Sample Proposals
Most interestingly, the Doty group has considered introducing whole new areas of instruction into each of the Gen Ed fields.
In the Humanities where Gen Ed is at present literary and philosophical, the Committee has talked about bringing into the Gen Ed program courses in "non-verbal languages" (art, music and photography) and creative courses in writing, music, art, and theater.
In the Social Sciences, where Gen Ed has been overwhelmingly concerned with Western culture and almost exclusively oriented toward political theory and history, the committee may require all students to take a course in non-Western culture and may put more emphasis on systematic social sciences like economics and psychology.
In the Natural Sciences, where students interest has been lowest, there will undoubtedly be an increase in the number of upper level course offerings. If there isn't the Doty Committee will have been dismal failure.
Such proposals--and none are yet anything more than tentative-reflect the collapse of the philosophy of General Education. The Redbook program had a coherence suggested by its title. By General Education in a Free Society it meant education for citizenship, or leadership, as the case might be. It accordingly stressed those goals which most fit customary ideas about the operation of democracy. Since constitutional democracy is based on acceptance of common principle and traditions, Gen Ed was designed to incucate a sense of Western values and heritage. Since democracy operates through discussion, Gen Ed was asked to develop a sense of criticism and a common language of cultural reference and allusion.
Twenty years later, values are considered unteachable and shared experience impossible in a pluralistic society. Instead, the Doty Committee turns to a vague ideal of flexibility. The Generally Educated man who has taken its new courses is not prepared for participating in a democracy so much as processing his own perceptions. He learns what it is like to put on the biologist's thinking cap or the musician's or the anthropologist's. If he comes out of school dedicated to an ideal it is something he has picked up on his own time. In his courses he deals with analyzing problems.
The drift of the Doty Committee's discussion of introducing new courses in all fields is inspired by an ideal of an up-to-date cultured man capable of appreciating the latest changes in the world, rather than one dedicated to a traditional heritage.
Or perhaps it is premature to credit the present effort to reexamine Gen Ed with any general views of a cultural ideal. The major problem in General Education is administrative, not philosophical: it is to strengthen the bargaining power of the College in its dealings with the departments, or at the very least to enable the College to coax from the departments a new pledge of loyalty. For it is still an open question whether a four-year college "experience" makes any sense.