First Town Hall Reflects Confusion about Gen Ed

Students expressed confusion about the purpose and pedagogical goals of the Program in General Education at a town hall meeting Wednesday night, the first of four sessions scheduled for October intended to gauge student understanding of the program and pin down possible areas of improvement.

The meeting was hosted in Eliot House by the committee tasked with reviewing the Gen Ed program and producing a report assessing its current state. A dozen or so students and several teaching fellows were in attendance to reflect upon their experiences with the program, while several review committee members sat in to listen and ask questions.

Philosophy professor Sean D. Kelly, who chairs the committee, said that the meeting confirmed what he had already begun to suspect based on anecdotal information collected last semester: that students do not understand the program’s scope and purpose.

“I think it’s interesting to hear students express confusion between General Education and distribution requirements,” said Kelly, who moderated the meeting. “It makes it hard to understand what to be aiming for.”

Students in attendance reflected this sentiment.

“Right now I think everyone thinks of [the general education program] as a distribution requirement,” said Adam O. Brodheim ’16. “So either rename it or fix it. I like the idea of fixing it.”

When the program was created in May 2007, the Faculty of Arts and Sciences legislated that it should aim to meet four main goals, including preparing students to act as citizens, to respond to change, to understand ethical consequences of their words and actions, and to teach students to “understand themselves as products of, and participants in, traditions of art, ideas, and values.”

Christina M. Teodorescu ’16 added that she thought the current iteration of the Gen Ed program is not well-articulated.

“I don’t feel like I have an understanding of what the philosophy is supposed to be,” Teodorescu said.

Other students said they thought that, often times, courses in the program have too much busywork or assignments that can undermine the academic integrity of the course’s material itself.

“I’ve been asked to do serious academic work at this institution,” said Sarah E. Coughlon ’15. “Make me do that.”

But when Kelly asked students whether or not they thought the program should be completely eliminated, they either said no or asked that it be revised, noting that the program has often led students to classes and fields they may otherwise never have considered.

After the meeting, Kelly said the session was “enormously helpful” for him and the committee, which will use the stories and experiences shared by students at the town hall meetings to inform a College-wide survey they will release this semester.

The committee will host three more town hall meetings this month.

Once students and faculty have been surveyed and the report completed, the committee will present findings and recommendations to Faculty of Arts and Sciences Dean Michael D. Smith, who may then green-light the report to go public for discussion among the Faculty.

—Staff writer Meg P. Bernhard can be reached at meg.bernhard@thecrimson.com. Follow her on Twitter @Meg_Bernhard.