Unit requirements may change

Governor Gray Davis' first budget proposal could help CSUS students graduate more quickly. On January 15, Davis recommended that the CSU should shorten the time it takes a student to graduate, reconciling its 124-unit graduation requirement to match the UC's 120-unit requirement

Individual campuses have begun to address the governor's proposal by examining areas in which requirements could be cut back. “No work has been done at CSUS,” said Cecilia Gray, associate vice president for undergraduate programs.

Although no formal plans have been made to examine where cuts should be made, Gray has suggested that several possibilities exist for reviewing requirements.

One possible solution would be to suggest requirement cuts as each degree program comes up for routine review. Faculty reviewers would possibly make decisions as to what areas of a major can be cut back or reconciled.

“Why are the majors so different in terms of numbers? Some require under 40 units and some require over 70. In order to meet the Governor's proposed cuts it may be necessary to address the requirements for a degree in the various majors,” said Gray.

Another possibility would be to reevaluate the number of units required in the General Education program.

“Perhaps our General Education program is just too large,” said Professor Tom Krabacher, president of the CSUS Faculty Senate.

Cutting back on General Education requirements is not a new idea. According to Krabacher proposals have been circulating for over one year on cutting back units to help move more students through the CSU system in a shorter amount of time.

In coming months, the CSUS Committee on General Education requirements is expected to begin a complete review of the GE program. A possible outcome of that review may be a reduction in the 51-unit General Education program.

“The CSU has a mandatory requirement of at least 48 units in the GE program; if the program at Sac State is reevaluated, it may be found that streamlining CSUS's requirements to that of the entire system is the best solution,” said Gray.

According to Gray, some classes that may be questioned are the second semester composition and the foreign language requirement. “CSUS alone has these requirements, and they may be the first to be evaluated in the review,” said Gray.

Regardless of where requirements are ultimately cut, Ann Bancroft, with the Office of the Secretary of Education, believes that it will eventually help students who may want to transfer between the UC and CSU systems.

“The goal of cutting the graduation requirements in the CSU is to help bring commonality between the majors at the different campuses,” said Bancroft. “Common graduation requirements should ultimately help make transferring between the two systems much easier.”

According to Professor Krabacher, any changes to current graduation requirements would not happen immediately, but more likely be phased in over the next several years.