Faculty Discuss Distribution Requirements

On September 25, the faculty gathered for a special meeting on distribution requirements. This meeting was requested by last year’s Ad Hoc Committee on Distribution Requirements to discuss the report they sent out last spring. This year, the committee will take the feedback they’ve been given and start thinking about proposals.

The discussion was facilitated by Suzy Renn, Associate Dean of Faculty and member of this year’s committee. She began with an overview of previous work that the committee had done. The original charge of the committee was to study whether the 2019 changes to distribution requirements impacted which courses students take, and whether the changes achieved their stated goals. Last year’s group noted that the 2019 changes interacted with so many other changes (including the COVID-19 pandemic, increased enrollment, the introduction of minors, some major requirement changes, etc) that it’s hard to determine the impact of the new group requirements.

In the Ad Hoc Committee on Distribution Requirements’ work, they’ve heard several concerns about the current model. Some faculty are concerned that loopholes in the current structure fail to ensure appropriate breadth across the groups. There’s asymmetry in groups regarding the number of topics and the number of faculty; for example, Group 1 has more subjects and classes than the other groups. Additionally, the 2019 change increased the number of required units for some majors, as the majors now don’t cover as many of the group requirements, leading to a decrease in perceived flexibility.

Last spring, the committee sent out three rough proposed models. The response to those models varied widely within and among departments and divisions. No one model stood out as universally positive. Faculty disagreed, sometimes strongly, about relevant categories of academic experience. Last year, the committee concluded that “any scheme, actual or proposed, will involve any number of perceived compromises and imperfections.” They did note that ease of interpretation and advising was important to most.

The discussion was then centered around four guiding questions. The first question was, “How important is it to have two courses in a single discipline in topics distantly related to the major?” Several professors agreed that they don’t feel this requirement is necessary, and they’ve grown less attached to it. One suggested that the introduction of minors also made it less necessary. 

One argument in favor of the requirement was that depth can be a good thing; however, others weren’t convinced that two classes is really depth. Nicole James (Chemistry) suggested that some literature says that for interdisciplinary work, it’s helpful to have enough insight into the other discipline to be fluent, but she isn’t sure that this is necessary in disciplines that are far from the major. The argument against the requirement is mainly that it would offer more flexibility to students, as well as more flexibility in what kinds of new models would be possible.

Angélica Osorno (Math-Stats) proposed that the requirement could be that students have to take on one area outside their major, not in every group, but she could see how this could be complicated to explain to students. Charles McGuffey (Computer Science) shared that he thinks it’s important to make sure students still have the opportunity to take multiple classes in the same non-major area if they want to, even if it isn’t required. Zajj Dougherty (Math-Stats) said she thinks it’s important for students to take some upper-level courses outside of their major; this isn’t currently part of the requirements.

The second question was, “How important is it that students have the ability to understand, reason with, and apply numerical/quantitative concepts?” The faculty briefly discussed what’s necessary to meet the accreditation requirements; in summary, we’re safe with all the potential options. Several professors pointed out that data analysis and applied statistics show up in non-STEM subjects as well, such as economics methods classes, and raised the question of what classes would count as satisfying this requirement. They also discussed the distinction between learning quantitative reasoning and the breadth that is gained through understanding the work of different disciplines. Both are important, but they’re different goals.

Jon Rork (Economics) brought up the question of whether we want this level of specificity and strictness at all. Compared to other schools, like Brown and Vassar, our requirements are much stricter, and students at those schools still receive broad educations, he said. He questioned the implied presumption that they all want these requirements.

The third question was, “How important is it for a student to have studied a second language at the college level?” Catherine Witt (French) spoke at length about the importance of studying a second language in a collegiate context, as well as the option to study a language through study abroad. Multiple professors discussed how this applies to bilingual students and/or those whose first language isn’t English. Sameer ud Dowla Khan (Linguistics) shared that the Linguistics department requires the study of two non-native languages (where a native language is any language a student grew up exposed to in an informal context), including English for some students. He and others discussed the importance of studying a second language in an academic context. Libby Drumm (Spanish) suggested that Hum 110 could count as studying in a different language at a college level for students for whom English isn’t their native language.

The final question was, “How important is it for a student to experience laboratory-based data collection?” Betsy Brada (Anthropology) asked what the group means with these terms: is a field a lab? Are we assuming that the data collected is necessarily quantitative? Professors discussed whether the requirement should involve coming up with a hypothesis, designing an experiment, evaluating results, etc, or some combination of those steps; does a thesis count as this? Should this requirement be in addition to, or to prepare for, the thesis? Adam Groce (Computer Science) said that although he thinks it would help students’ education to take a lab science, and to take a language, and all the other topics discussed– where does it go from something we should encourage or reward to an actual requirement? He hasn’t heard an argument for any of these becoming a requirement, he said.

After the discussion of each of these questions, Renn reminded faculty that a feedback form would be sent out for them to express further thoughts, and the meeting was adjourned.