Not so fast: Proposal to remove depth-ed courses still in question, despite unanimous vote from stater’s council
A USUSA proposal to discontinue the two-depth course graduation requirement was supported with a unanimous vote at a stater’s council meeting Friday. However, making it a reality is still far off.
Norm Jones, the chair for the general education subcommittee, said the last time a proposal like this was implemented, the process took three years.
Summer 2016 is the earliest possible time a change like this could occur, but Jones said he didn’t expect many faculty members to support the resolution. Approval is necessary from faculty committees for it to pass, but they do not meet during the summer months.
Jones said there is one general education meeting left this school year, and although the student body president has a seat on the subcommittee, he “has not been participating” in the meetings. The procedure for getting a proposal of this nature approved begins with the general education subcommittee.
“The surprise about what (USUSA) did is that he could have come to the committee at any point and said this is a student concern,” Jones said. “And we would have responded to the concern, but it was never brought to us.”
Doug Fiefia, USUSA president and sponsor of the resolution, ECR 2015-03, said he is aware that it still has to go through the faculty committees to be approved but wanted to “go the student route and make sure students supported it” before presenting it to the faculty.
The resolution was approved by academic senate and executive council before moving on to the stater’s council, which consists of members of the 10 members of executive council along with 19 administrators. Only 12 of the 19 administrators attended the meeting, including USU President Stan Albrecht and Provost Noelle Cockette. All 12 administrators and eight students voted unanimously in support of the resolution, though the minutes of the meeting indicate there was a discussion before the voting took place.
Fiefia’s proposal expressed that the depth education requirement was “not fulfilling it’s original purpose” and “has become a barrier to graduation.” It also stated that “students are gravitating toward one course in all three depth course requirement areas,” referring to statistics that 33 percent of graduating seniors took Arts Symposium, 40 percent took Natural Disasters and 50 percent took Family Finance. After this, the document said “students are registering for the ‘easiest’ course to fulfill the requirement.”
Fiefia said they also looked into the times courses were offered, how many courses were offered and requirements from other schools around the state, but Jones was not satisfied with the statistics provided in support of the change.
“The reasoning in that document left me a little puzzled because it doesn’t state what the purpose (of depth education) is. It just says the purpose isn’t fulfilled,” Jones said. “And it takes a one-semester snapshot and gives you percentages without exploring why the percentages look the way they look.”
Brylee Munguia, a junior in exercise science, is currently enrolled in the Family Finance class. She said she would have taken the class regardless of whether or not it fulfilled a depth education requirement but didn’t feel it was an “easy” course.
“Family finance is great. I think every student should take it,” she said. “It’s so real life. … I learned a lot of things I’m glad I know now because I feel like I’m a step ahead of people.”
She said she has taken other general education courses where she hasn’t felt challenged, but this class is different for her.
“I don’t think the students choose the easiest classes,” Jones said. “I’d like some data on that one.”
Jones said depth education courses were designed to make students “citizen scholars” who are able to think critically and communicate and to allow students to practice skills they’ve acquired outside their major.
But Fiefia said the requirement is not fulfilling that purpose.
“I believe this is a good move,” said Fiefia of approving the proposal. “We are trying to find the balance between efficiency and effectiveness. In no way is this change coming from students and from student government to graduate students earlier … but it’s to touch the point of effectiveness.”
According to the minutes taken in the stater’s council meeting, the caution of looking at “efficiency and effectiveness” was brought up by Dean John Allen of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences. Fiefia said this change would likely impact CHaSS and the College of Science the most.
Although Jones agreed that “we can always do better,” he said the logistics of the institution haven’t been taken into account as much as they should with the proposal. Revoking one requirement and considering the addition of another to fulfill a similar purpose takes planning, and providing students with enough time slots and courses to meet requirements, as well as finding people to teach them, is a large task, he said.
“That’s why you don’t get a quick decision out of a university,” Jones said.
Jones is not in favor of the change suggested by the proposal.
“I guess my main concern is that we not say we should change the requirements because students are assumed to be misusing them and that the courses are assumed to be poor,” he said.
— m.noble@aggiemail.usu.edu