A report published by the John W. Pope Center for Higher Education Policy said the goal of general education requirements is to promote “educational breadth.” In pursuit of this, it recommended that UNC-Chapel Hill cut nearly 4,000 courses. 

The Pope Center, a conservative think tank that frequently criticizes UNC-CH, published the report Friday. The general education curriculum at UNC-CH is “incoherent” due to the “smorgasbord” of courses offered, according to the report.  

In pursuit of a diverse higher education, the editorial board of the Technician would rather have an all-encompassing smorgasbord of courses than a limited and biased selection. 

The Pope Center used six criteria to propose its modified curriculum, one of which eliminates courses that are “based on limited time periods and geographical regions.” But it doesn’t eliminate all time- or region-specific courses — the Pope Center deems topics such as the American Revolution, Shakespeare and the Protestant tradition important enough to have their own courses. In other words, the Pope Center suggests that the educational curriculum of a top-ranked university further emphasize the importance of white males in history. 

“Not all history is equally valuable — the study of Western civilization is richer and more pertinent to U.S. students than other branches,” according to the report. But students who attend K-12 public schools in North Carolina already spend their social studies classes learning about history from a Western perspective. If college isn’t the time to diversify our education, when is? 

The report also suggests that UNC-CH reduce the number of required foreign language courses from three to two. Three courses aren’t enough to become fluent in any language, the report said. But students should take two because “one of the major reasons for taking a foreign language is to improve a student’s facility with and understanding of the English language.” The fact that the report underscores the importance of English even when talking about foreign languages reveals the Pope Center’s anti-diversity agenda.  The Pope Center’s modified curriculum maintains and perpetuates American ethnocentrism.  

David Zonderman, senate faculty president and history professor at N.C. State, called the suggested foreign language cuts “curious.” Zonderman argued that students should graduate with minimal fluency in a foreign language. 

 “The idea really is that a college-educated person should be able to be a leader,” said Jane S. Shaw, president of the Pope Center. “So a student should be expected to go through some rigor.” 

Shaw assumes that courses removed from the modified course list, including “American Environmental Policy” and “Sex and Gender in Society,” are not rigorous — a judgment that is unfair without having attended the classes. 

The Pope Center has made these criticisms of higher education in the past, and Zonderman said the Pope Center doesn’t have the power to implement any of its recommendations. 

UNC-CH Provost Jim Dean said the problem is not that the Pope Center is making curriculum recommendations, but that the report implies that some courses are better than others. No course is inherently better than another — people value courses differently.  

“I would just label [the modified curriculum] as being more consistent with their values,” Dean said.