Faculty could vote as early as this month to expand the selection of courses that fulfill distribution requirements in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, officials in the school said Tuesday.
Craig Bina, Weinberg’s outgoing associate dean for undergraduate studies, introduced a proposal at a faculty meeting April 21 to allow 300-level classes to count toward the college’s distribution requirements. Faculty could decide on the proposal at the next faculty meeting May 26, officials said.
Currently, only 100-level and 200-level classes can be used to fulfill students’ graduation requirements. The proposal, if approved, will give students more freedom in deciding their course of study, Bina said.
“The difference between a 200- and a 300-level course varies dramatically between departments, and the difference does not always involve breadth,” Bina wrote in an e-mail to The Daily on Tuesday. “Whether or not a course is numbered at the 300-level does not seem to be a valid characteristic for determining suitability for distribution requirements.”
Weinberg distribution requirements are broken into six areas of study, with students required to take two classes from each field. The proposal states that the line between 200- and 300-level courses is blurred especially in Area II, formal studies, and Area III, social and behavioral sciences.
The proposal would grant students more freedom to choose their curriculum, but likely will not lead to an overflow of students who want to enter upper-level classes, Bina said.
“Students are wise enough to know when they don’t yet have sufficient background to do well in advanced courses, and clearer prerequisites will help them to figure this out even more effectively,” he said.
Weinberg junior Adam Splitek said he would find such a proposal especially beneficial.
“Frankly, for the people who don’t get distros out of the way right away — like me, a transfer student — this would definitely be good,” Splitek said.
The current system of distribution requirements, Splitek said, has forced him to squeeze into large, lower-level courses geared toward younger students. Such classes sometimes feel like a waste — he would rather be taking smaller, more focused 300-level classes, he said.
Other students said any initiative that broadens their academic freedom is a positive step.
“Nobody likes to get stuck in a class nobody wants to take,” Weinberg junior David Connors said. “If you find something interesting at a higher level — why not?”
Weinberg freshman Meri Crowther said that even though the initiative would open more higher-level classes, students probably would avoid classes in which they would do poorly.
“It would be hard to jump into a 300-level class as a freshman,” she said.
The college’s faculty have been mulling over this idea for almost a year, said Mary Finn, Weinberg’s assistant dean for curriculum. Those in attendance at the April 21 meeting were receptive to the proposal, she said.
“Many folks have had time to give serious thought to the proposal and its merits,” she wrote in an e-mail to The Daily.
But the plan will affect some departments more than others. Departments like English might tighten their prerequisites for 300-level classes to keep out unmotivated students and maintain their intellectual rigor, Bina said.
Other departments, like mathematics, might be affected less because upper-level math classes already have strict prerequisite rules, said Paul Goerss, chairman of the mathematics department.
It would be difficult for a student who opts for a 300-level math class as a distribution requirement, Goerss said.
“Our 300-level courses require such elaborate skill sets that it’s hard to imagine how someone could even get into one without taking the basics,” he said.
