New Requirements

A proposal coming before Bloomington faculty today could make it easier for students to transfer between colleges at IU.\nThe Bloomington Faculty Council will discuss the possibility of instituting a campus-wide general education curriculum during its meeting at 3:30 p.m. today in Ballantine Hall 008.\nThe proposed plan would create a program of general education requirements that all IU students must satisfy, regardless of major.\nThe idea for a campus-wide general education curriculum has been around for at least ten years, said Bloomington Faculty Council President and School of Public and Environmental Affairs professor Theodore K. Miller.\n"There have been a number of efforts to put something like this together in the past, and the newly proposed requirements are the latest version of the plan," he said.\nThe proposed curriculum will put an added emphasis on world language and culture, Miller said. He said the focus on this aspect will spotlight some of the many diverse academic experiences and let prospective students know what IU has to offer.\n"We want to make a statement of what the strengths of this campus are," he said.\nMiller said one of the goals of the new program is to help establish what an undergraduate education is at IU. The plan is to use the general education curriculum with students in the University Division to help them explore all of the academic opportunities IU offers, he said.\nThe proposal has laid out a diverse set of courses, including fundamentals in English composition and mathematics, as well as a distribution of credits in arts and humanities, social and historical studies and natural and mathematical studies. Students will have the option of completing the world languages and cultures component in one of three ways -- taking six credits in a second-year level of a world language, six credits in world culture courses or six credits in an approved international study abroad program.\nApproved dual-credit courses, credit by examination courses and transferred courses will satisfy the corresponding general education requirements.\nLindsay Vogler, a senior majoring in psychology, said she thinks the proposed plan would provide students the opportunity to learn about the world outside of the United States and give them the chance to become more well-rounded and cultured individuals. As a student in the College of Arts and Sciences, Vogler said she has benefited from taking a wide variety of required classes.\n"I grew up in the Midwest and taking arts and humanities-type classes gave me a different perspective on the world and even changed some of my views on different issues," she said.