Reviewing Distribution And Graduation Requirements For McMicken College

Daniel Langmeyer, professor of psychology and director of undergraduate study, reports the following.

“The council for undergraduate affairs has initiated a review of our college’s distribution and graduation requirements. The last time such a review took place was a generation ago (20 years), and the council felt (or at least a majority of the council felt) that taking a look at the structure of our requirements would be useful.

The review is being done in two major phases. Right now two committees have been formed that are gathering information about a) how our distribution requirements fit with those of other institutions, what our faculty and students think about our current requirements, what new requirements are being promoted and b) what might/should be the objectives and value of a liberal arts undergraduate degree, what outcomes we should be trying to achieve. The first committee perhaps may be described as practical and the second perhaps more ideological.

Lisa Newman from communications is chairing the first committee, and Daniel Langmeyer from psychology is chairing the second.

You are invited to contact either committee chair if you want to be central to the discussions and deliberations of that committee. Otherwise, the committees will be reaching out to you in various ways between now and the beginning of the next phase.

The second phase is expected to begin in October 2005 when we will make decisions about what our requirements will be. We do hope that our decisions will be informed by the work of the two committees that are forming now.”