How General Is Most Gen Ed?

The Faculty's long and arduous search for the true nature of "general education" took a quantitative turn during the past few weeks as Francis M. Pipkin, chairman of the Committee on General Education and associate dean of the Faculty for the Colleges, completed a survey of the Gen Ed program.

Pipkin circulated a questionnaire among the instructors of Gen Ed courses and selected faculty members and students in an effort to determine which of the 114 Gen Ed courses now offered are considered most appropriate for the program.

The survey revealed a large majority consider only about 20 of the courses appropriate to the basic goals of Gen Ed.

What about the rest of the courses? Pipkin said earlier this month that they are a "hodge-podge" of types and probably do not belong in Gen Ed.

The survey respondants said about 20 courses are definitely not suitable for the Gen Ed program, and put the other 70 or so in an intermediate category.

Pipkin said yesterday that it is still too early to tell what impact the survey will have. But he and other administrators have said recently that the findings could influence Faculty debate on the report of the Task Force on the Core Curriculum.

The task force said in its report released last November that the General Education program has lost its focus.

This spring the Faculty will be asked to decide whether to trim Gen Ed down to a more restrictive core of required courses or allow it to continue its present fertile growth.