On the steps of Wilson Library yesterday, people gathered in response to the appointment of Margaret Spellings as UNC system president.
In your inboxes yesterday, Margaret Spellings left an email in response to protests about her appointment as UNC system president. All acknowledged the University’s foundation and operation as an elite institution.
We can begin to address this divide by changing how we administer our general education requirements.
Be it AP, IB, dual-enrollment, early college or online classes, the ability to take high school classes for college credit privileges students who share in that opportunity.
The most significant work college credits do is enable select students to take a more personalized and (perhaps) more engaging courseload.
There is a broader conversation to be had about four-year graduation timetables and 120-hour benchmarks, but the most immediate change we can make is to reconsider —without losing our liberal arts foundation — how many gen-eds students need and how we can earn them.
We can be even more creative and interdisciplinary with our gen-eds, not by relying on professors or departments to submit their classes for accreditation, but by crowdsourcing student suggestions for qualifying classes and allowing more flexibility with higher-level and interdisciplinary courses.
Small changes allow transfer students and students from less-resourced high schools to engage sooner with their preferred courses and graduate sooner, too.
