A student in LAS may now graduate having taken Dance 100 as both their western cultures and literature and the arts requirements. The diversity sought is belittled by courses cross-listed in as many as three categories, so that students may avoid certain categories entirely. Alternatively, there is literally no way around Biology 100 and Psychology 100, as all other courses in those categories either require prerequisites, are only for majors, or are rarely offered. As these committees continue prodding along approving random course after random course, they neglect any sort of retroactive crediting. But more than just an issue of what classes and when, general education needs to reconsider its focus.
Reports cite the goals of general education to be general acquaintance with broad topics.
In fact many general education courses do just that, attempting to teach the entire field of biology in two one-hour lectures a week to a lecture hall full of sleeping freshmen. But more recently, general education committees have approved classes straying entirely from the goal of survey courses, with classes such as Jewish Storytelling from the Russian Shtetl to New York City approved for the western cultures requirement. The committees have presented an entirely mixed message to students, denying classes such as The Psychology of Advertising for the behavioral science requirement. Either they favor broad survey courses or they want to encourage students to delve into specialized topics so that they may interact with other students and truly get a handle on the subject area. Either they want 500 sleeping freshman drooling over their Geography 101 notes or they want 25 alert students discussing real issues.