Although Kenen said she “[doesn’t] see a lot of aspects of the Core retained in Gen Ed,” some faculty members said that the science courses have seen less change overall, particularly in the Core holdovers that have transitioned into Gen Ed.

“There’s a sense that the way we’ve always taught science is the way to keep teaching it,” McCarty said.

Physics professor Gary Feldman said he didn’t change much about his class when proposed its transition from Core to Gen Ed.

“It really didn’t need a whole lot of change,” he said about his class, which is now called Science of the Physical Universe 18: “Time.”

Feldman said he does not think that many professors drastically altered their science Core courses when switching to Gen Ed.

“We’ve had less change because we’ve been doing a lot of things that Gen Ed wanted all along,” he said.

According to Kenen, the old Core courses that were admitted into the Gen Ed program “already fulfilled the Gen Ed goals.”

For his part, Physics Professor Roy J. Glauber said he did not make any major changes to his Core course Science A-29 before submitting it to the Gen Ed Office.

The class, which is now labeled Physical Universe 23: “The Nature of Light and Matter,” has since been approved.

In his own course, “there was no change in philosophy[the Gen Ed Office] just wanted a lab added,” which he said he had done several years earlier on his own when the course was still in the Core.

Glauber said he thinks science Gen Eds have seen few changes because there are fundamental limitations to the way science can be taught.

“There has not been a world of change because we have a skeleton with a certain amount of rigidity,” he said, adding that he thinks humanities courses are “a great deal more adaptable and flexible” than science courses.

Glauber said he thinks science can be taught according to the Gen Ed philosophy “if its purpose is to interest people and give them experiences that are worth having.”

But, he said, “you cannot really do an honest job of presenting a discipline that way and expect people to understand its ramifications.”

When it comes to presenting rigorous science, he said, “there’s not very much you can do with those equations.”