TESC Overhauling Gen Ed Reqs. Not enrolled, watch out!

[Daithi]

I'm 47 years old and I can remember back to when I was a small kid living in Chicago. I'm white and my best-friend, who lived next door was black. We played together during recess and generally hung out with each other, and the principal of our school called my friend's dad and told him that he needed to have a discussion with his son, because it wasn't proper for a black boy to be playing with a white boy. My friend's dad basically told him where to shove it. The next day I was pulled from class and put into another class. It wasn't because we were playing in class, but because the principal was a die hard racist. My friend's 9-year-old sister was also jumped and beaten by a car load of white high school students. The police refused to investigate. I can't imagine what it is like to live through that kind of racism.

However, most of my experience growing up has been just the opposite. I moved to California when I was eight, and none of my teachers would put up with any sort of racism. The kids I grew up with were all kinds of different races, and and although kids from different races tended to hang out with each other, they still formed friendships with kids from others races as well, and I never felt the us vs. them type racism. When incidents of racism did occur, they were condemned by society. Adults seemed to take pride in NOT being racist -- this was early 70s and 80s. The books we read, the TV shows, the movies, and the entire culture that I grew up in had been all about embracing diversity and condemning racism.

When I was in the Army, I was stationed at Ft. Gordon, Georgia -- in the heart of the deep South --- and one day there was a KKK rally that marched through downtown Augusta, GA. Myself and several of my fellow soldiers (including whites, blacks, and Hispanics) decided to go to the rally to protest the march. To my surprise, a lot of the residents of Augusta did the same thing. The number of people protesting the KKK marchers outnumbered their supporters by 10 to 1, and the actual KKK marchers were a pathetic group of a little more than a dozen morons who were getting booed on their walk of shame.

I am not arguing that racism doesn't exist or flare up. It surely does. However, I don't believe the U.S. is a racist nation, or evenly largely racist, and certainly not in need of colleges mandating diversity courses that will create socially responsible individuals with broadened perspectives. It should be the responsibility of universities to educate its students but not to somehow fashion better citizens. I don't want to see this being done by the political-right spectrum, and I don't want to see it done by members on the political-left spectrum (full disclosure, I'm Libertarian). I enjoy learning about political theories, different philosophies, and cultural beliefs. However, these kinds of topics are problematic in that instructors can easily use them to advance their political views, which I believe is the whole point of mandating these courses in the first place. I believe the goal here is NOT to educate students, but is to fashion better citizens, and they are changing their curriculum to make this happen.

We also need to ask what needs to be dropped from the General Education requirements to make room for the new courses mentioned (e.g. Global Environmental Change, War and American Society, Philosophy of Religion, Cultural Diversity, Elements of Intercultural Communication, and Ethics and the Business Professional). Compare the old and new general education requirements for yourself---

Current General Education Requirements -- 60 Credits
__A. English Composition [6 credits]
__B. Humanities [12 credits]
__C. Social Sciences (2 subject areas) [12 credits]
__D. Natural Sciences and Mathematics [12 credits]
__E. General Education Electives [18 credits]

New General Education Requirements -- 60 Credits
__A. Intellectual and Practical Skills [15 credits]
____English Composition (6 credits)
____Math (3 credits)
____Intellectual and Practical Skills Electives (6 credits)
__B. Human Cultures and the Physical and Natural World [18 credits]
____Social Sciences (3 credits)
____Natural Sciences (3 credits)
____Humanities (3 credits)
____Human Cultures and the Physical World Electives (9 credits)
__C. Personal and Social Responsibility [9 credits]
____Diversity/Global Literacy (3 credits)
____Responsible and Ethical Leadership (3 credits)
____Personal and Social Responsibility Elective (3 credits)
__D. Integrative and Applied Learning Synthesized Across General and Specialized Disciplines [18 credits]
____Includes a Capstone and who knows based on the Academic Gobbledygook.