When third-year Latin student Lissa Crofton-Sleigh decided last
year that she wanted to pursue a minor in music history, she
assumed the minor would be something interesting to supplement her
studies and wouldn’t interfere with her plans to graduate on
time.
When the requirements for the minor changed this year, however,
the increase in required units and classes put a strain on
Crofton-Sleigh and other students.
“I almost had to drop the minor because I didn’t
have enough units to make it all up,” Crofton-Sleigh said.
“Six-unit classes can be a real pain, especially if you run
into the unit cap.”
Six-unit classes are only one addition made to the UCLA
Department of Musicology’s music-history minor, which
underwent numerous changes this year in order to better facilitate
students trying to take the classes they need to graduate. Under
the old requirements, minor students had to take three
upper-division music-history classes, which included any class
within the department’s 100 series.
Under the new requirements, students are required to take three
classes between Music History 160-185. Additionally, these classes
are each accompanied by a one-unit seminar for a total of six
units. Like any process, this change did not come without its
growing pains.
“If you can’t make it to the seminars, you
can’t take the classes,” said Crofton-Sleigh.
“This made me not able to take classes that I wanted to take,
because I had other classes conflicting with the new
seminars.”
While the change in the requirements and the nature of the
adjustments would seem unnecessary and even initially unfair to an
outside observer, the reasons for the changes illustrate the
faculty’s desire to make things easier on students.
“A classic thing that used to happen a number of times a
year was that a student had completed everything in the minor
except one course, but then during the year that course
wasn’t being offered,” said Elisabeth Le Guin, an
associate professor of music history who also deals with student
counseling.
Le Guin explained that when this situation would arise, she and
Hannah Huang, the musicology department’s student affairs
officer, would have to meet one-on-one with students to work out a
compromise.
“The minor looked pretty different depending on who you
were, when you started and what your luck was with course
offerings,” Le Guin said.
Once it became clear that students were having problems with the
new requirements, however, both Huang and Le Guin, as well as other
faculty members within the department, recognized that some aspects
of the changes were not working out.
Instead of refusing to budge or radically changing the
requirements again, the department responded with another
compromise.
The requirements are currently being adjusted one more time to
ensure a balance between consistency and flexibility.
Now, instead of being required to take three six-unit classes
from Music History 160-185, students will now only be required to
take one class from that group, along with any two other
upper-division courses.
“Our minor is growing, and it’s good that
we’re figuring everything out now because I foresee our
numbers increasing,” Huang said. “Hopefully the new
curriculum will attract students and not push them away.”
An addition to the minor requirements that has been met with
enthusiam are the journal clubs (Music History 193A and B) ““
two-unit pass/no pass classes in which students discuss musicology
readings.
Huang describes the journal clubs as being like glorified
sections where students can get valuable one-on-one time with
musicology faculty members. According to Huang, feedback so far has
been positive.
Of course, nothing can be certain until the changes have been in
place and their impact has been observed for a reasonable period of
time.
“I think I fall in the “˜wait-and-see’
category,” said Le Guin. “You can have an anticipation
based on what you know theoretically, but you just don’t know
until you get into the trenches and start teaching just how well
it’s going to work.”
Regardless of how well the changes work out, Crofton-Sleigh has
been encouraged throughout the process by faculty members like
Huang and Le Guin. Although her love for the minor conflicted with
her fears about scheduling and having to put forth the effort to
take additional classes, Crofton-Sleigh says she is comfortable
with how things have turned out.
“Right now I’m just worried about trying to get
everything done in four years, which is why I was afraid I would
have to drop the minor,” Crofton-Sleigh said.
“It’s been annoying, but if it’s something you
want to stick with, then it’s not as bad.”