Good Intentions

The Doty Report is in serious trouble. Even if the faculty finally accepts the report, there will almost certainly be some major changes in the report's proposals. It is ironic that opposition to the report has been increased by precisely those features which the Doty committee apparently hoped would speed the report's passage.

Although the special committee calls its proposals a General Education program, it really creates little more than an elaborate distribution requirement. But those faculty members who do favor a distribution requirement have turned against the Doty report. Instead of being appeased by the Doty Committee's distribution requirement in disguise, they have questioned the creation of such an unwieldy and complicated structure to house it.

Professor Constable's proposal which would retain Gen Ed courses under a distribution requirement has attracted even more support to this position. One of the most telling objections to an outright distribution system has always been that the outstanding Gen Ed courses now in existence could not find a home in a department.

From the other side, Faculty members who strongly favor a General Education program, the Doty Report seems to have encountered even more resistance. Rather than being satisfied that the report establishes a General Education program and calls for renewed effort on the part of the Faculty to Gen Ed. this group sees the distribution requirement in the background and doesn't like it. Even more irritating to supporters of Gen Ed, the Doty Report never discusses whether General Education can better attain the goals of a Gen Ed program that departmental courses.

The Doty committee is upset at the prospect of Constable's proposal being passed. But, like its reply to criticism of the bipartite division, the committee's argument against the Constable plan are strictly administrative ones: unless a requirement is involved, undergraduates won't take Gen Ed courses and professors won't coach them.

The Faculty is unenthusiastic about these answers. Whenever a professor asks whether Gen Ed courses are worthwhile, the Doty committee does not reply. Instead it holds its head and replies that unless Gen Ed is required, many Gen Ed courses will go out of existence. But its critics are perfectly willing to let Gen Ed courses go out of existence.

It is not enough to argue that the Gen Ed committee must pre-select the departmental courses an undergraduate can take to fulfill his Gen Ed requirements. The Committee must confront the question whether there is any inherent worth in a Gen Ed Course-and if there is it ought to persuade the Faculty. Because unless a convincing argument is made, the Faculty will probably not accept the Doty proposals or any compulsory Gen Ed program.

It is peculiar that a Special Committee to Review General Education should be charged with this failure. And it is ironic that by its failure to confront such a central question, a committee which so strongly endorses the concept of General Education has done Gen Ed a disservice.