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I didn't know learning the constitution was "ideological force-feeding". If I remember right I was required to take a government class in college. I guess I do not remember whether it was a required credit or I chose it for an elective.  The GOP is also trying to aboloish tenure. I would think that is the bigger reason for protest. 

 

Hundreds of professors at the University of North Carolina signed a public letter Tuesday opposing legislation that would require university students to take courses on America's government and founding documents.

The 673 UNC Chapel Hill professors revealed the public letter Tuesday, arguing the new courses and another bill in the North Carolina House of Representatives would constitute an infringement on the university's "academic freedom."

The first piece of legislation, House Bill 96, would require students to take a 3 credit-hour course covering America's founding and history. Required reading for the course would include the U.S. Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, the Emancipation Proclamation, at least five essays from the Federalist Papers, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s Letter from Birmingham Jail and the Gettysburg Address.

 

The professors argue the legislation "violates core principles of academic freedom" and "substitutes ideological force-feeding for the intellectual expertise of faculty."

 

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/673-university-professors-sign-letter-opposing-courses-americas-founding-constitution

 

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1 hour ago, nic said:

I didn't know learning the constitution was "ideological force-feeding". If I remember right I was required to take a government class in college. I guess I do not remember whether it was a required credit or I chose it for an elective.  The GOP is also trying to aboloish tenure. I would think that is the bigger reason for protest. 

 

Hundreds of professors at the University of North Carolina signed a public letter Tuesday opposing legislation that would require university students to take courses on America's government and founding documents.

The 673 UNC Chapel Hill professors revealed the public letter Tuesday, arguing the new courses and another bill in the North Carolina House of Representatives would constitute an infringement on the university's "academic freedom."

The first piece of legislation, House Bill 96, would require students to take a 3 credit-hour course covering America's founding and history. Required reading for the course would include the U.S. Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, the Emancipation Proclamation, at least five essays from the Federalist Papers, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s Letter from Birmingham Jail and the Gettysburg Address.

 

The professors argue the legislation "violates core principles of academic freedom" and "substitutes ideological force-feeding for the intellectual expertise of faculty."

 

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/673-university-professors-sign-letter-opposing-courses-americas-founding-constitution

 

It's a college. They shouldn't be forcing you to learn about the US  government unless it's your major. College is about higher education of you choice. As part of that you are required to get some additional rounding in areas outside your major, but there are always a lot of different subjects to choose from. For example for the history requirements you can usually choose from a wide array of: classical history, modern history, art history, music history (I love taking history of Rock at UNL), American history, European history, Africa history, Asian history, etc.

 

There is no reason we should be forcing college students to learn about US government, especially when there are foreign nationals in our university system from hundreds of different countries.

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13 minutes ago, ZRod said:

As part of that you are required to get some additional rounding in areas outside your major, but there are always a lot of different subjects to choose from. For example for the history requirements you can usually choose from a wide array of: classical history, modern history, art history, music history (I love taking history of Rock at UNL), American history, Europe history, Africa history, Asian history, etc.

This is the biggest scam area colleges are pulling in all students.  These rounding classes are most often useless to someone’s  degree and future work prospects.  These courses are money grabs costing thousands and thousands of dollars and should not be required any more once we get around to college reform.  
 

if people want to spend the money on them outside of their degree requirements then great.   

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I hated that I pretty much had to take Biology and the Lab...f#&% that class.

 

Most of the classes for a vast majority of students are taken for the same reasons

 

1. The time the class was offered

2.  The semester the class was offered

3.  Did the class seem easy

4.  Did it contribute to me graduating 

 

 

 

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58 minutes ago, Archy1221 said:

This is the biggest scam area colleges are pulling in all students.  These rounding classes are most often useless to someone’s  degree and future work prospects.  These courses are money grabs costing thousands and thousands of dollars and should not be required any more once we get around to college reform.  
 

if people want to spend the money on them outside of their degree requirements then great.   

I have always felt similarly. It's not just area colleges though, right? Don't most colleges (at least, public ones) force students to take gen eds and electives to fulfill their degree requirements?

I took a lot of "interesting" courses in college. History of WWII, History of Rock, Philosophy, various political science courses (got a minor in that), Spanish, various writing courses, geology, etc. Even took a film class where we watched obscure foreign films, grew mustaches and smoked Parliament Lights (kidding on the last two).

I guess I would say they made me smarter, but I could fill at least four full semesters worth of courses I took that had NOTHING to do with my degree and ultimate profession. And several of them (sorry, geology) I don't remember a damn thing about and only took them because I had to.

But, the chicks definitely dug my obscure WWII knowledge at the bars. :blink:

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12 minutes ago, Enhance said:

I have always felt similarly. It's not just area colleges though, right? Don't most colleges (at least, public ones) force students to take gen eds and electives to fulfill their degree requirements?

I took a lot of "interesting" courses in college. History of WWII, History of Rock, Philosophy, various political science courses (got a minor in that), Spanish, various writing courses, geology, etc. Even took a film class where we watched obscure foreign films, grew mustaches and smoked Parliament Lights (kidding on the last two).

I guess I would say they made me smarter, but I could fill at least four full semesters worth of courses I took that had NOTHING to do with my degree and ultimate profession. And several of them (sorry, geology) I don't remember a damn thing about and only took them because I had to.

But, the chicks definitely dug my obscure WWII knowledge at the bars. :blink:

So true and even when you have a choice, like I said above, a lot of times I was picking a class that fit into my schedule over a class that I thought would be interesting.  

 

No wanted a schedule that went 8am, 9am, 2pm.  F that.

