University of Virginia Library

Faculty Group Seeks Answers
To Effect Curriculum Reform

Photo by Paul Zinti

David Shannon, Alexander Sedgewick, Irby Cauthen In Wilson Hall

Discussed Aspects Of Curriculum With Students Yesterday Afternoon

Required courses, especially those in
the foreign language area, comprised the
main topic of discussion at yesterday's
meeting of the Faculty Curriculum
Committee.

At that meeting held in Wilson Hall,
members of the committee met with
interested students in an attempt to
explain and defend the committee's
recommendations for changes in College
curriculum.

The meeting opened with an address
by Dean of the College Faculty David
Shannon, who spoke on the history of
curriculum reform at the University. Mr.
Shannon said that the most recent changes to
be made occurred in the early 1950's. This, he
said, follows a pattern existing at most of the
nation's colleges and universities.

Following Mr. Shannon's remarks, the floor
was opened to discussion. Here interest seemed
to focus primarily on required courses. The
committee chose to speak in terms of "foreign
culture" requirements.

Council Recommendation

Last week, members of Student Council
from the College made the following recommendation:

"The 'foreign culture' requirement should
be lowered to 12 hours and 'no more than six
of the 12 hours elected to meet this
requirement shall be in the field of the major
subject. Courses applied to the foreign culture
requirement may not also be applied to the
major requirement.' Language departments
should be encouraged to teach more foreign
literature courses in English."

The interim report of the curriculum
committee called for a fifteen hour requirement
in the foreign culture field. This, compared
with a requirement of only six hours in social
science, math and natural science, was called
disproportionate by several of those at the
meeting.

Many students felt that all requirements
should be dropped, saying that a student knows
what he wants, that forcing him to take a
required subject against his will does him no
good, and that most information gathered in
such courses is soon forgotten.

No consensus was reached among those at
the meeting concerning the position of ROTC
in the curriculum, nor on the place of ROTC
instructors in the College faculty.

A proposal for optional pass-fail courses was
also discussed.