Vol. 38, No. 18

1-3-2006
By: Julia Harris

McHale Committee reviews undergraduate education

Suzanne Scharer is not your typical Ohio State student. For one thing, she's president of Undergraduate Student Government. For another, she's a fourth-year senior in marketing who is actually going to graduate in June.

"To graduate in four years, I've taken two summer quarters," Scharer said. "I've always had to balance GECs (general education curriculum) with my major classes, while trying to add electives if I could. The GEC was very confusing when I entered as a freshman and it took time to fully understand how to fill each requirement."

In light of her own experience, and in her capacity as USG president, Scharer welcomes the recommendations outlined in the report released Nov. 7 by the Committee on the Universitywide Review of Undergraduate Education. The committee, chaired by Professor of English Brian McHale, was convened a year ago to address two overarching questions posed by Provost Barbara Snyder: What body of knowledge should undergraduate students be expected to master prior to graduation and how can the university best prepare undergraduate students in all its colleges for a lifetime of learning and citizenship?

Two rather large questions to guide an even larger task. The committee began by reviewing previous reports on the GEC and the various revisions that have been done over the years, and then sought input from student groups, faculty and administrators on what an improved general education curriculum would look like. Examining the undergraduate curriculum at benchmark institutions in the Big Ten and at UCLA provided ideas on how other universities structured their general education curriculum and helped shape the ultimate recommendations of the committee.

"The one thing that we've learned is how complicated this university is, how heterogeneous its student body is and how many different trajectories students follow through the university," McHale said, "so the undergraduate program has to be maximally flexible to accommodate the kind of complexity we've got."

With that in mind, the committee presented five principal recommendations to Snyder:

-- reduce the number of credit hours required for graduation from 191 to 180;
-- supplement the current Freshman Seminar program with a freshman cluster track;
-- reassess the staffing of undergraduate general education courses;
-- revamp the general education curriculum so it is more coherent, flexible, closely monitored and transparent; and
-- reaffirm the values of the current GEC, which include developing in students the ability to write and speak clearly, to think and analyze logically, to develop a refined historical consciousness and to understand the methods of modern science.

"The keystone here is breadth," McHale said. "We want students to get some sense of the range of disciplines so that they come out of this experience of their undergraduate education at least as better informed citizens. We also want them to solidify their basic skills, so we're stressing a strong writing component and a strong quantitative component as well."

A fundamental element to the committee's proposed changes is the freshman cluster program, described in the report as integrated, interdisciplinary course sequences that focus on a broad, unifying theme. The courses would be team taught by full-time faculty, thereby overcoming a common complaint by students about not having access to regular faculty.

"Freshman clusters provide a lot of things in a tidy package," McHale explained. "They give freshmen exposure to full-time faculty right away, they give them an interdisciplinary experience right away, they enable students to integrate their writing work with their other course work and they allow them to satisfy a number of the requirements toward general education. They bring an element of coherence to their general education."

Edward Adelson, associate executive dean of arts and sciences, agrees that the idea of freshman clusters is a good one and worthy of considering as Ohio State looks to revamp its approach to undergraduate curriculum. "The basic idea behind the freshman clusters program is to create a sense of integration across disciplines, and that's a very useful idea," he said. "The interdisciplinary nature of it is something we really believe in. It's potentially a wonderful way to launch a student's undergraduate career."

Scharer, for one, is championing the recommendations in the committee's report. "Students have been calling for changes to the GEC for years," she said. "This document recognizes changes to many of the issues students have had with the GEC: number of hours to graduation, flexibility, ease of use, faculty-student interaction, capstone classes and more. As it becomes more widespread and USG engages more students in looking critically at the changes, students will become even more optimistic about the future of the undergraduate curriculum at Ohio State."

Because the proposed changes are likely to have sweeping consequences, meetings have been scheduled with colleges and committees across the university to present the recommendations and solicit feedback from faculty and students. Snyder has invited the university community to examine the report, which can be viewed in full at http://senate.osu.edu/Reports/McHaleReport.pdf, and provide feedback by March 15. McHale can be reached at mchale.11@osu.edu to schedule meetings with interested university units.

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