Eighteen hours in the Jesuit tradition, 30 hours of liberal arts and 15 hours in skills: A recipe for disaster? No, actually, the 63-hour core curriculum for the College of Arts and Sciences.

The growing dissatisfaction among students and some faculty has resulted in a core curricula survey conducted by the Faculty Senate Academic Affairs Committee.

With 21 percent of eligible faculty responding, 67 percent favor a University core with possibly some supplemental school cores. The mean number of hours for a core suggested by the respondents was 29.

“The whole point of a university education is to produce well-rounded enlightened human beings who are capable of making valuable contributions to society,” one faculty member stated in the open-ended comments section. He or she continued, “Without a humanities core, a university can only produce technocrats, scientists, and professionals capable in their disciplines but ignorant and insensitive to broader human values and to the public good.”

Other open-ended comments in the survey stated concern about an imbalance in the core, particularly for Arts and Sciences students. Also, the notion that the high number of core hours would prevent students from taking more classes in their major and being slightly less prepared than students from other colleges.

Ellen Carnaghan, Ph.D., a political science professor in the College of Arts and Sciences, is the chair of the Academic Affairs Committee for 2000-2001. She said that it doesn’t seem as though the core most faculty would prefer would be likely to be established.

“A majority of the respondents to the survey wanted a smaller core that could be elaborated on within each school,” Carnaghan said. “Right now there isn’t even an institutional structure that would allow that kind of core to be established.”

Carnaghan continued, “We met with Provost Johnson, and it seems as though there would have to be movement within each school for any kind of change to be made.”

Provost Sandra Johnson explained, “The body that has to make the decisions is the faculty of each college school.”

Johnson said that she appreciated the discussion about the core curriculum but added that the main concern should be whether or not the right things are being taught in the right sequence.

Carnaghan also said that while she appreciates the need for a diverse education to introduce students to a variety of ways of thinking and the ability to approach subjects in different ways, she thinks that a large core may scare off prospective students.

“I think some students who already have a sense of themselves as independent thinkers may shy away from a large core, particularly like that one of Arts and Sciences,” Carnaghan said.

The Student Government Association academic vice president candidates running in this year’s election all had slightly different views about what should be done with the core.

Tricia Fechter, running on the “Building a Legacy” team, would like to see a University core.

“I want to develop a 30-hour core for all university students,” Fechter said. “Each school could then add 30 hours on to that and the students would have 60 hours left in their major,” she continued.

Fechter added, “It’s not going to happen overnight, I think it would take a lot of legwork on my part and on the parts of the schools, but it’s definitely attainable.”

“Students First” candidate Jonathan Waldron thinks that we should just work with what is already established. “There’s been a lot of talk about having one core for all schools. That’s a great idea, but it’s not going to happen,” Waldron said.

“We should publish a list of the basic core that overlaps between schools, so that students who aren’t sure can just take those first,” Waldron added.

Matt Love, “The Next Step” candidate, also thinks that a University core is a great idea, but unrealistic.

“It’s a novel idea, but it’s not going to happen because Provost Johnson is against it,” Love said.

“I think what we need to work on is softening up some of the cores. With such a large number in some schools, it really limits the academic freedom of the students. Also, we need to look at when the students take their core classes. Being a Parks student, a lot of mine come in later in the curriculum while Arts and Sciences students are taking a lot of them freshman and sophomore year,” Love continued.

The results of this survey can be found in their entirety on the Faculty Senate home page at www.slu.edu/organizations/fs.