The Undergraduate Student Government Academic Assembly and the University Faculty Senate are trying to change the GI general education requirements, but it might not be an easy transition.
Students now have to take three credits of a GI course to fulfill the Intercultural and International Competence requirement. If the proposed change goes through, students would have to take six GI credits instead. The six credits, however, would have to be split into three credits of domestic courses and three credits of international courses.
Faculty Senate will meet with Academic Assembly today to discuss the proposal.
D. Josh Troxell, Academic Assembly president, said the group not only wants to improve students' international competence courses but also their knowledge of U.S. culturalism.
Sam Richards, who teaches Sociology 119 (Race and Ethnic Relations), said increasing the number of international courses offered would be beneficial.
"It would benefit students because they would learn more about events taking place, and anything that increases our awareness of international events is a good thing," Richards said.
Daniel Berman, who teaches Classics and Ancient Mediterranean Studies 145 (Classical Mythology), said the change would be a positive move, especially for students who can't study abroad.
"International studies is important for students who don't get a chance to study abroad, so they can learn about cultures different than American culture and get the flavor of studying abroad," he said.
The change has been discussed in the past, but Academic Assembly has not been able to come up with a definite conclusion because of certain concerns.
"One of the problems is that if they split three credits each, there aren't enough classes to fill the requirement," Troxell said. He added that in order to accommodate the additional credits, many academic majors' requirements would have to be changed too.
Academic Assembly is considering a testing phase in which the current GI classes could be split into domestic and international divisions, but students would only have to take three credits while it is determined what else needs to be done to change the system.
"They could be [divided into] something like GI domestic and GI international for tracking purposes. That way they keep track of what courses students are interested in and the areas of need," Troxell said.
Troxell also said they are recommending the addition of more United States-based courses, such as American history with an emphasis on cultural racism and economics of urban life.
Sometime before the end of the semester, however, Academic Assembly hopes Faculty Senate can make a final decision on whether to approve the addition of courses and the splitting of the GI courses into domestic and international. If it is approved and the system works, another committee will be formed to talk about the final goal of requiring all students to take one GI domestic course and one GI international course.
Troxell said the university should follow the lead of a federal bill passed in September that aims to emphasize knowledge of international relations.
"We [Penn State] are constantly looking to improve, and now that there's a national interest in this, it is up to Penn State to continue being a leader," Troxell said.
