Big changes are coming to the bread-and-butter of SMU’s academic experience – also known as the General Education Curriculum (GEC) – as a review committee has spent the spring semester revamping the curriculum and drawing up a new plan.

Adopted in 1997, the current curriculum set, now 12 years old, is the subject of a dramatic rethinking by SMU to help boost the university’s academic reputation and bring it boldly into the “Second Century,” the name of SMU’s current $750 million campaign financial goal for 2013.

Associate Provost Tom Tunks, co-chair of the curriculum review committee, assures students that “there is nothing wrong” with the current curriculum, but says “it’s just good business to review what you’re doing.” Despite some setbacks during the last several years, the review process is now in full swing and is producing some intriguing results.

However, current SMU students and those matriculating in 2009 need not worry about adjusting quite yet. The complete overhaul is not likely to be reviewed, approved and instituted until Fall 2011 at the earliest, Tunks said.

Parents worried about new students being used as guinea pigs may now take a breath.

No matter what major or minor a student chooses, the GEC is a central part of an SMU education – for now. According to the Dedman College advising center, one of the first offices new students encounter, the GEC is “a core group of course requirements which all students must fulfill in order to graduate,” emphasizing “the skills, knowledge and values of what historically has been known as a liberal arts education.”

From fine art and literature to philosophy and even information technology, the GEC first gives students an opportunity to firm up foundational skills such as writing and reasoning. Then students are exposed throughout their undergraduate careers to a variety of topics and ideas that are often outside one’s chosen field of study. Sometimes, exposure to new concepts helps students decide on their major or minor.

As first-years, students begin with the basics, including one course in mathematics and two courses in rhetoric (the college equivalent of high school English). In addition, all SMU students must take an introductory computer course (or place out via waiver).

Once past the so-called “Fundamentals” – typically limited to a few courses with many sections – students have a bit more freedom to select the classes that interest them.

“Perspectives” are entry-level courses in six categories: the arts, literature, religious and philosophical thought, history and art history, politics and economics and behavioral sciences. Students must complete at least one course from each of five of these six fields.

Next, the sciences make up six hours of an undergraduate career, meaning two basic science or technology courses, each with a weekly lab section outside of lecture.

Typically beginning in a student’s junior year, two “Cultural Formations” courses challenge him or her to explore very specific, often cross-disciplinary topics, with more writing, reading and reasoning-intensive assignments than more general courses. “CFs” include such intriguing titles as “Warfare and Violence: The Anthropology and Ethics of Human Conflict” and “Genetic Determinism and Free Will: The Impact of Human Genetics and Biotechnology on Human Choice.” SMU students flock to the wildly popular “Human Sexuality” course, which is rumored to be the first to fill up each semester.

From beginning to end, SMU’s GEC touches on the cornerstones of what most academicians and higher education scholars believe will produce a well-rounded student at the end of a four-year academic career. The challenges one encounters gradually progress from rudimentary, high school review classes to the most specific, most rigorous courses. In this way, the curriculum grows with the student and allows him or her to become comfortable with the shift from high school to college.

According to Tunks, new college students should be aware of the difference between a high school and collegiate education. Tunks says students who took courses in each field outlined by the GEC in high school were “drawing from the well of knowledge, learning what other people have discovered.

“In college, maybe it’s time…to show [students] how we contribute to the well of knowledge,” he said.

By conducting scholarly research and understanding the “methods of inquiry” undertaken by academics and researchers, college students’ attitudes begin to shift to those of scholars who, for Tunks, do “more than just transmit the knowledge that somebody else generated.

“A scholar generates knowledge,” Tunks said.

Converting students into scholars, including developing research skills, is one of several major goals of the new “University Curriculum,” successor to the current GEC.