The GE, or general education program, will be replaced by a new Core Curriculum system, effective summer 1996, said Ann Morey, director of the University Core Curriculum program.

For over 30 years, SIUC students working toward a degree have had to take courses from General Education areas A through E, a system school administrators say is deadlocked.

Ann Morey, director of the University Core Curriculum program, said the new system revises and upgrades the old general education program.

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The courses will be more demanding so students won’t complain that they had the same courses in high school, Morey said.

The General Education program had not been reviewed for 10 years, and had no administrative direction, she said.

There was no way to get rid of courses that were not working, Morey said. The old system was deadlocked.

Benjamin Shepherd, vice-president of academic affairs, said the Core Curriculum has a more focused curriculum of relevant content to prepare students to be better educated in the 21st century than before.

The new curriculum is more coherent, Shepherd said. There are fewer options for substitute courses and the new curriculum incorporates the most recent thinking by the SIUC faculty on what general education knowledge will best serve our graduates for the next century.

Shepherd said a wide on-campus perception about the General Education were the courses lacked rigor and coherent content.

According to Morey, a professor of English, Core Curriculum consists of 37 new courses including a three-hour required multi-cultural course. The program only takes 41 credit hours to complete compared to the general education

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see CORE, page 5