Senate discusses gen-ed options

Possible responses by the Faculty Senate to the SUNY-wide general-education curriculum recently adopted by the Board of Trustees were discussed at the senate's Executive Committee meeting on Feb. 3.

Although no action was taken, options discussed by senators ranged from pushing for UB representation on SUNY Provost Peter Salins' Advisory Task Force on General Education to crafting a report to circulate to central administration outlining UB's successful general-education curriculum.

The curriculum adopted by the trustees on Dec. 15, which will apply to all freshmen entering SUNY institutions in Fall 2000, requires candidates for bachelor's degrees to complete at least 30 credit hours of coursework in mathematics, natural science, social science, American history, western civilization, other world civilizations, humanities and the arts, foreign languages, basic communication and reasoning, and information management.

Although the FSEC on Dec. 16 unanimously approved a resolution expressing regret that the trustees had adopted the general-education standards without faculty input, some members of the panel felt the group should pursue further action.

Important issue

Dennis Malone, SUNY Distinguished Service Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering, told his colleagues that the general- education "debacle" is one of the most important issues to come before the senate in recent years.

Malone said that he was concerned that the interlocutor group that will visit UB as part of the mission-review process "will establish the criteria by which your (general-education) courses are to be evaluated-and the syllabus-and they want to know that you've taught this course, but you've taught it their way," Malone said.

"What are we as a local senate doing, if anything, about this issue?" he asked.

Mitchell Harwitz, associate professor of economics, noted that UB has a "substantial history" in the development of a general-education curriculum. He suggested that faculty involved in that effort "be very quickly mobilized" to draw up a "statement" on how the general- education curriculum has worked at UB.

Don Schack, professor of mathematics, wondered if the senate shouldn't create an ad hoc committee-including faculty members involved in the creation of the former Undergraduate College- "that actually comments on the specifics of the plan that the trustees have enacted-not only its academic suitability, as well as its practicality at this institution and make this public.

"Let's approach it as people who know what we're doing," Shack said, "not just as people who are complaining because nobody asked us (about the proposal in advance)."

Implications for UB

Senate Chair Peter Nickerson, professor of pathology, agreed that such a committee would be useful.

"I think we as an institution-UB-have to know what the implication of this actually is for us," Nickerson said. "It's already passed; it's already being implemented. The freight train's going, and we have to quickly say what are the implications for UB; there are many."

But Lilliam MalavŽ, associate professor of learning and instruction, told senators they were "ignoring the fact" that membership on Salins' task force "is perhaps the only way to effect changes" in the curriculum, since the policy already has been adopted.

"It is extremely significant for us to be part of this committee," she said.

Although MalavŽ said she was not disregarding the value of examining the implications of the new general-education standards for UB, "in terms of impacting policy, we need to speak to those outside" UB.

Malone said he doesn't believe it would be "fruitful" to complain about the lack of UB representation on the task force "because our absence from that committee is not an oversight."

In addition to Salins, who serves as co-chair, members of the task force are co-chair Muriel Moore, president of Buffalo State College; the presidents of the SUNY campuses at Stony Brook, Cobleskill and Brockport; the president of Rockland Community College, and the chief academic officers at Binghamton, Purchase, Geneseo, Morrisville and Corning Community College.