Schools in the University of North Carolina system are weak in general education, according to a new study commissioned by the Pope Center for Higher Education Policy. UNC students are seven times more likely to be required to take a cultural diversity course than they are to study a foreign language, unlikely to be required to study Western history or civilization or even introductory literature, and not required at all to study United States history.
The study, “How Solid is the Core?: A Study of General Education Requirements at 11 North Carolina Institutions,” was conducted for the Pope Center by the National Association of Scholars. It examined the following UNC institutions: Appalachian State University, East Carolina University, Fayetteville State University, North Carolina Central University, North Carolina State University, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina-Charlotte, University of North Carolina-Greensboro, University of North Carolina-Pembroke, University of North Carolina-Wilmington, and Western Carolina University. It was based upon information gleaned from university catalogs for the years 2002 and 2003.
The study also examined what it called “bellwether majors, English and history.”
According to the report, of the usual 122 to 128 total credit hours required by most baccalaureate programs for graduation, 42 to 45 credits (or about one-third) comprise general-education requirements. Of those, the study finds typically five to six major components: “English, humanities, the social sciences, the natural sciences and mathematics, physical education, and — more often than not — a multicultural or diversity element.”
It studied these requirements from the following list of assumptions of what “general education should include: a two-semester composition course for freshmen, some type of introductory literature course, a United States history course, a four-semester foreign language requirement, and a rigorous science course.”
Most UNC schools met the expectation for composition courses; the one that did not, Appalachian, required one semester for composition buttressed by “an introductory literature course with ‘continued emphasis on writing through literary essays.’” But 45 percent of the schools offer remedial English courses, whose presence “suggests that the institution is knowingly accepting candidates who are not adequately prepared in writing skills.” The same percentage requires an introductory literature course.
The report finds that 36 percent of the schools surveyed require a course in Western history or Western civilization. In contrast, the study found 64 percent “require a multicultural or cultural diversity course.” The study declared this finding “at best a sign of interest in non-Western cultures, but all too often an exercise in politically correct ‘education.’”
Worse, the study found that “[n]ot one institution requires all undergraduates to take a course in United States history.”
As for foreign-language study, an area in which students could obtain serious exposure to foreign cultures through studying a different culture’s thought, ways, and literature as is necessary to do when learning a foreign language, the study found that “[o]nly East Carolina University requires the 12 credit hours in a foreign language needed to ensure basic competence.” The others required so little that as a whole, the UNC schools studied “are seven times as likely to require a course in cultural diversity as they are to mandate foreign language competence.”
Concerning the required science courses, the offerings to fulfill general-education requirements, even though they included the more rigorous introductory courses required of science majors, also included many less rigorous courses sometimes specifically advertised as “for the non-science major.” The report highlighted a few such courses in its introduction, such as UNCW’s “CHM 103, Chemistry in Everyday Life, ‘ A terminal, relatively non-mathematical one-semester course in chemistry for the nonscience major’”; UNCW’s “PHY 103, Great Ideas in Physics,” which “‘Introduces the nature of science to the nonscientist by emphasizing the concepts underly four great ideas in physics’ but also “Explores the mutual influence of science and the humanities (literature, philosophy, history, and the arts);”; UNC-CH’s “PHYS 16, How Things Work, described as ‘Demystifying the working of objects such as CD players, microwave ovens, lasers, computers, roller coasters, rockets, light bulbs, automobiles, clocks, etc.’”; and UNCG’s “NTR 213, Nutrition Facts & Fantasies.”
Tending to weaken the core of general education, the study found, was the wide latitude of courses facing students that would suffice to satisfy general-education requirements. For example, students at UNC-CH could choose with equal validity an introductory physics course for science majors or “How Things Work” or many other choices.
The bewildering number of disparate but equally satisfying courses offered means that students are assured “little, if any, common knowledge,” the authors concluded.
The array of qualifying courses offered in humanities by the UNC schools is so vast that students fulfilling general-education requirements will, on average, need to take need 3 percent of them. For the social sciences, only 4 percent; for natural sciences, only 5 percent. “Only three institutions require students to take more than one in ten qualifying courses in these three areas combined,” the study stated. “Only one school — North Carolina Central University — mandates 100% of listed courses in the three areas.”
The study is available on the Pope Center’s website.
Jon Sanders is assistant editor of Carolina Journal.