Friday, January 23, 1998
General education at UCLA:
EDUCATION: Improving current curriculum could add
multi-discipline first-year clusters; new program contains
possible problems with funding, teaching schedules
By Sarah Morris
The proposal now before the faculty and students of UCLA for
consideration is the result of several years of work by dedicated
members of this community, who deserve praise for their goals and
efforts. A meaningful general curriculum should be central to a
liberal arts education in an American university and provide an
introduction to the foundations of human nature and cultures, as
well as an experience shared by students across the campus. No one
could disagree with the principles advocated in the new proposal
for greater coherence within the GE curriculum, an increase in
smaller, more writing-intensive courses and the value of an early
first-year experience for all entering freshmen. Yet the details of
the proposal, particularly the first-year cluster structure, are
disruptive enough of our present system to trouble many faculty and
should be closely examined by students.
Perhaps the first question still to be asked is whether our
current system is, in fact, in such drastic shape as reform
advocates claim. I have heard only one opinion from a student on
this subject in The Daily Bruin, well-timed for the first issue of
the year (September 22-25, "UCLA’s general education system failing
students"). Its advocacy of the proposed system and its complaints
about the poor quality of current GE offerings were compromised by
the fact that the author was a student member of the committee
which drafted the new proposal. A student focus group prepared a
report for an earlier GE committee, apparently finding much more
widespread satisfaction with our system: many of us would welcome
more feedback from this report in discussions and proposals.
My own department ,classics, is among those on campus which
strive to offer GE courses with quality instruction by faculty and
graduate students, a commitment to undergraduate education, close
attention to writing skills and, thanks to the interdisciplinary
nature of classical studies, an introduction to a range of fields,
such as art, history, literature and philosophy, among others. Our
evaluations indicate that we are successful in these goals, as
students find material and instruction rewarding and are inspired
to take other similar courses. Several years ago, we increased
units of credit to five in our lower division courses to reward
students for the extra work in reading and writing we made
essential – we had to abandon such extra units without wider GE
consistency. This is precisely what the new proposal recommends.
Other humanities departments, including art history, linguistics
and philosophy, share our dedication to such courses, with similar
satisfaction among students. Campus-wide offerings may be more
uneven, too numerous or poorly integrated across the curriculum but
improvement of existing courses may be preferable to a new system.
A great advantage of our system is the variety of new disciplines
it allows students to explore, often in sequences of courses linked
for the kind of integrated learning and even whole-year experience
now proposed. Will the new system continue to support such
educational opportunities?
The major innovation in this new system will be the first-year
cluster, a sequence of two courses team-taught by professors from
different disciplines and departments, plus a final quarter of
individual seminars. The success of this element depends largely on
the availability and quality of the right teachers and topics for
such courses, potentially at the expense of other large GE courses
departments would continue to teach. Multiplying disciplines within
one course may dilute the impact and experience of directed
learning through, for example, visual analysis or philosophical
argument. If there are too few clusters, which then must be large
enough for an entire freshman class, quality of classroom
experience is bound to suffer. This year’s trial cluster on the
Global Environment is designed by a new unit on our campus, the
Institute of the Environment, whose successes or failures are
perhaps not an accurate measure of future clusters in the College.
Friday’s Daily Bruin reports some major and predictable logistical
problems in staffing, enrollment and even venue for Environment 1A.
Location near the dorms was a drawback, yet the new proposal makes
a residential experience central to the first-year clusters.
A teaching assistant rather than a professor seems to be the
cluster coordinator, contrary to the vision of the proposal, but no
surprise to faculty who worry about staffing. It remains to be seen
who will be teaching the seminars in the spring and how they will
work. Some 25 percent of last fall’s students have dropped the
course, and we should hear more from them. Trial clusters invited
for next year may be more successful but uneven offerings are
likely and departments which participate must sacrifice staff and
students from other GE courses. A major financial restructuring is
built on these clusters with increased credits generating more
student credit hours. Who gets credit for students in a team-taught
course? Could a similar financial advantage be obtained by
increasing units in existing courses enhanced by writing
instruction? Is it wise to create a whole new office to supervise
general education?
What do those of you reading this newspaper think on the
subject? What have been your experiences, good or bad, in GE
courses, and what would you like to see retained or improved? Have
you read a copy of this proposal, consulted the sample schedules it
offers and tried to imagine your options in such a system? How many
GE courses will you have time to take after the first-year
clusters? What if you wish to drop out of or change a cluster? Can
this be done in the new system while maintaining "integrated
learning?" If you are a graduate student, how will this new system
change your role in undergraduate instruction? Sixty new TA-ships
are guaranteed by this system, but only teaching associates will be
eligible for the first-year seminars. Who will select them and how,
and what TA-ships will be left for entering and continuing
students? Will departments lose enrollments and TA-ships in their
own GE courses, essential to support students and train them for
cluster teaching? Projected workload for cluster teachers, with
writing assignments and other demands, implies much more than
twenty hours a week, when pedagogical concern is already widespread
about IEI and its impact on teaching assistant workload. How will
the Honors Collegium, one of UCLA’s distinctive opportunities for
undergraduates, be transformed by clusters: will such courses only
be offered as a spring seminar at a loss of courses every quarter
or honors sections in lecture courses? What about Winter Bruins,
our current solution to over-enrollment, which admits students in
winter quarter; will their "first-year experience" begin in the
winter? How many of you entered UCLA as pre-med or science majors
and changed to a concentration in the humanities and social
sciences, based on experience, positive or negative, in GE
courses?
These are some of the questions many of us are asking as we
analyze the proposal, meet with its authors and discuss it among
ourselves. Our concerns are not generated not resistance to change
or fear of losing students and TA-ships. The way GE offerings can
introduce you to disciplines unknown in high school or
unanticipated by early pre-professional concentrations might be
lost.
Students and faculty should pay close attention to this major
transformation in the way education is structured on this
campus.