Budget cuts suspend GE requirement

The Writing II General Education seminar requirement for graduation has been suspended effective winter quarter 2009, university officials announced on Monday.

Budget cuts are the reason for removing the requirement, said Bruce Beiderwell, director of UCLA’s writing programs.

“The suspension was driven by economic necessity,” Beiderwell said. “The university wasn’t able to provide for the students. I think it was very unfortunate because we feel that (these classes) are important for students. It’s ultimately because of the state of the economy that this is happening.”

Though the college is supportive of a deeper level of learning as well as of more senior-level seminars, “there are insufficient funds to do both, and there has been a growing shortage of GE Seminars over the past few years as freshman enrollments have increased,” according to a statement by the College of Letters and Science.

Earlier this month, discussions about the possible budget cuts began to spread around campus and led to the suspicion that the Writing II classes were going to be cut, according to Daily Bruin archives.

The state budget was not finalized until late September, so the university was unable to plan cuts around figures that were not yet released.

Several departments were warned, especially the language and writing departments, since many of their courses are taught by non-tenured faculty, said Bob Samuels, a lecturer in the writing program at UCLA and president of the University Council of the American Federation of Teachers.

Samuels said that these departments are usually the ones that are hit the hardest in economic crises.

Cutting classes would limit the amount of classes available and make it harder for students to enroll in the classes required to graduate. In an interview in October, Beiderwell predicted that the cuts would affect the writing department after the state budget cut.

Though it remains unclear how this will affect the future of students and professors, Beiderwell said this might lead to the reassignment of some professors.

This would require professors to teach more classes in other areas of the writing department to make up for the suspension of the Writing II requirement and could also lead to professors teaching larger classes with more students enrolled in each writing class, Beiderwell added.

Also, more professors would probably be put on one-year contracts and some might leave the university given the current conditions, Beiderwell said.

The GE seminar requirement was also suspended because the college feared that the increasing number of incoming freshman each year would surpass the limited enrollment available for students.

Because so many students are trying to enroll in the classes offered, over-enrollment might become an issue, Beiderwell said.

Other students outside of the college seem apathetic about the change.

“I’m not too into the English thing, so I guess it’s good for me,” said Andrew Huynh, a second-year biology student.

The college might consider reinstating the requirement in the future for freshmen, but it would apply to entering freshman only, according to the College Academic Counseling Web site.

The students who are taking the requirement or who have already completed the requirement will still get the units and credits they earned for graduation.

The College of Academic Counseling encourages students to remain in the Writing II classes if they are currently enrolled in them because they still fulfill some GE requirements needed to graduate.

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