At least 100 Santa Fe College general education courses are being reviewed in a months-long process prompted by Florida law.
The general education course review was mandated under Senate Bill 266, which passed in May 2023 and notably cut funding for diversity, equity and inclusion programs. Across the state, colleges and universities like UF are doing the same thing.
Santa Fe College and the Florida College System under the Florida Department of Education are collaborating on the review.
The college has already removed more than 50 courses from its general education category, while adding at least three new general education courses, according to an earlier draft of a certification list shared with The Alligator. Four state core classes were also added and one core class was removed to comply with new state general education core requirements.
In a Thursday email to faculty and academic leaders, Santa Fe Provost Nate Southerland noted that parts of the certification list shared with The Alligator weren’t accurate; however, those numbers evaluated by The Alligator remain correct.
Courses ranging from “Linear Algebra” to “What is a Good Life” were removed from the general education category.
Southerland said some courses removed from “general education” haven’t counted toward that category for years, yet still showed up under “general education” in the statewide course numbering system.
“The first step of the process was to clean up those records,” he said.
Starting this semester, the Chancellor’s Office will annually review Santa Fe’s list of general education courses and give guidance before these lists are submitted to the State Board of Education in December for approval.
The updated general education categories will go into effect Fall 2025, according to the provost. Anyone who entered before Fall 2025 can graduate using the current general education structure.
Southerland said in an email he could not share an updated course list because the college hasn’t finalized its submission yet. The Liberal Arts and Sciences Curriculum Committee will be revising the list with the Chancellor’s feedback.
David Price, a Santa Fe social and behavioral sciences professor, said the state’s attempt to standardize general education cuts into the ability of schools like Santa Fe to better prepare students when they transfer to a state university.
“I'm philosophically opposed to the state dictating general education packages at the course level to institutions,” he said. “I think that institutions do better when they're allowed the creativity to design their own general education packages.”
Price said the review forces professors to tie their courses to Western civilization, even if the classes don’t deal with Western topics. A friend who teaches a UF course related to the Italian Renaissance, Price said, had to explain how the Italian Renaissance conforms to the Western canon to justify his course.
“That's, to me, kind of disturbing that the state sees fit to micromanage how faculty teach specific content,” Price said.
Florida law states that, when applicable, general education courses should “provide instruction on the historical background and philosophical foundation of Western civilization and this nation’s historical documents.” Humanities general education courses “must include selections from the Western canon.”
Bryan Wuthrich, a Santa Fe professor, said he teaches “United States History to 1877,” a class added this Fall as a social sciences state general education core option. It also helps fulfill the state’s civic literacy requirement.
Wuthrich said he was happy the class was added as a general education core course. It was part of the general education core more than five years ago, he added.
“Students were taking too long to graduate and taking needless classes or getting confused about requirements,” Wuthrich said. “The state decided to pare down the specific classes on gen ed to make it more focused.”
Audrey Holt, a Santa Fe English professor, said she is on the Liberal Arts and Sciences Curriculum Committee and has taught “Introduction to Shakespeare,” one of the general education classes being reviewed, for 20 years.
Holt said classes that have been removed from general education will remain as electives at the college but will face a possible decline in enrollment. She explained that students will be picking less electives because they won’t fit in with gen ed requirements.
“How many people are going to pick Shakespeare? How many people are going to pick Asian religion or art history?” she said. “It's just a matter of them trying to weed out classes in general.”
Contact Timothy Wang at twang@alligator.org. Follow him on X @timothyw_g.
Timothy Wang is a junior journalism student and the Fall 2024 Santa Fe College Reporter. He was the University Administration reporter for Summer 2024. His hobbies include gaming or reading manga.
