New Gen Ed Program Runs Smoothly

The new General Education program has glided into operation with a minimum of confusion among undergraduates and a minimum of headaches for administrators.

At present, the program's most urgent problem is what to do with the unexpectedly large number of upperclassmen who have applied to the new middle group expository writing courses.

"It's going to be a real problem," Edward T. Wilcox, director of General Education, said yesterday, "but it's just the kind of problem any course in this college wants."

Two hundred freshmen automatically qualify for the five courses, said Roger Rosenblatt, acting director of expository writing, but 40 upperclassmen have also made application.

The courses, bearing titles such as "Exposition and Autobiography," are being offered this year along with a lower group course entitled "English Composition" in place of the old General Education Ahf.

To meet the demand, Rosenblatt has added three sections to the 12 originally planned. Two of the three are in Expository Writing 104, "Exposition and Narration."

"Upperclassmen clamoring to get into our writing courses is quite a change in the climate of opinion," said Wilcox. He called the response to the new courses "sensational."

Wilcox said quite a few juniors and seniors have transferred from the old General Education rules to the new. He emphasized that anyone desiring a transfer need only sign a declaration of intent to qualify under the new regulations, which offer a number of middle group courses that satisfy the basic Gen Ed requirement.

Wilcox said the essence of the new rules is to loosen slightly lower-level requirements (by allowing students to satisfy them with selected middle group courses) and to tighten slightly the upper-level requirements (by preventing students from counting courses related to concentration toward their distribution requirement).

One difficulty that Wilcox anticipated has not developed: students might have spurned the old lower level Gen Ed courses and flocked instead to the more glamorous middle group offerings.

But Wilcox said undergraduates seem to be taking advantage of the plan's flexibility by attending both types of courses, though exact enrollment figures will not be available until final study cards have been turned in.