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Gen Ed Identity Still Emerging

Statistics Professor Xiao-Li Meng says that his Empirical and Mathematical Reasoning 16, “Real Life Statistics: Your Chance at Happiness (Or Misery)” class, formerly Statistics 105, had always featured a series of speakers who connected the field to various real-world applications, like law or romance. But this year, the Gen Ed office sponsored all the speaker fees and publicized the talks widely, dramatically increasing the turnout for each event.

Associate Director of the Program in General Education Anne Marie E. Calareso says that the office has helped other courses plan trips to see American Repertory Theater performances, screen musicals, and invite performers—such as Salman Ahmad, a Pakistani rock musician—to classes.

“Word is starting to get out and faculty are coming to us with activities—things that they’ve always wanted to do or things they’ve done small scale in a department course,” Kenen says. “A lot of this never could have happened in the Core.”

MORE THAN A CHECKLIST

Next fall, the Gen Ed office wants to take its endeavors to the next level by sponsoring independent events, imbuing Gen Ed with a life beyond the course catalogue.

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“We want Gen Ed to be a program and not just a list of requirements students check off as they finish,” Kenen says.

One of the office’s plans is to sponsor a “Versus” series in which two faculty members will discuss the same topic from different angles. The first installment—a debate between English Professor Louis Menand and Psychology Professor Steven Pinker regarding the place of religion in a liberal arts education—was originally planned for last week, but has been postponed until the fall due to scheduling issues.

Several Gen Ed Committee members’ passion for baseball inspired another tentative panel idea: eight faculty members—one from each Gen Ed category—will explain how they would teach a class about some aspect of baseball through the lenses of their respective fields.

Calareso says that a new student advisory group—the General Education Planning Committee—has met twice this semester to discuss what kinds of Gen Ed-sponsored events would be most interesting for students. Andrés Castro Samayoa ’10, a member of the committee, says he thinks the office “is very committed to listening to student perspectives and incorporating them as much as they can.”

But at this point, both Kenen and Calareso acknowledged that there is a major disconnect between the office’s efforts and student awareness of the Gen Ed mission.

“We’re working on how to communicate this new aspect of Gen Ed to students,” Kenen says. “It’s not just ‘how do we promote events?’ but ‘how do we shift how students think about this new part of the curriculum?’”

COMMON MISCONCEPTIONS

This spring, a paper on stem cell research by Paul E. Schied ’13 was awarded the Conant Prize by the Gen Ed office for its interdisciplinary nature and emphasis on real-world applications.

While his paper had clearly mastered the ideals of Gen Ed, Schied himself says he is unsure of the exact differences between Gen Ed and Core.

Even the chair of the Undergraduate Council Education Committee, Kwang Y. “Joseph” Kim ’12 says he is not completely certain about how the overarching philosophy of Gen Ed differed from that of the Core.

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