We wish by this rule not only to make it possible for such courses to be offered by the College but also to stimulate the creation of non- or interdepartmental courses by providing a regular administrative home and funds for such experiments.
Before ending this commentary we would like to draw attention, again, to the need for cooperation from the departments if the use of departmental courses for General Education is to be effected by the device of allowing those courses to be taken "which cannot count for concentration."...
Since General Education in the proposed Program is to some extend defined by what the departments accept for concentration, departments that choose to define their fields more narrowly than they now do will, by thus increasing the specialized requirements within the field, make it possible for a student to take for General Education what he presently takes as related work within his field of concentration. The result in such cases may be an overall reduction in the range of the student's education....
Suggested Courses
The committee urges that if the proposed Program is adopted, the Committee on General Education should interest the new categories at the start with some latitude. We would like to see most of the existing courses in General Education continued, though in some cases under new headings and with minor renovation. The force of initial effort under the proposed new scheme should be placed on devising new courses that conform more closely to the new structure and on exploring its possibilities, rather than on ruling out the old. We would, however, expect that the transition from one Program to another would provide an occasion to drop courses that are believed to have served their usefulness.
The following suggestions on the design and content of new courses are offered with some diffidence, for this was not our major concern. Indeed the new Committee on General Education would have the heavy obligation during its first year of bringing together numerous faculty groups for the specific purpose of devising new courses.
1. Natural Science. Courses in Natural Science should continue to seek the objectives defined in the Bruner Report of 1959: to give the student both a "knowledge of the fundamental principles of a special science" and an idea of the methods of science as they are known today."...We do not wish to suggest undue emphasis on methodology: the scientific method in its many forms should continue to be taught primarily through the study of the substance of science. But we think an increase in the amount of laboratory work in General Education courses would deepen the student's awareness of the working reality of scientific endeavor. And we believe an increase in the weight of mathematics in the Program would elevate the level of accomplishment...
The role of mathematics should be examined at three levels. At the lowest level would be remedial mathematics designed to bring the student up to the level of those who have had four years of secondary school mathematics....
The second level would be in constructing a mathematics based course in General Education suitable for those with four years of secondary school mathematics, but viewed as a terminal course. This would provide limited work in analytic geometry, elementary calculus, probability, linear equations and linear programming....
The third level would lie in the possibility of devising two rather advanced courses: one based on calculus and the other on algebra and both oriented to applications at the expense of comprehensive coverage....
2. Behavioral Science. Devising proper General Education courses in Behavioral Science presents special problems, if only because the present General Education Program includes very few offerings in this area that may simply be transferred to the proposed new Program. Such General Education courses as there now are in the area of Behavioral Science we would hope would be carried over into the new Program. And there are certain other rather special possibilities in course offerings that seem rather obvious: we think particularly of the value of a course on cybernetics, information theory, feedback and control, and computers, which might be particularly attractive to concentrators in the Natural Sciences.
3. Humanities, Problems of the same dimension do not exist in the proposed new Humanities area since there already are appropriate courses in the Humanities and Social Sciences sections of the existing General Education Program. There is, however, a special challenge facing those who would construct courses at the center of the spectrum in this area, where literature and art, ideas and beliefs, may be seen in conjunction with social and political phenomena.
4. General Education Electives. General Education electives--courses sponsored by the Committee on General Education but not included in the basic categories of Sciences and Humanities--offer possibilities that could contribute substantially to the variety and attractiveness of the undergraduate curriculum.
By the very nature of this rubric, however, it is difficult to classify the possibilities that may be included within it, for it is by design a region where unorthodox teaching efforts may be located. But three types of courses that may reasonably be accommodated in this part of the curriculum appear to us to be particularly attractive.
a. The first and most obvious such group is that of courses given by persons of unique stature on subjects that transcend ordinary disciplinary boundaries. We have thought in this connection of Professor Tillich's courses in philosophy and theology which could well have been offered in certain departments of the Faculty but which fitted none neatly and yet were of great value to large numbers of undergraduates....
b. For some time during its deliberations the committee considered the possibility of recommending a requirement relating to the study of non-Western cultures. For while we emphatically endorse the Redbook's concern for acquainting students with the cultural inheritance of the Western World, we recognize also that no one who hopes to cope with the contemporary world can remain ignorant of the history and culture of the Far East, of the Middle East, of Latin America and of Africa...
c. We have thought, finally, in considering the possibility of General Education Electives, of the whole area of the creative and performing arts. We write this report at a time when the University is just beginning to tap the wealth of educational possibilities it acquired in the Carpenter and Loeb centers. In both of these places exciting experiments in forms of instruction are taking place, but the proper relation of work in the visual and dramatic arts to the regular curriculum of the College is still only vaguely seen. We would hope that some day every undergraduate would be able to extend his experience in college from the verbal to the non-verbal arts, from appreciating to creating, in ways that maintain something of the discipline of his efforts within the departments....