UCA's Mistake on General Education

I recently read that the University of Central Arkansas' Student Government Association voted unanimously to change (i.e., dumb-down) the General Education requirements for all undergraduate students. The core requirement will be reduced from 47 hours of required interdisciplinary study to 38 hours of quasi-"interdisciplinary" classes, many of which could easily be circumscribed within a students' major when we take a closer look at the official report.

While there were undoubtedly problems with UCA's Core Education requirements (and I voiced many concerns while on the student task force), UCA, following the dictates of Arkansas legislatures and bureaucrats out-of-touch with the educational needs of an informed citizenry, has not reformed the General Education program into a laudable and interdisciplinary program that provides its students with a holistic understanding of our world and its complexities, but has instead deformed it, slowly dismantling its ideals so as to produce laborers much more quickly, and easily, for the mill of capitalistic markets.

UCA has sold itself down the river. It once had the largest and most rigorous General Education requirements in the State of Arkansas, and one of the most interdisciplinary programs compared to public institutions in the entire South. But the legislatures and bureaucrats (and completely uninformed student faux-legislatures) could not stand the fact the UCA was the last bastion of a civilized, liberal-arts grounded, holistic education program. Despite the merits and benefits of such a holistic conception of education--an informed citizenry (which is vitally needed for this dreadfully difficult form of government we have--democracy), more intellectually aware and active individuals (which undeniably enriches one's life)--UCA has chosen to reject that ideal of education because it is too slow, because it is too expensive, because it is too taxing upon our poor, poor students who need to be pushed through the education system so that they can do the most important thing in life: get a damn job and contribute to the rising of American GNP and GDP.

UCA has fallen in line behind the rest of higher education, which is so eager to adapt a corporate model of organization and instruction. The purpose of college education is no longer seen to be the crafting of individuals and groups who will nurture sustainably and effectively their own lives, communities, countries, and planet. Nope, that noble conception of the life of the intellectual is gone. UCA has announced to the world that it believes that the purpose of education is vocational training--mechanically building (not creatively nurturing) automatons for the labor force, which can only be accomplished by reducing the rigor of interdisciplinary education to classes that merely inscribe rote "skills" into students-seen-as-robots.

The General Education program was critiqued for being a "hurdle" to students' getting a degree. Quite ironically, by deflating the capabilities of that laudable program to create true intellectuals, UCA has reduced higher education to nothing but a set of hurdles, so that, alas, one can earn money, money, money--the golden star of our collective value system... for now, at least.