scientific issues and movements, and another on political

and economic ones. But in the view of Group 3 members, comprehensive and

in-depth interdiscipinary exposure cannot both be reasonably achieved. In

view of the spirit of Draft Goal #2, Group 3 has opted for interdisciplinary

depth at some expense to interdisciplinary breadth. The alternative seems

to us to require retention of a Gen. Ed. program similar to the one

currently existing, under which students are encouraged to take a wide range

of entry-level courses.

While most of the interdisciplinary minors represent themes distinct from

the clusters, there is considerable overlap between African Studies and the

African & Middle Eastern Civilization cluster, while American Studies and

the American History & Culture cluster are potentially identical. (The

American History & Culture cluster might be rendered unnecessary if a

catalog course listing were to be devised for the American Studies Program.

All other interdisciplinary minors publish lists of applicable courses.)

A number of upper-level courses have prerequisites not in the concentration

lists. This is not an oversight. That's the reason for provision (c)

above. It may not be perfect, but then, neither is our present screening

system.

Under the cluster scheme, the existing campus-wide requirement of two

courses in History is eliminated. Numerous clusters do however incorporate

multiple courses offered by the History Department, several of which serve

as gateway sequences. Group 3 chose this route because it wanted to free up

more credit hours for use in the cluster groupings, while not exceeding the

existing total number of general education hours currently required of C of

C students. (Students who opt for the three-course science sequence will

increase their total complement of GenEd courses by one credit hour.)

Moreover, with the introduction of World Civilization as an alternative to

the existing HIST 101-102 sequence, the History Department itself apparently

no longer subscribes to the view that there is a single history sequence to

which all liberally educated students ought to be exposed (viz., Western

Civilization I & II). The proposed arrangement is in keeping with Group 3's

philosophy of providing students with a wider range of choices, while still

trying to insure that they will have a rich interdisciplinary exposure to

the liberal arts.

Additional General Remarks:

With respect to General Education Draft Goal #3, Group 3 members

acknowledge that it is a debit of this proposal that students can, if they

choose, largely avoid exposure to cultural diversity or the global

interrelationships between those cultures, and natural and human-made

environments (apart from the language requirement), by choosing some cluster

courses rather than others. This debit was something of a trade-off with

the Group's desire to satisfy Draft Goal #2. On balance, however, Group 3

members believe Draft Goal #3 will normally be well-served by the cluster

concept. That goal could achieve additional support if the Administration

is prepared to support cluster committees with a rotating visiting speakers

budget, charging cluster committees to use that resource to invite speakers

who will speak to issues relevant to Draft Goal #3.

While Group 3 members believe that ENGL 101 & 102 provide a valuable first

step in satisfying General Education Draft Goal #4, there is general

agreement that these courses alone are inadequate to secure fully the

reading, writing, and oral communication goals in that provision.

Consequently, Group 3 members discussed the possibility of requiring that

all gateway courses be writing intensive, but eventually concluded that this

might prove to be simply too costly for the College, on the assumption that

many of these gateway courses would be high-demand multiple-section

enterprises. Nonetheless, Group 3 members still believe that writing

intensive courses would be a valuable addition to the general education

experience, and would recommend urging the Administration to make a serious

commitment to encourage such courses by offering reduced student enrollments

in other courses to faculty who volunteer to undertake this burden, both in

selected non-gateway general education cluster courses, and in selected

courses for declared majors. (Many of the more advanced cluster courses can

do double duty in this regard.) In addition, Group 3 members would like to

encourage more emphasis on oral presentation, both in general education

clusters and in majors' courses, as a way to support the oral communication

dimension of Draft Goal #4.

Group 3 members believe that this set of general education requirements,

collectively, can serve to address General Education Draft Goals #5 & 6, and

that the interdisciplinary cluster concept can be especially helpful with

respect to Draft Goal #6, by channelling students into more advanced courses

in multiple disciplines, where they are more likely to be required to

"employ the available resources to retrieve, use and evaluate information

from a variety of sources" through assigned research projects.

