To ask why we should change our general education curriculum is to ask the wrong question. Any plan for learning changes whether or not the changes are planned or even desired. In reality, a curriculum is dynamic, affected by many factors and constituencies. Faculty styles, approaches, and commitments to the curriculum will vary, thereby altering it.
Students place their own value on the components of the plan, valuing some courses over others.
Administrators allocate resources in ways that support various components of the curriculum to greater or lesser extents. Regulatory agencies, such as our own University System and the Maryland Higher Education Commission, seek uniformity across institutions, which results in required curriculum components and procedures. Accrediting organizations articulate program standards and require that those standards be met. And so, the curriculum is altered in subtle and not so subtle ways. The purpose of the general education curriculum reform effort is to attempt to develop a coherent plan for learning that reflects our institutional ideals and meets the needs of our students.