ab1460向前发展, the Ethnic Studies GE Requirement

发送日期:2020年10月2日

发件人:文森特·J. Del Casino, Jr., Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs

亲爱的同事们,

I hope this email finds you well and safe. I am writing today in regards to the passage of AB 1460, which mandates a new graduation requirement in Ethnic Studies for all CSU undergraduate students who will graduate in 2024-2025. 这项法案对…有直接影响 Title 5, the overarching law that governs the CSU, and the Chancellor’s Office (CO) of the CSU must now get to work integrating AB 1460 into Title 5.

As many of you probably know, the CO had already passed a version of an Ethnic Studies and Social Justice requirement this past July. With that new requirement, they amended Title 5 to include a new 通识教育 area for Ethnic Studies - Area F - and implemented a required reduction in lower division Area D (社会科学) from 9 单位至6个单位. These changes were a result, in part, of mandating a new graduation requirement without adding units to the degree. AB 1460 narrows the scope of the Area F requirement while also fitting into the broader categorical changes that were made.

The CO outlines this major change to 通识教育 on their website 并提供了一些答案 常见问题 (FAQ’s) that are now emerging as a result of AB 1460’s passage. 简而言之，在AB下 1460 the CO is to work in collaboration with the 民族研究委员会 and the Academic Senate of the California State University to define the core learning outcomes of this new requirement. 我怀疑这种情况会改变 may be made to these learning outcomes over time, but these are the ones that we have right now.

No matter what position you may have taken on AB 1460 or the CO approach, this new law provides us an opportunity to have an important and engaged conversation about how best to integrate new Area F courses into our larger curriculum. 没有意义 in trying to hit the minimum bar here - let’s excel and take advantage of the amazing talent on campus to build not only an individual course requirement but a robust set of programs that continues to leverage the intellectual power of Ethnic Studies pedagogies and rigorous practices to strengthen our community.

I am not writing as provost today to say, however, what the course requirement should 是或应该如何交付. Course development and approval is the purview of the faculty. But, I am writing as a colleague to suggest that we already have the mechanisms to make this work and work really well. 学术委员会将进行投票 on a policy change to add Area F to our 通识教育 program in a few weeks, for example. The Senate 通识教育 Advisory Committee can “appoint ad hoc General Education Review Panels (GRP)” to evaluate “a specific curricular requirement or set 的需求.” And, we have a strong group of Ethnic Studies departments, programs, and faculty across our colleges that can help guide the development of this new requirement. As we begin this conversation in our Senate and on our campus, therefore, we must recognize that this new requirement impacts all of our undergraduate degree programs 虽然方式不同. For example, we have managed to maintain engineering 只有120个单位的度. This has been done by granting some exceptions in 通识教育. AB 1460 impacts those programs and thus those faculty need to be involved in the broader conversation.

AB 1460 does not just impact the work of the faculty and the curricular process. It also impacts the everyday work of the administration, which must figure out how to not only fund and offer this new requirement but how to manage the long-term budgetary 这些变化的含义. There is much work to be done in a short amount of time. And, there are lots of conversations to be had. 我们需要为 conversation even as we discuss some of the first courses that will meet this new requirement. After all, maybe this is a chance to demonstrate that 通识教育 can be a site of an innovative curricular redesign that works past “the discipline” and toward the epistemic challenges brought by Ethnic Studies pedagogies and philosophies? Maybe this is an opportunity to present every single student with a “high impact” engaged learning experience that is rooted in the practices of Ethnic Studies? This requirement, which has been developed through a legislative process, does not foreclose our own creative and critical thinking about 通识教育.

I am personally excited about what this campus can and will do in this space. This is an amazing opportunity, even with some of its challenges, to think “broader.”

还有更多的事情要做.

Sincerely,
Vin