While General Education Draft Goals #7, 8, & 9 are laudatory in themselves,

Group 3 members are not persuaded that implementation of these goals can be

readily institutionalized through a set of general education requirements.

We have therefore not attempted to address them directly.

APPENDIX: TENTATIVE CLUSTER COURSE LISTINGS

The following ten cluster titles:

Western Civilization Political Economy

Asian Civilization Human Nature

African & Middle Eastern Civilizations Human Values

American History & Culture Art & Aesthetic Value

The Classical World The Scientific Enterprise

have tentative course lists set forth below. It should be understood that

the course lists, and even the cluster groupings themselves, are merely

tentative proposals. Group 3 members recognize the need to consult with

individual departments about the feasibility and appropriateness of using

the particular courses suggested in the clusters to which they have been

attached. Indeed, if the GenEd Steering Committee chooses to pursue

investigation of this proposal, Group 3 members strongly urge the Committee

to engage in that kind of consultation, department by department. This

investigation is especially important where the proposed gateway courses

(marked with asterisks) are concerned.

Western Civilization

*HIST 101 & 102 (Western Civ. Sequence)--two-course gateway

ENGL 203 & 204 Survey of European Literature

ARTH 101 & 102 History of [Western] Art

PHIL 220 & 230 History of Ancient & Modern Philosophy

RELS 225 The Jewish Tradition

RELS 230 The Christian Tradition

RELS 235 The Islamic Tradition

ANTH 326 Peoples and Cultures of Europe

Asian Civilization

*ARTH 103 History of Asian Art

HIST 282 & 283 History of China Sequence

HIST 286 & 287 History of Japan Sequence

ARTH 341 History of Art of India

ARTH 342 History of Art of China

ARTH 343 History of Art of Japan

RELS 240 The Buddhist Tradition

RELS 245 The Religions of India

RELS 248 The Religious Traditions of China & Japan

African & Middle Eastern Civilizations

*AFST 101 Intro to African Civilization

HIST 230 Ancient Egypt & Mesopotamia

HIST 272 & 273 History of Africa

HIST 276 Medieval Islamic Civilization

HIST 277 Modern Middle East

RELS 235 The Islamic Tradition

ENGL 352 Major African Writers

ENGL 353 African Women Writers

ANTH 322 Peoples & Cultures of Africa

American History & Culture

*HIST 201 & 202 U.S. History Sequence--two-course gateway

HIST 216 & 217 African American History Sequence

HIST 221 Women in the U.S.

ENGL 207 American Literature Survey

POLS 101 American Government

POLS 341 Constitutional Law

POLS 342 Civil Liberties

ARTH 250 American Art

ARTH 335 History of American Architecture

PHIL 310 American Philosophy

RELS 250 American Religious Traditions

RELS 260 Native American Religions

ANTH 320 Peoples and Cultures of North America

THTR 212 History of the American Theatre

The Classical World

*HIST 231 Ancient Greece--part of two-course gateway

*HIST 232 Ancient Rome--part of two-course gateway

HIST 230 Ancient Egypt & Mesopotamia

HIST 236 Minoan Civilization

CLAS 124 Classical Civilization

CLAS 153 Ancient Epic

CLAS 154 & 155 Classical Drama Sequence

CLAS 156 Ancient Satire

CLAS 158 Man the Mythmaker

PHIL 220 History of Ancient Philosophy

RELS 201 Old Testament

RELS 202 New Testament

Political Economy

*ECON 201 Principles of Macroeconomics--part of two-course gateway

*POLS 250 Politics & Political Inquiry I--part of two-course gateway

ECON 202 Principles of Microeconomics (2nd Course in Intro Economics Sequence)

POLS 251 Politics & Political Inquiry II (2nd Course in Political Theory

Sequence)

