The John William Pope Center for Higher Education Policy hosted a panel discussion in Talley Student Union Wednesday regarding flaws in the current general education requirements for NC State students highlighted in the center’s report titled “General Education at NC State.”

CHASS Dean Jeffery Braden moderated the panel which consisted of Jay Schalin, the author of the report and the director of policy analysis at the Pope Center, David Zonderman, a professor and associate department head in history at NC State, Student Body President Rusty Mau and Jasmine Scheitler, a sophomore in marine biology. 

Schalin’s report criticizes the current state of NC State’s General Education Program. Although some of the report’s claims about NC State’s GEP were generally accepted by the rest of the panel, much of the discussion consisted of opposing viewpoints and arguments on both the content and the style of the report. 

Some of Schalin’s specific critiques on NC State’s GEP included the idea that the courses offered as Gen Ed requirements cover too broad of a spectrum of topics. In his report, Schalin describes the GEP course catalog, which includes over 700 course options, as a “smorgasbord” of potentially trivial courses, such as PB 219: Plants in Folklore, Myth, and Religion. 

“Students are taking advantage of the smorgasbord, not just picking out the marshmallows and leaving the fruits and vegetables,” argued Zonderman.

According to Schalin, General Education should facilitate the ability to reason well, giving students’ experience thinking about and solving real world problems as employers expect in the workplace and providing a guide for how best to live within American society. 

Mau said he agreed most universities, including NC State, should put more emphasis within their General Education courses on necessary skills to succeed in the workplace and world after graduation, such as financial literacy and civic responsibility.

However, Zonderman pointed out NC State has already implemented a Quality Enhancement Plan to ensure more rigorous and challenging General Education courses. 

“Here at NC State, we are taking critical and creative thinking very seriously,” Zonderman said.

Mau said he was in favor of a more broad general education program, but he agreed with Schalin, stating improvements could be made to the GEP program. 

 “The flexibility of the Gen Ed Program at NC State was a major reason I chose to attend [this university],” Mau said. 

Schalin said the GEP should be reformed to provide both breadth and depth in core subjects, offering meaningful knowledge, such as extra writing courses, applicable statistics courses, more rigorous science courses and both philosophy courses to expose students to more ideas. 

Other suggestions from the Pope Center include dropping health and fitness requirements from two courses to one, introducing a logic course in writing instead of math, and removing interdisciplinary requirements from the GEP.

At one point during the event, an audience member asked why Schalin proposed removing the Interdisciplinary Program completely when the real world often bridges the gap between disciplines. 

“I don’t have a problem with IP courses,” Schalin responded. “I just don’t think they should be in the Gen Ed program. Interdisciplinary courses that connect to the majors are what’s important.”

While the panel generally acknowledged that more courses in rhetoric, logic and rigorous science might be beneficial, the idea of significantly narrowing the selection of GEP courses was not well received. 

“Who gets to choose what is applicable and what is not applicable [to students]?” Scheitler said.

Scheitler said core programs such as those suggested by Schalin may not be relevant to all students in all majors and an individualized experience is better for students than a specific, narrow group of prescribed courses.

“An institution reveals its priorities through the choices it makes,” Zonderman said, “When the GEP was designed, we were kind of backed into it.”