The Harpur College Council (HCC) voted in February to suspend the current Harpur Distribution Requirement, which mandates all Harpur students to take a course in each of the three divisions of Harpur College in addition to the General Education requirements. The change will take effect beginning in the fall of 2006 and will apply retroactively to all students who are currently required to complete Distribution Requirments, as well as incoming students.

The three divisions in which Harpur students were required to take an additional course prior to the change were humanities, math/science and social science.

The Harpur College Educational Planning and Policies Committee (EPPC) assembled a detailed report outlining this change, and presented it to the Council, which ultimately adopted the alterations without any controversy.

“Everybody in the Harpur College Council was all in the same mind,” said Donald Blake, the associate dean for Academic Affairs in Harpur College, as well as HCC chair. “There’s a limit to how much you want to constrain the students with selective courses.”

The HCC opted to pass the distribution requirement because of the uncertainty of whether the Gen Ed requirements would ensure adequate distribution across the divisions.

Clearly, under Gen Ed, students would take two courses in humanities and in science/math, Blake said, but the EPPC wasn’t sure whether the global interdependencies (G) and pluralism (P) requirements would ensure that students would also take courses in social sciences.

However, data gathered from graduating seniors in the spring of 2005 reassured the EEPC that students are being exposed to the social sciences.

According to their report, the EPPC concluded that the Harpur Distribution requirement was unnecessary when taking into consideration the 44 upper-level credit requirement that was passed in 2001, and the change in Gen Ed foreign language requirement from three years of high school to four, which began fall 2004.

“The General Education program does a good job of building breadth for students at the University and we don’t need to add more to it,” Blake said. “You’ve got the upper level and the language strengthening, and I think you have to lighten up on this other little piece.”

Many Harpur students whose coursework lies in the humanities and social science divisions have been enrolling in the larger, intro-level science/math courses specifically for distribution purposes. It is possible that the change in requirement may have an effect on student enrollment in such courses.

“I don’t think it will be a very large effect,” Blake said.

About 40 percent of majors lie in the science/math department, making it the most dominant division in Harpur College.

Blake said that there are many students who wish to go into a path that is science-related.

“In fact, it might even take some heat off of those courses that are so huge and crowded,” he said.

Upon hearing the news, students have voiced opinions regarding how this change is affecting them.

Kerri Johnson, a junior English major, found herself at a disadvantage. Johnson, like many upperclassmen, has already taken courses to fulfill the distribution requirements.

“I am a little bothered by that because instead of taking those courses I could have registered for other courses that counted toward my major.”

It’s an unfortunate matter, Blake said, but “you can’t see the future, and when the future comes you can’t change the past.”

On the other hand, Oliver Hansen, a sophomore Asian studies major, was pleased with the decision. Hansen, who is pursuing a dual degree in Harpur and School of Management, said that he is relieved not to have another science/math course to worry about.

“I already took a psychology and math class. Outside of more advanced material, that type of stuff was already covered for me,” Hansen said.

A four year “sunset” will be placed on this suspension, which will allow the EPPC to study its effects on students and departments. Blake said it needs to be revisited to make sure nothing goes wrong.

“Unless something very unanticipated were to occur, this will go right on past the four-year mark,” he said.