Groups should not eliminate history, economics

The current controversy surrounding the General Education Council proposal and the Faculty Senate secret ballot is appalling to me and has frankly lowered my opinion of Emporia State as a whole.

Although I am graduating in May, and therefore will not be affected by the possible changes in the general education requirements, I still feel strongly about the issue, being that I’m a student in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and will be receiving a Bachelor of Arts in English.

The faculty and administrative members who are proponents of eliminating history and economics gen. ed. requirements are truly doing a disservice to the current and future students at ESU, not to mention hurting the image of the university by proposing these unreasonable changes and using unethical and possibly unlawful procedures in attempt to get them passed.

The fact that the Faculty Senate favored holding a secret ballot is an indicator that those faculty members who are for the proposed changes are not really proud of their vote. This is apparent, since one of the members who were in favor of the secret ballot is no longer an employee of ESU.

Students are divided on what should happen with the general education curriculum. Some side with the faculty members who believe removing history and economics requirements would give students more options as to what they can take as a gen. ed. and provide them with more applicable skills for the real world and life after college.

While ESU is not considered to be a liberal arts and sciences college, it is still an accredited four-year Regent’s state university that guarantees students a well-rounded education.

There are those students who will argue that requiring students to take history and economics is unpractical because it is repeated curriculum from high school. For one, many high schools don’t offer an economics course; and two, I think every student should have at least one refresher course in history before being able to receive a college degree, regardless of one’s major.

The history course I was required to take in college is on a completely different level than those I took in high school. The kind of intellectual discussions students and professors have in college do not compare to the strict and limited high school lecture classes. With the economy nearing into a recession, how can students without current knowledge of economics or history know how to adapt and possibly help fix the problems in which our country is currently facing?

I know these courses would still be offered and not done away with completely. However, there will be those students who will choose not to take either one of them, and instead will probably be forced to take technology and computer classes, which the faculty believes is more essential to our education.

What’s next, Composition 1 and 2? That’s the word going around, anyway. They might as well propose these courses to be on the cutting board next if they are going to cut basic courses like history and economics from the general education curriculum. Let’s just make ESU students even less educated by getting rid of a major writing class that teaches students the fundamentals of writing various types of papers.

I would suggest a course that they could eradicate. Nevertheless, I do not want to give the General Education Council any ideas because they would probably take my suggestion seriously.

All I can say is that I am in agreement with a former professor of mine: I do not want ESU to become another technical college. We already have one of those in Emporia. I did not pay tuition and attend here to have my future alma mater turned into a vocational school that has minimal course requirements.

EDIT, 4/17/08: Fixed some ambiguous wording.