The new general education requirements for transfer students will apply to all California State University students, including freshmen.
The California Board of Regents on Wednesday announced a unified, simplified general education curriculum for all students, despite opposition from teachers and students who say the decision would eliminate classes that contribute to lifelong learning. It was decided to establish it.
This decision effectively replaces “CSU GE Breadth,” reducing the required number of general education credits by 39 by eliminating additional humanities and arts courses and classes identified as lifelong learning and personal development. unit to 34 units. However, it also adds an experimental class to the requirements. Students can continue to take many of these courses as electives.
The simplified pathway, known as Cal-GETC or the California General Education Transfer Curriculum, was introduced in 2022 as part of the Student Transfer Performance Reform Act of 2021 as a way to improve the transfer experience for community college students enrolling at the University of California. It was first proposed in May. California and California systems. This curriculum was developed by his CSU, UC, and community college academic senate and will be implemented in fall 2025.
Although the new transfer pathway was created with community college students in mind, Cal State administrators and trustees chose to apply to first-time freshmen.
About 60 percent of first-year California State University applicants earn some type of transfer credit, many by taking dual enrollment courses in high school, said April Gromo, CSU's vice president for enrollment management. It is said that they are doing so. He added that some CSU continuing students complete general education courses through local community colleges. Gromo said that without creating one pathway, about 25% of undergraduate students will need to complete more general education requirements.
“Providing a general education to all CSU students provides an equitable set of degree requirements for all undergraduates,” she said.
Trustees said moving forward with two different systems could lead to capital concerns.
“I'm concerned that there will be a sense of inequity if there is one pathway for students to transfer to a community college and one pathway for students to enroll through us,” said board member Jack Clark Jr. .
Although many California State University faculty support the new simplified path for transfer students, many said they oppose extending it to students entering the system as freshmen. .
CSU Academic Senate President Beth Steffel maintains that students can still take these courses, but said they could be eliminated entirely if they are not designated as part of general education.
“If a course is not required, it will not be offered,” Steffel said. “Resource constraints ensure this reality.”
Removing courses from general education requirements could have the unintended consequences of reducing students' chances of learning other languages through the arts and humanities and incurring the cost of adding science labs, Steffel said. said.
Steven Filling, an accounting professor at Stanislaus State University, said that losing the courses offered at CSU GE Breadth would mean losing out on the special skills gained from social studies, communication and critical thinking, so as a freshman, He said it would have a negative impact on students participating in the system.
For example, kinesiology classes, which involve learning movement, fall under lifelong learning and self-development classes. For example, a student interested in a business field such as accounting may take a golf course to prepare for a client meeting.
“If you've never played golf and don't know anything about golf, you might have a little bit of a problem,” Filling said.
These lessons are called “lifelong learning,” he said, because they help students discover how to cope with and cope with the world around them.
Another reason some CSU faculty opposed Cal-GETC was that much of the curriculum was chosen with the UC system in mind.
“The Unification Church has taken a pretty strong position: 'If we don't agree, we won't do it,'” Filling said. “If you look at Cal-GETC, you’ll notice some strange similarities between it and the current (general education) programming at the University of California.”
Filling said one of the problems with that is that the University of California and California State University have different missions and, while there is some overlap, educate different types of students. For example, UC is tasked with admitting the top 9% of high school graduates, and it is unrealistic to “think that someone in the top 5% of their high school class will be at exactly the same level as someone in the 30th percentile.”
“It's clear that our students need different things than students at the University of California,” he said. “Community colleges may be able to leverage the resources they have to provide the additional support students need to reach the same level as students at the University of California. I have no idea if it's effective or not.”
Laura Massa, California State University's interim vice president for academic and faculty programs, said the new simplified pathway represents both systems. For example, Cal-GETC includes ethnic studies and oral communication requirements that were required at CSU but not at UC.
Student Trustee Diana Aguilar Cruz said some of the opposition from students comes because they no longer trust the decisions of the board and administration. Students are asking for an analysis of the current general education curriculum before making any changes.
“Especially with all of the advance decisions that we have made throughout the year,” Aguilar-Cruz said of the tuition increase. “Students really need to see this data. It really shook their confidence.”
However, the trustees said: They didn't want to have two different systems in place to meet their general education requirements.
Board member Jack Clark Jr. said, “I'm concerned that there will be a sense of inequity if there is one pathway for students to transfer to community colleges and one pathway for students who enroll from us.'' Ta.
Despite opposition from faculty and students to the change, Cal State officials said they worked with and took both groups into account to understand the pros and cons.
“Shared governance does not necessarily mean agreement,” Prime Minister Mildred Garcia said. “The success, sustainability, and continued growth of our institution depends on recruiting students, serving them, guiding them through college, removing barriers that sometimes get in the way, and providing them with a clear path to a degree and enriching college.” It depends on our ability to provide a direct path in the profession for us. And for me, a single GE pattern for all CSU students will achieve that goal and will We believe it will advance our mission of success.”
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