. . . the draft proposal from the Task Force on the Undergraduate Academic Program. A copy is available here: https://gue.mit.edu/tfuap/ (under the link “Draft Proposal”). I am grateful for the opportunity to offer these observations on the Draft Proposal below:
We have already invested substantially in the College of Computing: The computation GIR effectively exists now as a REST subject taken by most freshmen. If more is necessary, a feasible compromise might be eliminating the general REST subject requirement with a computation GIR or, ideally, a “REST menu of computation subjects” offered by many departments. Are two new computing GIRs (page 6 of the Draft Proposal) necessary at the expense of the entire Science Core?
Your right to vote: We have reserved a vote of the faculty to approve changes to the GIRs because the GIRs define our community. The faculty vote stands sentinel over the quality of our single most important program. Page 6 of the Draft Proposal proposes an “emboldened” CUP and CoC with a new governance structure for many of the MIT undergraduate requirements. This is clarified on page 62, where the Draft Proposal states: “Standing subcommittees would act with power to approve and monitor the success of content and pedagogy changes in the associated requirements.” “Significant” changes “would be approved by the subcommittee as well as CoC.” The proposal is asking the faculty to vote away their right to vote.
Whose “Moral Perspectives?”: It is unclear how our current HASS offerings, virtually in entirety, fail to provide “Moral and Civic perspectives” as described on pages 39 and 40 of the Draft Proposal. It is unclear how our existing HASS offerings fail to explore “values, ethics, and responsibility.” SHASS was established, stemming from the Lewis Committee work, precisely to provide our community with these perspectives. Therefore, it is concerning that the Subcommittee on the HASS Requirement (SHR) will vet and certify a subset of classes (page 40 of the Draft) for this new, loosely-specified requirement. Our current “field of flowers” approach in SHASS has left open the possibility for different voices to speak. Are we reducing or restricting this freedom?
Hands-on Education: The Institute Laboratory (I teach two) and the REST subjects were and remain without clear organization and direction in our curriculum. However, the intent of the Institute Laboratory, in particular, was not without purpose. The requirement was created to ensure a hands-on physical experience with data collection in a hardware environment leading to analysis, problem solving, and design. The proposal eliminates the Institute Laboratory with the expectation (page 35) “that most departments would preserve lab classes as part of their majors, recognizing the value of hands-on learning and working on projects that approximate the work of a professional in that field.” Particularly in times of constrained resources, this expectation may not be reasonable or likely. Having to recover hands-on experiences in our curriculum will be an expensive mistake.
Menu plans: On page 22, the Draft Proposal eschews a “take X of Y” curriculum plan on the grounds that these plans dispense with “foundational and essential” exposures for the students and go against “the stated goals of the GIRs.” I agree. The proposal is concerning because these arguments are a red herring. The proposal is in fact offering a thinly-veiled “take X of Y” plan in its “Flexible Foundations” tier (page 6 of the Draft) where two-of-four classes are satisfied as six-unit exposures. Time and again we have conducted expensive experiments that consistently show the folly of attempting to teach any serious technical education in six units. The sprinkling of two-out-of-four classes as “half-class” exposures is a “take X of Y” plan that flies in the face of the chemistry exposure required since our first course catalog and the wise decision of the faculty to include a full biology class in the GIRs in the 1990s. Of course, we do not have alumni vote on curriculum decisions. However, I expect that there will be a strong and sustained backlash from our alumni at the proposed reductions in the required science core, including the reduction in the physics requirement to a single class and also the effective reductions in chemistry and biology with the six-unit exposure plan.
President Paul Gray wrote that:
The present articulation between the science core and the possible upperclass departmental majors permits the student a full range of choices among possible majors at the end of the freshmen year. The student is not forced to make this choice at the time of entering MIT.
The Draft Proposal is concerning because its effective “take X of Y” structure dispenses with this fundamental compact – a promise that we have offered freshmen since our founding.
Gutting the GIRs: The proposal is concerning because it appears to compound the worrisome changes with a plan to go further. On page 66 the proposal observes that:
We believe it may be feasible and even beneficial to go further, and we note that many other schools have more flexible requirements than MIT’s without compromising on educational quality.
The proposal goes on to call for an experiment (page 66 of the Draft) from CUP that would allow up to 100 students per year to opt out of a “small number of requirements,” with the stated goal of learning “what would happen if the GIRs were cut roughly in half.” I would have hoped that these remarkable statements in the Draft Proposal speak for themselves. We are not “many other schools.”
Physics is the beating heart of MIT: Our community’s mastery of physics has defined us, given us MIT in its modern form, and remains and will remain the foundation of our Institution. A functional exposure to and mastery of basic physics underpins our undergraduate education. This underpinning cannot be fashioned in a single class. The proposal is concerning because it devalues an educational foundation that cannot be replaced by trendy training.
Thank you for your attention. When the time comes: PLEASE VOTE!
