Freshmen May Replace Gen Ed A with Seminars

The General Education Committee has voted to break the ten-year-old rule that every Freshman must take General Education Ahf, and permit students to fulfill the composition requirement by work done in Freshman seminars.

The change, reportedly made over the protests of some people closely connected with Gen Ed A, is not an exemption from the course, Harold C. Martin, Director of General Education A stated. He said the staff of the course was, "in no way bothered" by the decision, since it simply reduced the number of students in the course.

There is no specific Faculty legislation to authorize the change, but Martin, as well as Edward T. Wilcox, Director of Advanced Standing, and other members of the Committee felt that it was "within the spirit" of the Faculty vote last spring which authorized the Freshman Seminar program.

Wilcox said that he was "encouraged" by the change, which he felt was a step toward the concept of the composition requirement envisioned by the founders of the General Education program. In the "Redbook"--General Education in a Free Society--on which the original program was based, the authors expressed the hope that eventually the composition course would be absorbed by other courses in the program. Wilcox suggested that the current change might be the first step towards such an assimilation.

About fifty students have been released from Gen Ed A under the new ruling, but, according to Martin, the situation is in such a state of flux that the number changes hourly.