Altering the Quest general education program for the second time in two weeks, the Baker University Faculty Senate voted Tuesday to completely remove the requirement to take a linked course to accompany QS 112.
The latest change, which was proposed by Educational Programs and Curriculum Committee Chairman Darcy Russell, passed through faculty senate by a vote of 13-10.
Along with eliminating the requirement for linked courses to QS 112, faculty senate reinstated the linked courses for QS 211, QS 212 and QS 311 as corequisites.
“EPC thought this was a better solution to the problem that science majors face from the proposal that senate passed last time and we voted 6-0-0 in favor of this proposal,” Russell said.
The proposal approved on Tuesday initially came from the Liberal Studies Advisory Group (L-SAG) following a 10-9 vote by faculty senate on March 19 that had made all links for Quest classes either corequisites or prerequisites. Once L-SAG developed a new proposal, it was passed by EPC and brought up again in faculty senate.
During Tuesday’s meeting, Associate Professor of Physics Ran Sivron said he believes that prerequisite or corequisite linked courses in the Quest program give science majors more flexibility in scheduling their classes and that requiring corequisites makes it more difficult for some students to graduate on schedule. He was also frustrated at the inconsistency of Quest requirements over the years.
“Don’t tell me for maybe the 20th time in three and a half years that by moving one linked course out of order that we can solve the whole problem because we can’t and I know that,” Sivron said.
The decision of the vote on March 19 came as a surprise to many faculty senate members who said it was only briefly discussed at the March 18 town hall meeting about how to resolve problems with corequisites and prerequisites for Quest courses.
While the linked course to QS 112 will be eliminated, Quest director Erin Joyce pointed out that there could be other options for remaining linked courses in the future.
“Another item of flexibility is that the summer offerings that we’re trying to get under way,” Joyce said. “We have a (QS) 212 and 311 on the books for the summer, so that is another option for students.”
The remaining linked courses will still be structured as follows: the QS 211 link will continue to be a science course typically taken during a student’s sophomore year, the link to QS 212 can be taken during the sophomore or junior year, and the QS 311 link will be available to juniors and first-semester seniors.
