Provost Joan Lorden acknowleges out-of-date general education!
On August 17th, in a video sent to UNCC faculty, around minute 16, Provost Joan Lorden acknowledged that our general education system needs to be revised and has set this as a goal for the coming academic year.
Provost Lorden said, “Our general education curriculum has been in place with relatively little revision for nearly 20 years. Our student body, our programs, the world have undergone significant changes since the last major revision.” We agree with Provost Lorden when she stated “we need to revisit the goals and values embodied in the general education program.”
This is a clear opportunity for students to insert our voices into the conversation and demand a more relevant general education focusing on issues of importance. We have to keep pushing forward to maintain this progress.
We want to thank you all so much for your support! We have 400+ signatures and 21 student organizations that are in support of our initiative. However, we need additional signatures to support this initiative if we really want to capture the attention of administration!
In addition, we also want to address some questions and concerns we have received and provide some more context:
This course would not apply to currently enrolled students - it would apply to incoming freshmen and incoming transfer students.
We also want to note that we are in the process of discussing what a possible course syllabus on systemic racism would look like and we are consulting those with substantial research and teaching experience. As a result, we do not have concrete details of what such a course will look like, but we will keep you informed.
This course will not burden students with an additional class to take during their time at UNC Charlotte - it will replace a current course within general education.
Please continue to reach out with questions and suggestions at antiracismcoalitionuncc@gmail.com.
Please share this petition! Help us reach 1,000 signatures by Monday, August 31st!