Schools fight changes to gen-eds

The formation of uniform degree requirements has stalled amid disputes between officials at IU-Bloomington's separate degree-granting schools. Disagreements have arisen because each school believes its requirements are the most appropriate for their degree.\nBloomington Faculty Council President Ted Miller told members of the council that an approval on a general education draft would be delayed because of disagreements on which requirements would fit each school's agenda. The announcement came Tuesday at the last BFC meeting of the academic year.\n"We didn't want the last meeting to be a big fight," Miller said. \nInstead, the deans of each school at IU-Bloomington reviewed proposed general education requirements.\n"The problem is not general education itself. Everyone agrees on that," said BFC member Bill Wheeler. "But the curriculum is given to the individual schools. The faculty has worked diligently to make their degrees the best they can be ... but when you try to back up and make things uniform, something has got to give."\nFor example, the College of Arts and Sciences requires the most general education classes before granting a degree. The Jacobs School of Music requires roughly half of the degree prerequisites compared with COAS. This gap could cause some serious problems within programs, Wheeler said.\nAfter deciding on an acceptable University-wide number, choosing courses for the requirements could also be another potential problem.\nInformatics professor Larry Yaeger complained that his school's academic focus was ignored entirely by the most recent proposal. But he said the School of Informatics faculty is in favor of a campus-wide curriculum.\n"Each student we graduate without technical competency diminishes the value of our degree," he said.\nThe council did make some progress Tuesday with the formation of the campus General Education Committee. The committee is proportionally represented, giving bigger schools more members, and therefore more votes. To avoid a monopolization among the bigger schools in the voting process, a motion must pass with a majority of the voting members, and at least four schools with members voting in favor of the proposal.\n"That's what gives us hope we haven't had before in past years," Wheeler said.\nOut-bound COAS Dean Kumble Subbaswamy complimented the council on its progress with the process so far, but said IU's adoption of a base education will proceed over even the loudest faculty objections. He said he hoped subsequent proposals would help settle the process of creating general education requirements.\nUnable to make an official approval, BFC member Herb Terry said he worries that this could be seen as potential failure.\n"I worry that the trustees will see our failure to adopt anything and that will give them the inclination to adopt something on their own," he said.\nMiller told the council that he doesn't foresee interference by the trustees because of the setback.\n"The trustees want something approved by the fall of 2008," the BFC president said. "And I see no reason why this will push us off track"