University of Virginia Library

Curricular Progress

If nothing else, the survey released last
week by the College's curriculum evaluation
committee indicates that a substantial majority
of students and faculty is emphatically
dissatisfied with the present undergraduate
programs. But while nobody is too happy
with the present system, nobody seems to
have any readily acceptable ideas about
changing it.

The present curriculum was designed for
another era, a time when the University was
small in numbers, a time when Ph.D.
production was not considered critical and
when the educational requirements for
entrance into genteel society supplied the
thrust for academic endeavor. Society has
changed since that time. Finally now, the
college is seeking to accommodate itself to that
change. The undergraduate liberal arts program,
despite the compilers of Ph.D. statistics,
is still the core of the University's academic
life. If it can be brought into step with reality,
re-aligned in view of new educational
priorities, the University will be well on the
way towards a progressive posture in the other
areas. As it stands now, the professional
schools — less bound by traditional academic
mores — have been leading the way in this
respect.

The curriculum evaluation committee's
survey indicates several general areas where
discontent is especially widespread. Only 10
per cent of those queried felt that comprehensive
exams should be continued on the present
basis. The general drift of opinion favored
either total abolition or replacement with a
thesis. We agree that comps are now an
essentially worthless exercise that prove very
little about a student's mastery of his subject.
There would seem to be very little justification
for perpetuating them. On the other
hand, requiring degree candidates to research
a thesis would add an unjustifiable burden to
the fourth-year. At least comps can be
finessed by those attuned to taking and
passing tests. If there is to be a thesis, it ought
to carry enough credit to justify the amount
of work that ought to be put into it.

Another pocket of dissatisfaction centered
around required courses, especially those
which the College now requires of all degree
candidates — math, English composition, a
foreign language, a natural science, a social
science, and physical education. But while
those surveyed generally felt that the
requirements are too rigid, there was no
agreement on which areas should be dropped.
Only the present physical education requirement
was judged deserving of the ax, as well it
might be. Compulsory physical training for
first-year men assures no one of being fit upon
graduation four years later. The instruction
tendered may be valuable in some instances,
but certainly not for a degree without the
slightest knowledge of the dimensions of a
volleyball court, we feel there is no reason
why the college should continue to require
such knowledge of its degree recipients.

We feel that the required course load
should be modified so that a student is
required to take mathematics or a natural
science, but not both. Those who go on to
unrelated fields of study soon forget what
they regurgitated for Geology 1 or Math 2; if
they retain anything, it is the exposure to a
more precise manner of thinking, something
which can be gained from either as well as
both. In addition, we would hope that the
departments involved would attempt to design
requirement fulfilling courses directed not at
the aspiring mathematician or biologist,
turning instead towards the branches of their
science of more immediate value to other
fields, such as statistics or computer programming.

All such changes, however, would really be
minor tinkering with apparatus that may well
have outlived its usefulness. As professor S.J.
Tonson of Michigan noted in a speech last
month, "a handful of determinative universities
. . . set the tone and direction for the
whole educational enterprise." The University
has never been one of the determinative
handful, preferring to accept time-tested ideas
and follow the lead of others rather than
striking out on its own. The College now has
the opportunity to evaluate any number of
options for modifying a demonstrably inefficient
system. With discussion and imagination,
only the ingenuity of the community can
restrict the final result.