The committee found that grades in the G.E. courses ran high. "Of the students answering for a first course, 17% got A's, 45% B's, 32% C's, 3% D's; only one person out of the 402...(who replied for a first course)...got an E. Those who took a second course did even better; they had 21% A's. 55% B's 19%, C's, 4% D's, and 1% E's. It must be remembered however," adds the committee, "that 48% of those who put down their Rank List Group were in groups I, II, and III.
"In both cases together the majority of students (about 61%) felt the amount of time they spent was "about right." But whereas only 10% felt they had done "too much," 29% felt they had done "too little."
"The subjects matter was thought to be a little more difficult than average. For the first course, 54% said the subject matter was "average". In difficulty; but while 19% called it "easy" or "too easy," 23% said it was "difficult" or "too difficult." 3% falled to answer the question. For the second course, opinion was a little more evenly divided: about 43% called the work "average," 30% "difficult" or "too diffiuclt," and 29% "easy" or "too easy".
The committee made four major recommendations for the G.E. program. The most important of these is that "the present program be continued without change for a trial period. If at the end of this period, the number of students who want a change of some sort is still very great: if Natural Science concentrators still find Natural Science lower level G.E. courses too easy; and if too many people must be exempted under the "Natural Science rule" and under the discretionary powers of the faculty Committee on General Education: or if a reasonable combination of them results; we would recommend these changes.
"Two lower level G.E. courses should be required, one in each of the two areas outside the student's area of concentration. To encourage the students to take a lower level G.E. course in-his area, these courses should be counted as related for concentrators."
The second major recommendation is that "More people might grasp the essential objectives both of the course and of G.E. itself, if the reading insome of these elementary courses were greatly limited. This does not mean that the courses should be made easier. The same amount of work of even more should be demanded, but the emphasis should be more on the intensive study of a few important examples."
The third major recommendation is that there be more lower level G.E. courses, which "would raise the number from four to least five full courses given every year." (The Faculty recently voted fifth courses in the Humanities and the Social Sciences.)
The last major recommendation is that papers be designed to relate what a student has learned to his own experiences, rather than merely parapharsing the ideas of an author.