By Alondra Tamayo, Dec 10, 2024
Tensions rose as Cal Poly Pomona faculty voted 19-17 to pass a new General Education pattern during the final Academic Senate meeting of the semester Dec. 4.
The General Education Committee selected the Majority Report as the main plan for the GE pattern, which will go into effect in fall 2025. The Majority Report, also known as Option B, separates the American Institutions, History, requirement from GE Area 4A.
If approved by CPP President Soraya M. Coley, students will need to complete the American Institutions requirement on its own, apart from GE. However, by removing it from GE Area 4A, more departments from the College of Letters, Arts, and Social Sciences will be able to offer general education courses, as was the case with GE Area D3, which was removed from the curriculum after the 2020-2021 academic year. The goal of Option B was for GE Area 4A to match the original Area D3. The last time D3 was offered was 2020-2021.
“The view from social sciences is different from other fields,” said Faye Wachs, a sociology professor and faculty senator representing CLASS. “It’s a unique perspective and students have the right to be exposed to it.”
Earlier this semester, the GE Committee offered two choices for the updated GE pattern, which became a requirement by the California State University system after California Assembly Bill No. 928 passed. The purpose of the pattern change is to streamline the GE pattern freshman and transfer students with an associates degree for transfer, but there was disagreement among senators on which GE pattern would be the most beneficial for the university.
“I am not a fan of GE courses being removed,” said Ghada Gad, an associate professor and faculty senator from the College of Engineering.
The changes to CSU GE requirements will reduce the total by five units for lower-division GE courses, removing the current GE Area E as well as one Area C course. Not all majors will benefit from this reduction. Some programs already use courses that are being removed as a GE requirement to count toward their major.
The differences between the Minority Report (Option A) and the Majority Report was about GE Area D, which will be known as Area 4 under the new pattern. The Minority Report recommended both lower division social science courses be dedicated to fulfilling the American Institutions GE requirement, with one course dedicated to political science and the other to U.S. history.
But under Option A, there wouldn’t be room for another CLASS course in the Social and Behavioral Science section and courses like those from Psychology and Economics, would be cut from GE.
“Then you are saying to us that our degrees and our programs have no value,” Wachs said to administration during the meeting. “I find it incredibly insulting that we are thought so low of by other colleges on this campus when we do not talk that way about you.”
The Majority Report that passed alternatively suggested opening up the history requirement to include all social sciences, allowing students to choose from a wider range of courses.
Some engineering faculty senators were opposed to the Majority Report, as their programs already require a heavy course load. Student senators, like Cade Wheeler, the Associated Students Inc. president and an engineering student, also expressed concerns that this could lead to higher tuition costs due to the additional units students would need to take.
“In our last discussion, I felt like, as a student, it wasn’t really student-centered,” Wheeler said. “We are supposed to be student-centered, and I always hear ‘What does this mean for faculty, what does this mean for the departments programs?’ But at the end of the day, faculty are here for students.”
Although the Majority Report won the most votes during the Academic Senate meeting, it is Coley’s decision to approve it. Usually, the decision process takes about 45 days, but with the sense of urgency on this topic, a decision will be made sooner.
Feature image courtesy of Alondra Tamayo
