The Wake

“General College is still a necessity at the University of Minnesota because all students are valued in this college. No one is marginalized. Thank you.”- anonymous student posting on Save GC blog

Seventy-three years ago, the University of Minnesota’s General College was founded to provide education to students who ordinarily would not complete four years of university study. Today it is threatened, in danger of being lost to elitist academia. If all goes according to official plan, come 2006 the doors of Appleby Hall will no longer provide a gateway to the University of Minnesota for under-prepared students of myriad ethnic and social backgrounds. Rather, they will slam potential students in the face, locking them out of the education they deserve.

Should the proposal come to fruition, it will mean that such willing and capable students will become lost in the University’s microcosmic appropriation of the national climate — victims of America’s current drive toward a systemic proliferation of class and race-based divisions. They will become pawns in a game played by those with personalized parking spots — the expendable capital of those seeking heightened prestige and notoriety.

These students come from Somalia and Texas, Vietnam and North Minneapolis. They come from American Indian reservations, from Ethiopia, from Cambodia and Russia. They come from the inner city and the farthest reaches of rural America. Some are old, some are young; some are rich and some are poor. Many have had a low-quality K-12 education.

Yet they all come to General College with one goal in mind: to achieve success academically in an environment conducive to their needs, eventually using that knowledge to earn a college degree.

Herein lies the beauty of General College: it is a singular institution that unites widely diverse students under the common purpose of academic empowerment and success. In General College, each student is looked upon not as a liability — as the board recommendations seem to imply — but as an epicenter of educational potential. The college does what none other can do as effectively; it inspires students to be successful no matter where they’re coming from or where they’ve been.

While some of you reading this may be unaware of General College, I urge you to listen to what will surely be an ongoing debate in the coming weeks. I urge you to start caring about where we are going as a university. I urge you to take note of the travesty and consider what is truly important in becoming a world-class institution. And I urge you to take an active voice in defending General College. In defending its history of providing exceptional developmental education to the disadvantaged. In defending its goals of equal access and educational diversity. In defending its right to stand alongside the University’s 20 other colleges. And in defending its students’ rights to an accessible higher education.

The Issue

From the most highly and widely revered developmental education institution in the country, the university’s March 30th strategic positioning report was a saddening blow. General College, a steadfast bastion of equal access and diversity, was told that it would be shut down in 2006 and integrated into other various departments at the university. Faculty would merge into the Department of General Developmental Education and counseling staff would be scattered throughout the Twin Cities campus. The process would span two years, culminating in the elimination of General College. By fall 2006, GC would no longer admit students.

While the university counters this with promises of continued access, they are promises strewn with misleading conditionals.

General College Dean David Taylor, in his online essay, “In Defense of General College” makes a point of this, commenting that, “the administration is planning to offset a possible decline in absolute [minority] numbers by offering generous scholarships to students of color who are prepared to attend a world-class research institution. If some of these students require further academic support, the remaining General College faculty now housed in the Department of General Developmental Education can provide remedial courses in math, composition, and other subjects.”

This will eliminate those disadvantaged students who had qualitatively low-grade K-12 educations. Further, it shifts the system of developmental education to one of remediation. Such a change implies that the student is doing something wrong that needs to be corrected. As it stands today, General College provides developmental education — the idea that within each student is a capability that needs to be addressed specially as opposed to corrected. It is an idea that is surely difficult to understand unless you have lived it. I can only attest that to experience an education in which you are essentially scolded for “doing something wrong” is to experience a sapping of all motivation to succeed. Such are the pitfalls of the recommendation; it places students in a situation where they feel as though they are not welcome, where they feel as though they are doing something wrong, something that castigates them as outsiders in a “prestigious” university community. It is more than likely this inability to empathize that has led to “U” officials’ blind quest for notoriety.

The Big Wigs’ Logic?

While the university maintains that this campus-wide makeover is for the better—necessary to elevate the “U” to world-class research institution status — it is unclear exactly why GC is getting the axe. Board members, along with President Bruininks, maintain that GC is not a sufficiently successful institution to stay on board during this new push for prestige, citing “changing demographics and the needs of an increasingly diverse student population” as reason for the restructuring. They say that “[the] transformation of educational structures will assure not only access, but educational success to all.”

This sentiment entails that General College is an outdated institution that no longer contributes to the “U’s” larger efforts. President Bruininks, in an article for the Star Tribune, cites a low graduation rate, saying “we shouldn’t bring these students into our university and raise their expectations and not get the results.”

Yet for anyone who has ever spent time in the college, such notions seem drastically misguided and irreverent toward the context in which GC thrives. Contrary to Bruininks’ implication, General College does not offer degrees nor do they graduate students. They instead focus on preparing students for entry into one of the university’s many degree programs. In fact, all GC students are required to transfer to another college within the university within two years of their freshman term.

Who to Believe

It makes one wonder: wherein do the university’s real motivations lie? Do they truly care about propagating diversity? Do they truly care about the demographic that GC serves?

I for one do not think so. Frankly, the actions and recommendations of the board and president make me want to vomit. Twice.

The idea that we should be decreasing diversity and access while creating, for instance, an exclusive “Regents Honors College” is one steeped in elitism. Worse, it is an elitism of the worst kind: the ambiguous, academic kind, in which class and racial partitioning can be cleverly disguised as means to the greater educational good.

General College is an absolutely essential asset to the university community that cannot be compromised. And as the University of Minnesota progresses toward a dramatic restructuring, I think we all ought to stop and think for a minute about what is important in education. Is it reaping the glistening fruits of one’s merits, or is it taking an active role in planting the trees upon which they will continue to grow?

Frederic Hanson is a former GC student and welcomes comments at office@wakenews.org.