Guskiewicz said he is excited about the working group and sees good things coming from it. It currently includes about 100 faculty members, students and staff who are working in task forces on different aspects of the curriculum planning.
“I think that we need to be looking at, as I have told people, a general education program that is going to prepare our students, you know, our graduates, for not only the jobs that exist today but the careers that exist today and for the careers that don’t even exist yet,” Guskiewicz said.
“We’re trying to be really creative and come up with a curriculum that is very contemporary and innovative and has sort of a global perspective to it.”
Guskiewicz appointed Andrew Perrin, a sociology professor and director of the Carolina Seminars program, to be chairperson of the working group. Perrin said the group has been meeting to work on plans and goals since last September.
“There are a number of issues that I think make it really important, but the cardinal, or the most important thing, is we really need to have a general education curriculum that recognizes the value of both liberal arts and real world experience for all of the different goals we have for our undergraduate alumni,” Perrin said.
Perrin said he wants students to know this is a long process — current students at the University will not be affected by the general education revision.
“I think one of the things we’ve learned, or I’ve learned, from lots of work trying to develop things with the University, is that doing it right is much more important than doing it fast,” Perrin said. “So we want to make sure that we’re doing a great job of it, and that we have the necessary resources and kind of organization in place to make sure it works out really well.”
Adam Versényi, chairperson of the dramatic art department and a member of the working group, said the curriculum has not been evaluated in 10 years. He said the world has changed a lot since then, and the curriculum should mirror this.
