The Academic Senate approved a plan to dramatically revamp the 1983-designed general education (GE) curriculum that undergraduates take in the College of Letters and Science.

The plan, issued by the College's GE Governance Committee and approved by a majority vote of the Legislative Assembly on Feb. 12, will require students to take fewer total GE units and fewer science classes, but it will allow undergraduates to choose more courses for their majors, minors or electives, faculty members said.

"General education in the College has really not substantially changed in 20 years," said David S. Rodes, senior lecturer in English and chair of the 14-member committee of faculty and students. "We believed that as we looked at new GE courses and at student exit surveys, as we talked to students and taught our courses, it might be the case that general education had deteriorated in quality as the original energy of courses had drifted. So we tried to think of ways to improve general education and give it added intellectual context or explanation."

The new collegewide requirements -- which will take effect for incoming freshmen in fall 2002 and for transfer students in fall 2004 -- incorporates GE courses within three main areas: Foundations of the Arts and Humanities; Foundations of Society and Culture; and Foundations of Scientific Inquiry. The foreign language, quantitative reasoning and writing requirements remain the same.

Altogether, students will take 74 GE course units, accounting for 41% of the required units needed to graduate; in comparison, today's undergraduates must take 82 GE units, which comprise 45% of their total coursework.

Before making their decision, faculty members found out what other UC campuses and UCLA's School of Film, Theater and Television and the School of the Arts and Architecture asked of their undergraduates. In comparison, Rodes said, "the percentage of students' time taken in general education in the College was way out of line."

The reduction in science GE requirements from six courses to three also brings UCLA more in line with other UC campuses, according to College administrators. Under the old rules, undergraduates in the College were taking twice as many science courses as UC Berkeley students.

Several faculty members, however, expressed concern about the reduction at a time when scientific knowledge is at a premium.

"To reduce the GE requirement for our students would seem to be a step in the wrong direction," said Gordon Fain, professor of physiology, who said faculty in his department also are worried about the change. However, GE courses in his field are now largely taught by temporary faculty in his department, Fain said, and the situation may worsen with budget-cutting. "Were we flush with funds," Fain added, "I would be more upset. But under the present circumstances I see no other course of action."

The Senate is assigning workgroups to each of the three GE areas to review and evaluate every course in the College, said Raymond Knapp, chair of the Undergraduate Council. They will also determine whether courses should be worth four or five units.

Added Rodes: "We really do believe that this chance to look at all of the GE courses will be sobering and give us a chance to make them substantially better."