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2 hours ago, nic said:

I didn't know learning the constitution was "ideological force-feeding". If I remember right I was required to take a government class in college. I guess I do not remember whether it was a required credit or I chose it for an elective.  The GOP is also trying to aboloish tenure. I would think that is the bigger reason for protest. 

 

Hundreds of professors at the University of North Carolina signed a public letter Tuesday opposing legislation that would require university students to take courses on America's government and founding documents.

The 673 UNC Chapel Hill professors revealed the public letter Tuesday, arguing the new courses and another bill in the North Carolina House of Representatives would constitute an infringement on the university's "academic freedom."

The first piece of legislation, House Bill 96, would require students to take a 3 credit-hour course covering America's founding and history. Required reading for the course would include the U.S. Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, the Emancipation Proclamation, at least five essays from the Federalist Papers, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s Letter from Birmingham Jail and the Gettysburg Address.

 

The professors argue the legislation "violates core principles of academic freedom" and "substitutes ideological force-feeding for the intellectual expertise of faculty."

 

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/673-university-professors-sign-letter-opposing-courses-americas-founding-constitution

 

 

Well the article leaves out the obvious fact that both pieces of legislation are Republican sponsored and agenda driven, and the dictated specifics are indeed a passive-aggressive slap to the spirit of academic freedom. Full disclosure: the sponsors of this bill are at war with higher education. 

 

It's almost like this Fox article was written for people to repost in online forums, where they can ask "how can anyone be opposed to learning our country's history?" and "Look! They included Martin Luther King Jr.!"  while demonizing professors and pretending not to know the actual motives of the bill's sponsors, who otherwise s#!t bricks when anyone dares to teach real American history. 

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1 hour ago, Enhance said:

I have always felt similarly. It's not just area colleges though, right? Don't most colleges (at least, public ones) force students to take gen eds and electives to fulfill their degree requirements?

I took a lot of "interesting" courses in college. History of WWII, History of Rock, Philosophy, various political science courses (got a minor in that), Spanish, various writing courses, geology, etc. Even took a film class where we watched obscure foreign films, grew mustaches and smoked Parliament Lights (kidding on the last two).

I guess I would say they made me smarter, but I could fill at least four full semesters worth of courses I took that had NOTHING to do with my degree and ultimate profession. And several of them (sorry, geology) I don't remember a damn thing about and only took them because I had to.

But, the chicks definitely dug my obscure WWII knowledge at the bars. :blink:

It's a tough one for sure, but I do think the Gen Ed classes have a lot of benefits. For starters you don't know where everyone is coming in at with their previous educational background, and in this day and age especially there is going to be a lot of variation in the curriculum students have been exposed to prior. You need to have a well rounded education to be a productive student and good problem solver.

 

To be honest I use very little of my actual degree in my daily job as an engineer, but I learned a lot of valuable skills while obtaining that degree that are a great help in performing my job and problem solving issues. I've never used calculus in my job, and only use a very basic understanding of physics and engineering principles, but having taken all those courses in school it gave me a good foundation to understand the physics of what's happening with issues that come up.

 

Lastly, the philosophical idea of colleges/universities has always been to allow you to grow your knowledge and be a better person as a whole, to the benefit society. You are going to have a hard time doing that if you only ever explore one specific subject.

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16 minutes ago, ZRod said:

It's a tough one for sure, but I do think the Gen Ed classes have a lot of benefits. For starters you don't know where everyone is coming in at with their previous educational background, and in this day and age especially there is going to be a lot of variation in the curriculum students have been exposed to prior. You need to have a well rounded education to be a productive student and good problem solver.

 

To be honest I use very little of my actual degree in my daily job as an engineer, but I learned a lot of valuable skills while obtaining that degree that are a great help in performingy job and problem solving issues. I've never used calculus in my job, and only use a very basic understanding of physics and engineering principles, but having taking all those courses in school it gave me a good foundation to understand the physics of what's happening with issues that come up.

 

Lastly, the philosophical idea of colleges/universities has always been to allow you to grow your knowledge and be a better person as a whole, to the benefit society. You are going to have a hard time doing that if you only ever explore one specific subject.

Have a friend that is an engineer and said the same thing...basically he said he just uses excel spreadsheets a lot.

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1 minute ago, teachercd said:

Have a friend that is an engineer and said the same thing...basically he said he just uses excel spreadsheets a lot.

Yep. I think I actually did trig by hand one time in my job. Other than that I just plug stuff in Excel or use my phone's calculator. I do need to understand statistics at a basic level, but again all the calculations are done in Excel.

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1 hour ago, Enhance said:
2 hours ago, Archy1221 said:

 

I have always felt similarly. It's not just area colleges though, right? Don't most colleges (at least, public ones) force students to take gen eds and electives to fulfill their degree requirements?

spell check came on and I didn’t catch it.  Not sure why it went to say area colleges.  All colleges that I know of.  Hope that better defines what I meant. 

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1 hour ago, teachercd said:

Have a friend that is an engineer and said the same thing...basically he said he just uses excel spreadsheets a lot.

 

1 hour ago, ZRod said:

Yep. I think I actually did trig by hand one time in my job. Other than that I just plug stuff in Excel or use my phone's calculator. I do need to understand statistics at a basic level, but again all the calculations are done in Excel.

Rookies.

I actually use trig and algebra quite often in my work (when it’s something I can’t get simply by drawing it in AutoCAD) and was only a declared engineering major for 1 year. Never use calculus and that’s a good thing cuz I sucked at it.

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16 minutes ago, JJ Husker said:

 

Rookies.

I actually use trig and algebra quite often in my work (when it’s something I can’t get simply by drawing it in AutoCAD) and was only a declared engineering major for 1 year. Never use calculus and that’s a good thing cuz I sucked at it.

That's an expensive protractor and sliderule :lol:

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