There are some common misunderstandings students and faculty have on the proposed “Community and Conflict in the Modern World” requirement, some of which can be found in a Daily Bruin opinion piece posted on April 13. We, as students who have been working on this proposal since its conceptualization, hope to address these arguments.
As the world becomes increasingly interconnected, future leaders, now more than ever, need to be aware of the workings of the world and people around them so that they may be readily equipped to mediate and resolve conflicts between groups. Hence, the intention of this proposed requirement is to expose UCLA students to issues different communities in our modern era face. As future leaders of the country and most probably the world, UCLA students have been advocating for this requirement for decades as an appropriate and relatively necessary area our General Education should address.
Students and faculty should also understand that the “Community and Conflict in the Modern World” requirement will not be an additional requirement but would rather replace an existing General Education requirement for students in the College of Letters and Sciences.
This proposal was not created to serve as a “solution” or as a reaction to hostile events on campus. In recent years, other UCs witnessed events that were insensitive to certain groups even though they all, with the exception of UC Merced and UCLA, have some form of this requirement already in place. So we understand that this requirement is not an ultimate solution ““ and it never was intended to be ““ but it will initiate dialogue that will hopefully lead to tolerance and understanding between groups.
The author’s main criticism is that supporters of this proposal are not aggressively demanding anything “substantially new” in the General Education curriculum. Our priority is to get this General Education requirement passed first and then work to continue to improve the requirement. This proposal will place an emphasis on analyzing and understanding interactions among communities, a focus which is explored only in some General Education courses. Under the current General Education curriculum, a student may choose not to select a course with this emphasis.
Thus, this requirement represents a small yet critical step in the direction of a more relevant and comprehensive General Education curriculum.
We agree with the author that there is only so much students can learn from 10 weeks. This is a clear drawback of the quarter system, but the same argument can be made for many other already established courses at this institution. This should not discourage UCLA from establishing, at the very least, a foundation that will serve as a starting point in educating students about contemporary issues related to our diverse communities and the conflicts within, between and among them.
Like all other General Education courses, this proposal intends to provide a holistic “General Education” for our Bruins in order to equip them with the skills and tools to become future leaders and more aware individuals. We believe that such a component which addresses these all too real issues should certainly be integrated into our “General Education” for all to benefit from, regardless of what career we wish to pursue after we graduate.
Raquel Saxe
USAC Academic Affairs commissioner
Hana Khan
Co-founder of Students for Diversity and Academic Affairs Commission committee member
Tlaloc Vasquez
Co-founder of Students for Diversity, Academic Affairs Commission appointment to Faculty Executive Committee and retention coordinator for MEChA de UCLA