We do not represent or speak for Utah State University in any official capacity. We do, however, all work as professors in USU’s English Department, and we wish to speak out as private citizens against Utah SB334 and to correct the misperception that this bill has the backing of the humanities faculty.
It does not.
In fact, we all learned about the bill at the end of February along with the general public. This bill will radically transform general education at USU, and eventually at all Utah public colleges and universities, in ways we believe will be detrimental to our students’ education.
The bill will create a Center for Civic Excellence at USU that is intended as a pilot program for general education reform across the Utah System of Higher Education. It will give the director of that center a great deal of power over the curriculum at USU, power that USU’s faculty code reserves solely for faculty. Why have the procedures outlined in faculty code for curriculum changes at USU been circumvented and ignored?
As has become too common with the Utah Legislature, the bill was first announced with seven days left in the legislative session, giving the public virtually no time to weigh in on these important questions. Indeed, as we write this, SB334 has passed its final hurdle in the House of Representatives. Why did this bill, supposedly in the best interests of students and the public, need to be drafted in secret and rushed through the Legislature?
Recent reporting has given the impression that USU’s administration based the decision to advocate for a Center for Civic Excellence on consultation and data. But so far as we can tell, no one discussed these plans with faculty in the College of Humanities and Social Sciences, no students were surveyed and no research was undertaken into the kinds of courses that are likely to prepare students for success in college and beyond.
Rather than designing this new center based on best practices in writing studies and general education, it seems to be driven by personal beliefs and ideology. Associate Vice Provost for General Education Harrison Kleiner told the Salt Lake Tribune that our current system is “broken” and “not serving our students well,” but he presents no evidence for this beyond his personal views. Kleiner and the bill’s senate sponsor, John Johnson, openly admit the bill’s political goals: to make students read “great books ‘predominantly from Western civilization’ and about ‘the rise of Christianity.’” And the conservative magazine National Review has crowed about this bill being “a game changer nationally.”
General education courses in the humanities are about more than exposing students to ancient European books and ideas. These classes are about helping students learn the so-called soft skills that employers say they want in college graduates — writing and communication, teamwork, and creativity among them — they’re about helping students become civic-minded leaders in every field; and they’re about exposing students to the bigger, more interconnected world they live in today. Studying the Western classics is one way to reach some of these goals, but it is only one approach. Our current Breadth Humanities courses allow faculty members to bring their own passions and expertise to students’ first classes. It’s hard to imagine how forcing students to read Boethius, as the bill specifically calls for, will improve USU’s retention statistics or students’ career readiness.
This law will replace three courses currently required of all students at USU, two of them first-year writing classes offered by the Department of English. Replacing these with “great books” courses will negate years of hard work we and our colleagues — many of us experts in composition and writing studies — have done: conducting research into how to effectively teach students to become better writers, training instructors in those methods and navigating the new world of artificial intelligence.
In particular, our first-year writing courses are foundational and taught by instructors specializing in writing studies. These courses are carefully designed to support students in their majors and their careers, with thoughtfully selected reading and writing activities that support clear learning objectives and pave the way for success elsewhere across the institution.
Across the College of Humanities and Social Sciences, the faculty we have talked to have expressed feelings of intense betrayal — not just by the Legislature, but by our own university’s administration. This feels like an attack on our expertise and our academic freedom. We wish to make clear our view that this law constitutes a power grab, taking advantage of a vacuum in university leadership to impose a political agenda at the expense of taxpayers and students.
(Shane Graham) Shane Graham has worked in the English Department at Utah State University for 20 years.
Shane Graham has worked in the English Department at Utah State University for 20 years. He lives in Salt Lake City. The following educators have also signed on to this op-ed.
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