HIST 212 American Labor History

ECON 304 Labor Economics

ECON 308 Evolution of Economic Doctrines

ECON 330 Comparative Economic Systems

POLS 340 Democratic & Anti-Democratic Thought

PHIL 315 Political & Social Philosophy

SOCY 260 Development of Social Thought

ANTH or SOCY 357 Political Anthropology or Sociology

ANTH or SOCY 362 Social and Cultural Change

Human Nature

*ANTH 101 Intro to Anthropology--disjunctive option in a one-course gateway

or

*PSYC 103 General Psychology--disjunctive option in a one-course gateway

or

*SOCY 101 Intro to Sociology--disjunctive option in a one-course gateway

PSYC 215 Cognitive Psychology

PSYC 309 & 374 Developmental Psychology I & II

PSYC 310 Social Psychology

PSYC 394 History & Systems of Psychology

ANTH 203 Intro to Physical Anthropology

ANTH 205 Language and Culture

ANTH 333 & 334 Evolutionary Anthropology Sequence

SOCY 331 Sociology & the Individual

SOCY 332 Collective Behavior

PHIL 203 Philosophy of Human Nature

PHIL 260 Philosophy of Biology

WMST 200 Intro to Women's Studies

HONS 220 Honors Colloquium in the Social Sciences

Human Values

*PHIL 101 Introduction to Philosophy: Beliefs and Values

PHIL 155 Environmental Ethics

PHIL 170 Medical Ethics

PHIL 175 Business & Consumer Ethics

PHIL 210 Ethics and the Law

PHIL 301 Ethics (Ethical Theory)

COMM 384 Ethics in Communication

POLS 342 Civil Liberties

POLS 345 Ethics & Politics

POLS 393 Religion and Politics

RELS 105 Introduction to World Religions

RELS 220 Comparative Religious Ethics

ANTH or SOCY 356 Anthropological/Sociological Perspectives on Religion

Art & Aesthetic Value

*ARTH 101 History of [Western] Art I--disjunctive option in a one-course

gateway

or

*ARTH 102 History of [Western] Art II--disjunctive option in a one-course

gateway

or

*MUSC 131 Music Appreciation--disjunctive option in a one-course gateway

or

*THTR 176 Introduction to Theatre--disjunctive option in a one-course gateway

ARTH 103 History of Asian Art

ARTH 245 Introduction to Architecture

THTR 210 History of the Theatre

THTR 214 Modern American and European Drama

THTR 331 History of Dance

THTR 387 The Contemporary Theatre

THTR 388 Dramatic Theory and Criticism

THTR 394 Literature of the Theatre

ENGL 201 & 202 Major British Writers Survey Sequence

ENGL 212 The Cinema: History and Criticism

ENGL 301 & 302 Shakespeare Sequence

ENGL 337 & 338 English Drama Sequence

PHIL 180 Philosophy of Art

PHIL 185 Philosopy and Film

PHIL 280 Aesthetics

The Scientific Enterprise

"Gateway" Prerequisite (does not count towards cluster):

Any one of the GenEd science requirement courses

HIST 256 History of Science and Technology

PHIL 150 Nature, Technology, and Society

PHIL 260 Philosophy of Biology

PHIL 265 Philosophy of Science

ENGL 240 Science Fiction

PHYS 205 Intelligent Life in the Universe

HIST 251 The Cosmos in History to 1800

ANTH 210 History of Anthropological Theory

SOCY 260 Development of Social Thought

ANTH or SOCY 340 Medical Anthropology or Sociology

SOCY 355 Science, Technology, and Society

ECON 308 Evolution of Economic Doctrines

PSYC 394 History & Systems of Psychology

HONS 220 Honors Colloquium in the Social Sciences

HONS 245 Honors Colloquium in the History & Philosophy of Science

Richard Nunan NunanR@ASHLEY.CofC.edu

Department of Philosophy (803) 953-6522 [Office]

College of Charleston (803) 881-0724 [Home]

Charleston, SC 29424