THE CORE

What all faculty seem to agree on is the importance of the core.

"What we do with the core is very important because all students have to take the core classes and what we do with the core gives a message to students about what is important in their education," Hoffmann said. "I want as many people as possible to discuss the core before we do something that sends a message like `writing concisely is the best thing is the world.' My students write too concisely."

She also said the methodology used in zoology is not necessarily what is done in French.

"Slowing things down and discussing it makes education work much better. We're not turning out billiard balls, we're turning our human beings who have to be all kinds of things," she said. "There are an awful lot of perspectives that I think that we disagree about, but that is wonderful."

Hoffmann said the ASFEC will decide what to do once the ballots are tallied, but the fact that faculty are getting together and discussing this issue makes her very happy.

"I think it's like the newspapers," she said. "The more ideas go flying by, the more people actually pick one up and listen to it. I think competition is healthy -- not competition to win, but competition to improve."

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