Educators are criticizing a conservative think tank’s report that called general education courses a pervasive national problem.
The John W. Pope Center for Higher Education released a report last week criticizing the general education curriculum at UNC-Chapel Hill. The report suggests reducing the number of general education courses from 4,000 to 700 and cutting the amount of required foreign language credits. Educators have criticized the report for ignoring global ideals and, instead, exclusively promoting western classical thought.
According to Jenna Ashley Robinson, one of the report’s authors, certain classes at UNC-CH, such as “History of Hip-Hop Culture,” “First Year Seminar in Kung Fu” and “The Concept of Heroism in Chinese Culture” don’t belong in the general education curriculum.
“The point of general education is to build a foundation, so when [students] choose a major they will have building blocks to put information into context,” Robinson said. “[The aforementioned classes] are very isolated. You might learn interesting things, but you won’t have a cohesive foundation for the future.”
Robinson said the lack of breadth in general education courses is a national problem, and the Pope Center chose to analyze UNC-CH as a case study due to its wide range of liberal arts options.
Robinson defended her claim that broad literature and philosophy classes are more practical for students long term than courses such as “The Jewish Experience in the American South.” According to Robinson, philosophy is essential for future learning because it teaches students reasoning skills and how to spot fallacies. Literature is important because it helps people “come to an understanding of the culture around us.”
“We want to promote excellence and draw attention to problems that affect student learning,” Robinson said. “We want to focus on areas that could be seen as problematic.”
This isn’t the first time the Pope Center has criticized liberal arts, according to David Zonderman, a professor of history and Senate faculty president at N.C. State, who said the think-tank’s suggestions have been consistent throughout the years.
“This report frankly didn’t surprise me all that much,” Zonderman said. “The core criticism isn’t new.”
Zonderman said the report didn’t suggest taking only practical courses, but rather that general education should only include a small amount of courses based on classical western ideals.
After reading the report, Zonderman said he was especially surprised with the Pope Center’s attempts to decrease foreign language requirements.
“I thought it was curious that [The Pope Center] thought Chapel Hill requires too much language, which is surprising considering the skillset many job recruiters are looking for in today’s job market.”
Zonderman said a deeper language requirement is something he and many other faculty members have long argued for at the University, going as far as to say that each student should have a minimal fluency in a language by the time they graduate.
Cutting the number of general education courses hasn’t become a pressing issue at N.C. State either, but Zonderman said it has happened before.
“A few years ago there was a faculty debate about whether or not to trim the number of general-ed courses at N.C. State,” Zonderman said. “It was a pretty long fight, but eventually the list did see some trimming.”
Zonderman also said the Pope Center doesn’t have the power to change any of the curriculum at UNC-CH or any of the other UNC-System schools. Instead, the faculty must agree to make a change and also meet the federal accreditation standards. The chancellor and the Board of Trustees make all final decisions.
