Curmudgeonly characteristics and their causes (#1385)

Topics/tags: Rants, Grinnell

I’m a curmudgeon. Anyone who deals with me regularly knows this. I complain about and criticize things regularly. I’m glad that people put up with it; I think most understand that my curmudgeonliness comes from a place a care, rather than just a broader grumpiness or desire to complain.

How did I end up this way? And is it voluntary? Could I choose to be otherwise? Those are complex questions, ones probably best left to intense therapy sessions. Nonetheless, it may be worth exploring them a bit. In particular, my muse suggests that I should describe a recent episode and a characteristic it demonstrates, and then consider some of the underlying causes.

Here goes.

The Grinnell faculty are currently discussing potential changes to advising and registration for incoming first-year students. That’s reasonable. We’ve had the same system for fifteen or so years, and it’s worth considering whether it could be better. As part of the discussions, we’ve also turned to matters of the liberal arts, since we want our incoming students to consider the purposes and priorities of a liberal education [1,3] as they work with their advisors to choose classes and develop a broader plan of education [4].

As part of the discussion, someone mentioned that the Dean’s Office has put together a required summer course on the liberal arts for incoming first-year students. I don’t trust the Dean’s Office with regard to its presentation of the liberal arts. That lack of trust is undoubtedly a key characteristic of my curmudgeonliness. But it’s earned. For example, our last discussion of liberal education started with an inappropriately edited version of Grinnell’s elements of a liberal education that didn’t even indicate that it had been edited [5].

Since I don’t trust the Dean’s Office, I said something like, If this course is a requirement, then the whole faculty should look at it and vote on it. I probably added, The Dean’s Office doesn’t always do a good job at describing the liberal arts. It’s true, but it’s not a particularly nice thing to say. And I may have phrased it even less positively, such as The Dean’s Office regularly screws up when discussing liberal education. However, I don’t think I went quite that far. At least I hope I didn’t.

A few faculty responded quickly, suggesting that it was quite likely that a faculty committee had reviewed the course, so a full-faculty review should not be necessary. And the course isn’t so much a course as a series of Web pages. Perhaps it’s not even required.

Nonetheless, it’s something many incoming students use. If I recall correctly, over 90% of incoming students this year looked at the materials. Since I expect to be teaching Tutorial in the near future, and will have to work with students who’ve developed a sense of liberal education through the course, I’d like to know what we’re telling them.

One of our Associate Deans graciously enrolled me in the course. And the comments I’d heard were generally correct. It’s just a series of Web pages and resources, most of which already existed. I also learned that it’s about much more than liberal education; it’s also about the complexities of our advising and registration policies and processes.

One of the associated documents is a worksheet that students are encouraged to fill out (or at least consider) [6] that helps them map their course selections to Grinnell’s six elements [7] of a liberal education. I don’t know how long it’s been around; I didn’t use it the last time I taught Tutorial, and I don’t think it existed the previous time. Since I didn’t use it, I didn’t examine it closely. Since it’s now something we tell all incoming students to read, I considered it more carefully.

The sheet includes three example plans for the first three semesters. Here they are.

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HUM major example

First Semester

• MUS-120-11, Perf: Guitar
• LAT-395-01, ST: Ovid on Troy
• ARH-103-02, Intro to Art History
• TUT-100-00, Tutorial
• GRE-101-01, Elementary Greek

Second Semester

• MUS-120-11, Perf: Guitar
• LAT-395-01, ST: Roman Comedy
• HUM-101-01, Hum I: Ancient Greek World
• ART-111-03, Introduction to the Studio
• ART-134-01, Drawing

Third Semester

• ANT-104-02, Anthropological Inquiries
• ART-240-01, Ceramics
• LAT-395-01, ST: Petronius
• LIN-270-01, Indo-European Lang & Cult
• MUS-120-13, Perf: Voice
• PHE-100-48, Yoga I

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SCI major example

First Semester

• TUT-100-00, Tutorial
• SPN-217-04, Intermediate Spanish
• MAT-133-02, Calculus II
• PHY-131-02, General Physics I w/lab

Second Semester

• CHM-210-02, Inorgnc & Analytcl Chem w/lab
• POL-101-01, Intro to Political Science
• BIO-150-02, Intro to Biolgcl Inqry w/lab
• RUS-295-01, ST: Russian Food and Culture

Third Semester

• BIO-251-04, Molds, Cells, & Orgnsm w/lab
• CHM-221-01, Organic Chemistry I w/lab
• ENG-120-01, Literary Analysis
• POL-295-01, ST: Political Psychology

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SOC major example

First Semester

• TUT-100-00, Tutorial
• RED-100-01, Reading Laboratory
• ECN-230-01, Economic Development
• CSC-151-02, Functional Prob Solving w/lab
• PHI-102-01, Symbolic Logic
• PHE-100-26, Beginning Tennis

Second Semester

• ECN-280-01, Microeconomic Analysis
• MAT-208-01, Discrete Structures
• CSC-161-02, Imp Prob Slvng&Data Str w/lab
• MUS-112-01, Music Theory I
• MUS-120-42, Perf: Guitar
• MUS-111-02, Aural Skills I

Third Semester

• CSC-207-01, Algorithms & OO Design w/lab
• CSC-341-01, Auto, Frm Lng, Cmp Cmplxty
• ECN-282-01, Macroeconomic Analysis
• HIS-266-01, History of Mdern Middle East
• MAT-133-05, Calculus II
• MUS-120-42, Perf: Guitar

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So, what do you think?

