A balanced diet of course work —a mathematics class here, a few history and literature courses there —may be a fine and healthy thing. But course-distribution requirements probably are not enough to guarantee that undergraduates acquire a broad range of knowledge and skills.
At least that is what many American colleges seem to have decided, according to a report released this month by the Association of American Colleges and Universities.
The study, which drew on a survey of chief academic officers at 443 of the association's member institutions, found that the principle of general education is alive and well. A large majority of colleges have defined a common set of learning outcomes for all of their undergraduates. But only 15 percent reported that they relied solely on course-distribution requirements to ensure that their students met those goals.
Instead, substantial and apparently growing numbers of institutions are using other techniques to promote general education. Some require all first-year students to take interdisciplinary seminars or to join "learning communities." Others insist that graduating seniors demonstrate the breadth of their skills through term papers or other capstone projects. Still others are experimenting with requirements for service learning or civic engagement.
The report echoes a 1945 document, known as "General Education in a Free Society," in which a committee of Harvard University professors mused about how to give undergraduates a common body of wisdom in an age of academic specialization. That report famously recommended that Harvard create a series of nonspecialist general-education courses and require students to take at least one each in the humanities, sciences, and social sciences.
But the Harvard professors also warned that general education was not simply a matter of course requirements. Much more important than any course-distribution formula, they wrote, is the promotion of "honest thinking, clearness of expression, and the habit of gathering and weighing evidence before forming a conclusion."
Deep and Flexible Skills
In the new survey, 56 percent of academic officers reported that general education was a growing priority for their institutions, while only 3 percent reported that it was a declining priority. A big majority, 89 percent, reported that their colleges were assessing or modifying their general-education programs.
Last month the association released a report on the assessment of student learning, which drew on data from the same survey.
In an interview, the association's president, Carol Geary Schneider, argued that the enduring value of general education is that it produces graduates with a deep and flexible set of skills. It would be a serious mistake, she said, for colleges to turn too heavily toward a narrow, technical, preprofessional model of education.
She cited a 2006 survey, conducted by her association, in which employers said they wanted colleges to emphasize "teamwork skills in diverse groups," "written and oral communication," and other skills that are not exclusively tied to specialized majors.
And in a related 2008 survey, employers said they wanted student learning to be assessed through general demonstrations of skill, not multiple-choice tests of knowledge.
"The employers overwhelmingly wanted to see faculty-supervised assessments of students' ability to apply their knowledge to real-world problems," Ms. Schneider said. "Only 5 percent of employers wanted colleges to rely more on standardized tests."
