The Distribution -- Disciplinary Breadth

CLA Document

An important goal of a general education program must be to cultivate students' knowledge in a broad range of disciplines and to introduce them to the modes of inquiry appropriate to those disciplines. It is also essential for students to learn that an idea or a problem can be approached from different perspectives within a given discipline and from those of different disciplines. The first Common Learning Objective in Foundations for the Future is: "Integrating compartmentalized disciplinary knowledge and multiple perspectives, balancing study in the major with the kind of study that provides students with competing views on complex problems."

With these important goals in mind, we reaffirm the notion of a distribution requirement across the divisions, and recommend that it take the form of a Disciplinary Breadth requirement consisting of four courses in the Humanities, two in the Social Sciences, and three in the Natural Sciences and Mathematics for all students in the College of Arts and Sciences, to go into effect with the Class of 1997, entering in Fall 1993. The Disciplinary Breadth requirement will be completed by the end of the student's second year unless the degree program specifies a different timetable.

Although we wish to maintain a structure modeled on that of the current distribution requirement, we recommend a detailed reexamination of the requirement in light of Foundations for the Future and, more specifically, the Common Learning Objectives, which single out several pedagogical and thematic areas for special attention. The pedagogical goals listed in the Common Learning Objectives apply very broadly to all of the institution's endeavors. The members of the GEC propose a complementary list of Pedagogical Goals of Disciplinary Breadth courses (see end of this section) that constitute the application of the Common Learning Objectives at the level of individual courses throughout the distribution.

A large segment of the faculty should engage in the discussions concerning the current distribution requirements. We propose that during academic year 1992-93, faculty in each of the divisions--in a manner to be determined by the chairs of each department in the division along with its representatives to the Curriculum Committee--meet to consider the Disciplinary Breadth requirement as it applies to their division. The discussion should include a rationale for the study of the Humanities, the Social Sciences, and the Natural Sciences and Mathematics, respectively, in the context of a student's overall education, and a reevaluation of the content of the requirement. Faculty may choose to retain the current requirement for their division or they may wish to define, limit, or structure the requirement in some way. For example, faculty may wish to require that one of the courses deal with specific content or approaches. A division may wish to adopt requirements for a structure similar to that of the current distributional guidelines for Humanities courses. Or it may choose to recommend changes to the Distributional Guidelines that would be used in advising rather than requiring a particular structure. It may wish to design new interdisciplinary courses in the division. It may also decide to waive one or more of the distribution courses in the division for students majoring in that division.

The characteristics of courses meeting the Disciplinary Breadth requirement will need to be considered carefully, to enable such courses to include the range of features that the divisions consider important and the Common Learning Objective mandate. Any such requirements should be sensitive to the needs of particular degree programs, taking into account, for example, requirements imposed by outside accrediting agencies and the desirability of avoiding unnecessary duplication on the part of students

Divisional discussions will encourage the faculty to examine their courses, many of which are taken by both majors and non-majors, and to determine in what ways they are already incorporating the Common Learning Objectives and the Pedagogical Goals for Disciplinary Breadth courses and in what ways they could address them more effectively. Divisions will make recommendations to the Curriculum Committee by the end of Spring 1993. These recommendations will be submitted to the Curriculum Committee after approval by a majority of the faculty and of the departments in the division. Until other divisional specifications are agreed upon, courses will satisfy each division's requirement as currenny stated for the B.A. degree (1991-92 Catalogue, Divisional Distribution, p. 4), with the exception described below.⁴

Since the inception of the current distribution requirements, the Mathematics Department has been a member of the division of Natural Sciences, yet its courses do not fulfill the requirements for that or any other division. No department's courses should be excluded from the Disciplinary Breadth requirement, either as it stands now or as modified by eventual divisional criteria. After consultation with the Department, we recommend adding a third course to the two already required in the division of Natural Sciences and Mathematics. This addition would allow both the Mathematics Department and the Computer Science Department, which offers two majors and a minor in the College of Arts and Sciences, to offer courses counting for the Disciplinary Breadth requirement. Just as faculty members from outside the division who currently teach laboratory sciences should be invited to divisional discussions that concern the role of lab science courses in the Disciplinary Breadth requirement, the Computer Science Department as well as Mathematics should be represented when the role of the third course is discussed. Students could fulfill the third requirement by electing a mathematics course, a computer science course, a third natural science course, or by choosing a science or engineering course offered by a department outside the division that is considered suitable by the division.

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4. By action of the College of Arts and Sciences faculty on February 18, 1997, it was decided that henceforth the Disciplinary Breadth component consist of the following: (a) any four courses in the division of Humanities provided that not more than two courses are offered by the same department, (b) any two courses in the division of Social Sciences provided that the two courses come from different disciplines, and (c) any three courses in the division of Natural Sciences and Mathematics provided that two of these courses are laboratory courses in the natural sciences. For purposes of meeting these requirements, the academic divisions are as listed in the Catalog under Disciplinary Breadth Requirements. Furthermore, the faculty decided that each division be given the opportunity to redefine the constitution of its divisional requirements, and to determine whether or not it wishes to recommend to the Curriculum Committee a select few particularly appropriate courses as models for fulfilling its divisional requirement.