General Education Rigor

Last week, Inside Higher Education published an article on the case of a biology faculty member who was removed from teaching a non-majors class mid-semester for being too rigorous.  There is much to the story that did not make it into the article and it generated a tremendous amount of feedback.  I won't get into the case specifically, rather I will comment on some of the responses it engendered.

One of the issues raised was if the standards of a non-majors or general education course should be on par with those of a majors course.  An example of a comment is:

"In this case, however, the professor was teaching an introductory course for NON-MAJORS. Students take this type of course either because its required or because they want to sample an academic field for its own sake. Mastery of the body of knowledge is not--and shouldn't--be a goal. The point of such a course is to "taste" the material. And, yes, it should probably be possible to slide by with a "C" in such a course pretty easily." 

It does not matter if a course is required or taken to sample a field.  The point of a course is always to master a body of knowledge.  Certainly the level of mastery will differ between general education, lower division, and upper division courses, but the goal is still mastery at some level.  

The point of a grade is to provide some measure of the student's mastery relative to the required level of mastery.  If sliding by with a "C" is "easy", the value of the grade is pretty minimal.  Should such courses really receive the same weighting in the graduates grade point average as courses where a "C" grade is based on some less "easy" standard?  Should the "easy" courses get a lower unit load count than the "non-easy" courses?

There is a fairly commonly held belief among students that general education courses are not real courses, but are there for easy grades to boost GPAs.  To the extent that we faculty contribute to this mentality we undermine the benefit of a liberal arts education.  The next time we decry the scientific illiteracy of the general population we might ask ourselves if our own general education courses are "pretty easy Cs" or if they emphasize mastery that leads to a populace that has the ability understand the science upon which their lives depend.

T.S. Hall