SGA endorses general education plan — with caveats

The SGA voted yesterday to throw their support behind the proposed General Education Plan, but not without a list of amendments they hope to see in the final version.

After a largely procedural two-hour long debate consumed the Student Government Association's meeting last night, five amendments to the organization's resolution surfaced, adding conditions under which the governing body felt undergraduates could support the new curriculum. The legislature eventually unanimously voted to support the bill in its amended form.

"The process ended up being difficult because we wanted to make sure we put out a bill that we liked," Arts and Humanities Legislator Kenton Stalder said.

Stalder noted the time-consuming debate largely hinged on the fact that the organization was forced to rush the resolution through. The University Senate just released senators' amendments Tuesday in anticipation of today's meeting, where they will vote on the General Education proposal.

The amendments added onto the SGA resolution included: supporting senate amendments that would allow students to fulfill the required "junior English" professional writing courses or the verbal communication requirement within their own major if comparable classes were offered; supporting an SAT exemption for math but not for English; supporting changes that address the "importance of recognizing social justice issues" and refusing to support the diversity requirement's caveat that would give students the option to opt out of a "Cultural Competency" requirement by taking two "Understanding Pluralities in Society" classes.

Marcella Morris, the SGA legislator from the behavioral and social sciences college who introduced the resolution supporting the curriculum overhaul, said the idea was to keep the legislation open-ended enough to win the support of the entire legislature. But the vagueness of the bill led many legislators to bring their specific suggestions to the table, causing a debate Morris said she hadn't expected.

"I wanted to bring in a general bill to have it be amended by everyone to have the ... voice of the SGA heard," she said. "The heart of the bill was I wanted it to be changed."

Overall, the legislature seemed to agree that individual colleges should be given more power over academic requirements for their majors.

"It's general education, but it's not going to apply to everyone," South Campus Commons Legislator Lisa Crisalli said. "Different colleges have different requirements to train their students to be professionals. Giving departments discretion is giving them the power to be experts in their field, and we want to support that."

One amendment that failed called for the General Education Plan to be enacted gradually and over a four-year period.

Crisalli, who brought the amendment to the floor, argued vehemently that progressive, rather than sudden, implementation would benefit specific colleges that may be unable to bear the burden of having to adapt and change their course offerings to accommodate new requirements.

"There's a huge financial burden involved with the implementation of the general education requirements ... the colleges are using the funding they have to recover from the recession, not necessarily prepare for general education overhaul," she said. "It might be unrealistic for CORE-heavy colleges like BSOS to be expected to be prepared for the upcoming fall."

aisaacs@umdbk.com