Faculty members representing colleges from design to engineering voiced a mixture of dissent and approval for the General Education Program proposal following the General Education Requirement Taskforce’s presentation yesterday afternoon.

John Ambrose, chair of the taskforce, called it a “working proposal.”

“There is flexibility to add features, modify features,” he said. “[The GEP] is not a system that remains stagnant.”

The proposal involves the reduction of the GER from 50 to 53 credit hours to 39 to 40 credit hours, with reductions from humanities and social sciences and math and natural sciences.

Ambrose accredited the reduction in credit hours to a general consensus that 50 GER credit hours are burdensome.

“Hopefully, with a reduction of hours, [there will be] chances for free electives,” he said.

The taskforce used the term “portability” to describe the GEP and noted the alleviation of GER course over loads that sometimes occur when students change majors and colleges with the implementation of the GEP.

“This new GEP is more portable … I don’t think it’s possible to have complete portability,” Laura Severin, associate dean of academic affairs and interdisciplinary programs, said.

During the discussion section of the forum, faculty member opinions varied about the addition of “interdisciplinary perspective” courses.

While some faculty members questioned the practicality of creating courses by combining topics from different colleges, Philip Brown, the director of undergraduate studies for chemistry, said he has interest in combining history with science.

He explained the importance of the history of chemistry, which sprouted from alchemy in the middle ages. He said students would benefit from learning the history of the science to better appreciate contemporary chemistry.

“If you see where we come from and the process by which we got here — it is very important,” Brown said.

Brown mentioned the concept of “turf wars” and said he would not be confident with a historian teaching chemistry. However, he said the extensive knowledge of one’s field that comes from extensive personal study qualifies him or her to teach this type of history course.

Ambrose said interdisciplinary courses would help students experience the entire university.

“We’ve gone from being a bunch of colleges to at least a university with a bunch of colleges,” he said.

In contrast to those in opposition of interdisciplinary courses, two faculty members spoke in support of First Year Inquiry courses and shared stories of positive past experiences. Others encouraged the taskforce to make the Inquiry courses mandatory in lieu of encouraging students to enroll in them as Ambrose had suggested in the proposal.

However, Maxine Atkinson, director of the FYI Program, said she did think it would be feasible to require the Inquiry courses due to long training programs for faculty teaching them and a lack of those interested in doing so.

“All First Year Inquiry instructors spend at least one semester in training, some spend two semesters,” Atkinson said.

Atkinson said the program compensates the instructors for the time they spend training.

Thematic tracks would count for 12 of 39 to 40 GER credit hours and must be based on a topic approached from different disciplines, according to the Ambrose. He said students could create their own combination of courses on their topic, use an existing thematic or choose not to follow one at all.

Ambrose said the tracks were created to “help develop coherence.”

He said if approved, the University will implement the GEP in the fall of 2008.

Students that enrolled prior to the fall of 2008 will remain on the current GER system, according to Ambrose.

“The logistics of trying to go back and change students from the old system to the new system … it just doesn’t seem to be doable,” Ambrose said.

Janet Hudson, vice chair of academic policy for the faculty senate, said she worked with Neal Blair, chair of academic policy for the faculty senate to organize the forum.

She said the forum was designed to improve communication within the University.