Gen. Ed. proposal passes in Senate

Chris Hunter / The Bulletin

Associate professor of social science Charles Emmer speaks before the Faculty Senate on Tuesday about the general education proposal.

The Faculty Senate voted Tuesday to adopt a controversial General Education plan which will drop history and economics as required courses for most students.

The vote, by secret ballot, the vote was 17-10 with one abstention.

Before the bill becomes policy, it must be signed by President Michael Lane.

“We’ve passed many things at the state, national, and local level with a lower percentage and that’s the way it goes,” said Harvey Foyle, President of Faculty Senate and professor of instructional design and technology. “When you have a 60 percent vote, no it’s not 100 percent but it’s definitely not 50.1. To me, it really represents the feeling of the departments on campus. These people did a great job representing their various constituents.”

Several faculty members are pleased with the results of the vote and look forward to the changes in requirements being put into action.

“I think that the new general education program has a lot to offer,” said Gary Wyatt, chair of the General Education Council and associate professor of sociology. “I do believe that it preserves all the good things about liberal education and opens new alternatives to students. I’m pleased about this and look forward to hearing what the president has to say.”

About 15 students and faculty attended the meeting as audience members. Seven speakers from the audience signed up to speak in front of the senate. Several speakers brought petitions with them which were given to the senate for consideration.

“In a time when most students can list the names of television characters by heart but have no idea what the Bill of Rights is about, I do not hold much confidence in our ability to assume leadership of this country unless we are required to gain that perspective of time,” said Sarah Price, senior American history major who presented a petition from 359 students to keep the history requirement. “The removal of history as a requirement has far reaching effects and would be detrimental to our role as students and citizens.”

Karen Manners Smith stated that the social science department will uphold the new program even though the department was disappointed with the results of the vote.

“We had hoped the program would be further revised before approval and that it would reflect a renewed commitment to the liberal arts,” Smith said. “When further opportunities to revise the General Education program arise, as they will within a few years, we will certainly be participating… Understand that faculty disagreement about the new program stems from passionate concern among all faculty for the quality of the education our students receive at Emporia State University.”

Some Social Science faculty members felt they had been treated in an unfair manner for holding opinions that differed from those in support of the bill.

“We were frequently accused of putting our own self-interest above what is good for the university and some Social Science faculty members were treated with anger for simply being against the proposal,” said Charles Brown, professor of philosophy. “This was hurtful and unfair to some Social Science faculty members…Unfortunately, our arguments about the value of a liberal arts education were misconstrued as simply promoting our classes. These sorts of attacks on our motives only serve to take attention away from the real issues.”

Changes to the general education requirements could include adding several new classes and also allowing more current classes to be taken as part of general education. Possible new classes are fluency with information technology, introduction to micro computer applications, information literacy and technology, introduction to history, literary perspectives, introduction to geography, ethics social responsibility and sustainability, principles of leadership, understanding contemporary cultures and four new biology courses that focus on history emphasis, human emphasis, environmental emphasis and field biology.