Can you guess what I think?

That’s right, I think they’re atrocious! Here are a few reasons.

The Humanities Major has taken no courses in the science division, neither natural science [9] nor something in the Math/Stats/CS triplet [10]. They’ve started in a 300-level Latin class, which makes them highly atypical; that course has the four-semester Latin sequence as a prerequisite, and, as I understand it, that sequence covers much more than many institutions. They’ve also taken only one course in Social Studies. They didn’t take a second semester of Greek; I’d generally recommend that students do at least a full year of any language they take. Three sections of Latin 395 over three semesters also seems excessive.

The Social Studies Major is perhaps worse. Among other things, it seems to be a disguised CS major; their schedule is filled with CS courses and the corresponding Mathematics requirements. There’s no way we’d permit them to take CSC-341 in their third semester [11]. If they’re a CS major, they shouldn’t take Symbolic Logic. They’ve taken no natural science and no foreign language. And I know of no students who’ve been permitted to take five four-credit courses in one semester.

What about the Science Major? That plan seems a bit better to me, but it’s not without problems. If the student takes SPN-217 in their first semester, they should be taking SPN-285, Literature and Visual Cultures of the Spanish-Speaking World, in their second semester, when the language is fresh in their brain. After all, isn’t the opportunity to consider literature and culture a central reason to take another language? I’m also not convinced that it’s a great idea to take two lab sciences in their second semester; if they were my advisee, we’d discuss the associated workload. It’s also somewhat rare that students start in CHM-220 without first taking CHM-129. This student also lacks an explicit avenue for expressing themselves creatively. I suppose one could argue that ENG-120 and my imagined SPN-285 at least give them the opportunity to analyze creative expression [12]. And this student, like the other two, is starting in at least one 200- or 300-level course.

I worry about what our incoming students will take from these example schedules. Will some worry that they don’t qualify for courses beyond the 100 level? Will some take them as signs that they can ignore whole divisions of study? Will some start planning semesters with five courses?

I must admit that I’m being a bit unfair. The instructions page for the worksheet notes the following.

The remaining tabs take you to examples of how other students’ academic plans and how they would be formatted with this tool. [14] These are not necessarily good plans. Decide for yourself if these students are achieving a liberal education.

I worry about that Decide for yourself. I imagine that these examples would be best used in a broader conversation, perhaps on the first day of Tutorial. I expect that’s what they were originally designed for. Without such discussion, or something similar [15], students are likely to miss the key points these schedules illustrate and perhaps even reach harmful conclusions. I’m also not convinced that everyone will read the associated instructions; evidence suggests that without some kind of reinforcement, students often miss key instructions.

Or perhaps I’m mistaken. Perhaps most students don’t even look at the spreadsheet. Perhaps students are better at reading instructions than I think. Perhaps our experience suggests that the poor examples don’t affect the kinds of schedules students want. However, I’ve encountered enough students who want more limited schedules that I worry about presenting poor schedules, rather than good ones. How might we resolve this? I know! We could discuss it, rather than just relying on something that a few people put together.

In any case, you’ve now seen one of the reasons I’m a curmudgeon. Or, to reiterate the title, you’ve seen a cause of a curmudgeonly characteristic. I’m reluctant to just trust others—or outspoken about the need to check the work of others—because I keep encountering work that should be checked and discussed.

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[1] The relationships between the liberal arts and a liberal education are complicated. One might argue that a liberal education is intended to free our thinking from its bounds [2]. In contrast, the liberal arts is a set of ideas or approaches that may help us achieve a liberal education. Almost everyone conflates the two in one way or another. These days, Grinnell often speaks about a liberal arts education, hybridizing the two [3]. Notably, the use of the adjective liberal in both cases does not have the meaning used in the liberal/conservative divide. In both cases, liberal relates to liberation.

[2] For example, bounds of ignorance or imprecision.

[3] It appears that I have a lot to say about the relationship between the two terms. I suppose that’s a topic for another musing.

[4] Grinnell has what we call an individually advised curriculum. That means that each student works with their advisors to determine their own version of what one might call general education requirements. Ideally, that set of choices leads them to become liberally educated.

[5] I was particularly concerned with changes to the description of what the College inappropriately calls Quantitative reasoning. I’ve written about the topic before. I plan to do so again.

[6] I believe the form is only available to people on campus.

[7] I tend to refer to them as six pillars of a liberal education. When I’m in a less kind mood, I refer to them as the Chinese menu of a liberal education [8].

[8] The term Chinese menu is often used to indicate a process by which you choose one or more elements from each of a variety of collections. It reflects on an old form of ordering at American Chinese restaurants in which you would choose one item from column A, one item from column B, and so on and so forth.

[9] I’d prefer that we call it Experimental Science, since that’s really what the element represents.

[10] Grinnell refers to this Quantitative Reasoning, but I refuse to term it as such. I want to call it something more complex than triplet, such as a triumvirate, a triptych, or a trilogy. However, none of those is appropriate. I’ll keep working on it.

[11] At this point, CSC-207 may even serve as a prerequisie for CSC-341.

[12] One should consider the create/analyze dichotomy when discussing the creative expression element.

[14] Grammarly tells me that there are some problems with this first sentence.

[15] For example, we might have students take a quiz on these examples, asking them to point out flaws and suggest improvements. Or, for those more inclined to teach by telling, we could provide a list of potential problems as well as positive signs in each.

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Version 1.0.1 of 2025-12-12.