"I resent people who give the impression that they think the students are stupid." Kathryn Huffman ASFEC Chairwoman

With enrollment up and morale down, one faculty committee believes there is something wrong with the university -- and that something is the students.

At issue is a set of "skills standards," five skill areas set forth by the General Education Coordination Committee that all students should be proficient in. These skill areas are: critical thinking, information retrieval and technology, oral communication, quantitative reasoning and written communication.

At a meeting last month, the Arts and Sciences Faculty Executive Committee expressed concern over the proposed standards.

THE STUDENTS

Though the faculty are divided on the idea of skills standards, most seem to agree that something has to be done about the students. In fact, the GECC said the selected skills were drawn from a survey on student shortcomings returned by 54 percent of the faculty system-wide.

"There is a problem," math professor Bill Lampe said. "Students are not as competent as they should be, and I certainly agree that we need to do something."

Alison Kay, zoology professor and co-chair of the GECC, agreed.

"I talked with my companion who is teaching a senior seminar with me -- there are 15 seniors in it," Kay said. "We both came out shaking our heads."

"Twelve of those 15 cannot speak -- they will not speak up, they cannot synthesize, and as far as I'm concerned, most of their pidgin is pretty poor too," she said.

Not everyone is in a hurry to blame students, however.

"I don't thing that's the problem whatsoever," said Kathryn Hoffmann, assistant professor of French and ASFEC chairwoman. "I'm very happy with the intellectual abilities of my students."

"I resent people who give the impression that they think the students are stupid," she said. "I don't think that is either appropriate or any way to fix anything within the educational system."

Hoffmann called Kay's comment "the most unfortunate statement made at the meeting."

While some of her students may have preparation problems, they can be easily fixed, Hoffmann said.

While proponents said the skills standards are aimed at fixing those problems, some faculty argue students should come out of high school ready to do college-level work. To that end, Hoffmann called for greater communication across the bastions of primary, secondary, and tertiary education.

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