— Jennifer Endres, Academic Adviser
Health & Natural Sciences Student Community

The AAN discussion last Tuesday about rethinking the Liberal Education requirements has set HNS advisers thinking about ways that we can approach these discussions with our incoming students each summer.

Each summer HNS advisers spend a great deal of time discussing the Liberal Education requirements as well as courses that our students will be taking to fulfill each category (e.g., Chem1021, which fulfills both Physical Science with a Lab as well as the Environment theme) and showing students where they have a lot of choice and elective opportunities. Inevitably, at the conclusion of that discussion, the conversation with these students turns away from what they are interested in pursuing for a major/career or various topics they would like to explore, to a conversation of what courses will check off as many theoretical boxes on their APAS report as possible. Students look at which Liberal Education requirements they need to fulfill, and then within each category try to find a course that is interesting to them (or, as in the case of some, which course will overlap with as many other Lib Eds as possible). Shouldn't students first be looking at which courses they would like to explore, and then see if any of those courses fulfill Lib Eds (and if they don't fulfill any, not worry about it)?

We spend much of our time in June through August talking with students about what they need to do in order to graduate from the U, from what Lib Eds they will need to fulfill to how many credits they need to reach to what GPA minimum they need to maintain. Many students aren't ready to be hearing this information in June because the thought that they will be "going off" to college in a couple short months is not yet real. When they haven't reached this stage in their emotional development, is it fair that we give them information that we know they aren't ready for and therefore won't absorb (yet expect them to)?

What if we began rephrasing our conversations with these students?  Rather than talk about all the boxes they will need to have checked off in four years, why not capitalize on the point that they have four years to learn about whatever their heart desires?  Really show them the benefits of being in a college (and at a University) with such a wide array of options. Ask them if they'd like to further explore what they might have spent only a day on in a course in high school, or if they have read about something that interests them that they would like to know more about.

Rather than telling students what the University has decided they need to take in order to graduate, why not ask students what knowledge they feel they should have when they graduate in order to be good citizens of the world. We could ask what they think they need to know to be an interesting person, to be a doctor who can talk to his/her patients, to be a parent with kids who have all sorts of interests, to talk to friends from other colleges, or to talk to people at parties.

At the end of the discussion, we could show them the Lib Eds and how their own ideas are reflected. They would hopefully leave the meeting with a better understanding of the Lib Eds, why they are required, and how students can use them to future advantage. We can show them not only how the University agrees with their assessment of types of courses they should take to be engaged citizens of the world, but also how to make their educations their own. We will still be covering all the Lib Eds (perhaps more thoroughly than in the past), but they will be taught much differently.

One question when deciding to make this paradigm shift is time; the current didactic style of discussing the Lib Eds lends itself well to very time-compressed meetings. A longer Socratic method of teaching will take more time, but has stronger potential to be more effective in the long-run. To do this, we would definitely need more, not less, time with all of our students (mandatory checkback appointments?). This is a conversation that could (and should!) be continued at fall and spring checkback appointments, and set the stage for conversations relating to educational goals. The beginning of the conversation, however, needs to be compatible with the time allotted for the college meeting and 4-year planning meeting.

As Adrienne Rich (poet and essayist) once said, "you are not here to receive an education, you are here to claim one."  As advisers and teachers, we need to begin helping students live up to this. Take an active role in their education, see how courses can help them in various aspects in their futures, and how they can claim their educations and make them their own. We are, of course, open to ideas and suggestions about how to implement this approach. Further conversation and reflection not only with CLASS colleagues but also the wider university community is always welcome!