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New CGS dean's goal: promoting classic liberal arts

By David J. Craig

The way Linda Wells describes it, her predicament as the new dean of the College of General Studies sounds like none at all.

"This college has got real challenges ahead of it, primarily brought on by the improved credentials of the incoming students," says Wells. "We have a better qualified freshman class every year, and oddly enough, prospective students are initially more hesitant."

	Linda Wells, new dean of the College of General Studies, is directing a self-study of the college to examine recruitment, curriculum, and technology issues. Photo by Kalman Zabarsky

Hesitant, because when trying to decide where to enroll, a student accepted to CGS this year was likely entertaining offers from four-year programs at other major universities. So why pay dues at BU's two-year program?

"My challenge is to communicate our strengths," says Wells, "mainly that all of our faculty are here full-time and dedicated to teaching, that our team-teaching system allows students to form friendships right away and to get to know their teachers, and that we offer a strong liberal arts program with an interdisciplinary nature."

The College of General Studies grew out of BU's General College, whose enrollment was largely World War II veterans. It eventually became a separate college and a destination for first-generation college students, and later drawing underachieving students with potential and students whose interests had not yet crystallized. But that too is changing, thanks to the improved quality of students applying to BU, and therefore, being directed toward CGS.

The College of General Studies has certainly evolved. The average SAT score for CGS freshmen rose by about 150 points during the past decade, and about 75 percent of the college's graduates go on to receive bachelor's degrees.

Yet, like the College of Basic Studies, as it was previously known, the name General Studies still has a slightly unflattering ring among students at the Charles River Campus, Wells says, because "there is a sense that the students here have not met some standard."

The solution, she says, is simple: "Students have to find it within themselves to value their program and to value themselves." And the valuable aspects of CGS, Wells says, are legion.

Because all freshmen take the same 10 courses, she says, professors can drive home concepts that are reinforced in all subjects. "Of course, some people prefer to go into a smorgasbord," says Wells, who speaks quickly and with the earnest exuberance of a born teacher. "But if you were to take a humanities course elsewhere in the University as a freshman, no professor could assume that you had studied Weber, Durkheim, Marx, and Freud. And something special happens to our students intellectually when they see how knowledge in one area reinforces and illuminates knowledge in other areas."

But there's room for improvement, she acknowledges. To understand the college's changing identity, Wells plans to lead CGS on a self-study this year, examining everything from student recruitment and curriculum to technological capacity and physical infrastructure.

She is already looking into increasing technology-assisted instruction in the rhetoric and math departments, and offering the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program's services at CGS.

In addition, Wells is considering ways of "being more public about who we are," by increasing CGS visibility in the Office of Admissions literature, and perhaps working with high school guidance counselors to explain more emphatically what CGS has to offer.

"What used to happen is the first time the students ever heard about CGS was when they got the good news­bad news letter saying they were admitted to BU, but at CGS," Wells says. "Then they want to know if they can do study abroad as a junior, and if they can live in residence halls and participate in all the student organizations. And of course they can, because they absolutely are a part of BU, and we need to highlight that a bit more. The students need to know that when they come here they are in the mainstream of BU and are not limiting their opportunities."

A former high school English teacher, Wells was a CGS professor of humanities from 1980 to 1997 and has served as a special assistant to Provost Dennis Berkey for the past three years, directing the University's 10-year accreditation review during the first two years. She replaced Brendan Gilbane, who had served as CGS dean for 26 years, on September 1.

Wells holds a Ph.D. in 19th- and 20th-century American and British literature from the University of Wisconsin­Madison and is currently working on a book about the disparity between 19th-century American law and the ideals of morality expressed in African-American slave narratives.

Bari Walsh contributed to this report.

3 October 2000
Boston University
Office of University Relations