“Gen Ed’s are supposed to be easy.” Says who? JMU students immediately associate ‘general’ with ‘easy’. This commonly held mindset is actually a big misconception. Many of these courses are actually very challenging. So why does the dreaded “G” in front of all of these courses change the way students view the difficulty of a course?
This is one of the negative connotations the G has acquired over the years that has come to many faculty’s attention. The G was originally intended to be a positive symbol and make JMU’s General Education program distinctive, when it was created in the late 1990s. Although the General Education program continues to do this, it has acquired negative connotations that have led to major reconsiderations. During JMU’s 2011-2012 program review, faculty proposed the idea of removing the G from the course prefix in General Education classes, according to the General Education page on the JMU website. Last year it was confirmed by various members of the JMU community that this was a good idea.
Last year, the JMU General Education program made a concerted effort to reach as many people as possible including instructors who teach General Education courses to listen their opinion about this issue.
“They tried hard to explain why the program was contemplating the removal of the G,” said Dr. Tim Ball, assistant professor and SCOM basic course director, “They wanted to make sure we thought it was a change that needed to happen.” Read more No More GCOM?! The “G” Indicators will be removed from Gen Ed Courses by Fall 2015.