R.E.A.L Is It Really Over
By: Brandon Whitaker
On Thursday March 28, the General Education Improvement Task Force delivered their recommendations for a modified general education structure in a meeting with the faculty senate. The new proposed model will be voted on by the Senate in one of two meetings in April. This endeavor started in December with listening sessions and town halls to first identify all the hiccups of the current REAL format and incorporate the feedback. Some of the key points from the data received included issues pertaining to confusion among students and advisors, and students taking classes and minors that were irrelevant to their desired field.
To fix these issues, there is an emphasis on the foundation of Gen Ed, and the proposed model would have three categories instead of four and a minimum of 31 credits. The first category would be competencies such as quantitative reasoning (three credits) and written communication (six credits). Second would be inquiries with six to eight credits for science, six credits for humanistic and artistic classes and six credits for social and behavioral classes. The third category would be integrations featuring two new introductory courses that would not only integrate new students into Radford but also get them better acclimated to the new REAL Curriculum.
After GE classes there would be alterations to REAL majors and minors as well. For REAL majors and minors there would no longer be a 300-level class required, and the 300-level writing requirement would also be removed. The completion of the minor requirement would be waived. I spoke with Provost and Senior Vice President of academic affairs Bethany Usher regarding this change and she had this to say:
“One of the challenges with the REAL Curriculum is you have to commit to a whole minor, rather than sampling individual courses … I think students should have a complimentary minor to their major but if it’s not something they wanted but it was the only thing that fit, it makes it hard to do that exploration.”
In a proposed guide for a curricular review period, it states that all majors and minors would be reviewed to see if they should be continued, revised or phased out entirely. There would also be a task force for each of the three categories to assess and collect data and then revise the program in the next year. The model wouldn’t go into effect until the 26-27 academic year at the earliest, and there will be a transition plan for current students should they decide to adopt the new requirements. To learn more about the general education improvement efforts, head to radford.edu/facultysenate.
