SOUTHEAST CURRICULUM REFLECTS NATIONAL MOVEMENT ON HISTORY

Southeast Missouri State University's decision to drop its traditional American history requirement for graduation reflects a trend on college campuses to move away from classes rooted in western culture, says an official with a higher education organization.

On too many college campuses, "there is no common kind of educational grounding that our students get," said Christopher Long, executive publisher of Campus magazine, published by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute of Bryn Mawr, Pa.

On many campuses, there's a focus on other cultures. "We are all for studying about other cultures. However, before you study other cultures, it is a good idea to know something about your own," said Long.

"We find that many of the foreign students on the American college campuses know much more about American history than American students."

Long contended that many of the curriculum changes on college campuses are politically motivated. "You have radical professors and administrators who were the protesters in the 1960s, who are now the deans and the tenured professors.

"They want to politicize the curriculum. They want to revamp what they consider to be a very conservative curriculum. They don't really want to study other cultures. They want to study interest-group politics in the United States," said Long.

At Stanford, for example, students can take a freshman English course that involves working with a community service organization that assists poor children.

"It might be a good thing, but it certainly doesn't teach you much about writing," said Long.

Southeast officials insist that the curriculum changes at the Cape Girardeau school as part of the University Studies or general education program are not politically motivated.

"This is a state institution. We just don't have any business telling students how to be politically correct or incorrect," said John Hinni, dean of University Studies.

Provost Charles Kupchella said the University Studies curriculum has nothing to do with politics. It has to do with providing a good education for students.

Kupchella said the old approach of teaching hasn't worked. "We (schools) have been doing this approach for 400 years and people haven't really learned much of anything, and now it is beginning to show.

"We've got to change the way we teach to reflect the way we actually learn," said Kupchella.

It's impossible, he said, for a university to teach a student "all of the facts there ever were." But, he said, it's possible to teach students how to engage in a "lifetime of learning."

Kupchella said the University Studies program does that.

Long said the move away from more traditional courses began at the "most prestigious schools" such as Stanford and then "trickled down to all of the state schools."

Now, he said, a committee at Stanford is looking at returning to a more traditional curriculum. If that occurs, other schools across the nation may follow suit, said Long.