The faculty of arts has announced its new degree requirements that will be effective September 2024.
Incoming arts students in September 2024 will be the first to take these new requirements, while returning students will have the option of either remaining with the old requirements or switching to the new ones.
The new degree requirements consist of five components.
The first component, Place and Power, will require students to complete three credits from a list of courses that focus on migration, gender and First Nations issues. The remaining four components are Creative and Interpretive Inquiry, Language as Meaning, Natural and Physical Sciences and Social and Behavioral Systems.
Students will be required to complete 21 credits in total. It is expected that students complete a minimum of 3 credits for each of these five components. The first component, Place and Power, is fixed at three credits, but students may allocate six additional credits between the other four components based on their own interests.
These new requirements will replace the current science, language and literature requirements.
The faculty of arts has opened a survey for students to give their input and feedback on these new degree requirements.
Dr. Stefania Burk, the faculty’s associate dean of academics, said the faculty had already begun reviewing and researching for new sets of degree requirements back in 2015.
“There was a lot of conversation on how we can have the degree as a whole, reflecting some of our values as a faculty and as a university in British Columbia, without making it be overburdensome for students,” said Burk.
By making the degree requirement more flexible, Burk said the hope is to give students more exposure to the different disciplines within the humanities, and to encourage them to expand their approaches to investigating human products of culture.
Viola Chao, Arts Undergraduate Society (AUS) vice-president of academics, said the AUS has also been working closely with the faculty on the roll-out and implementation of this new degree requirements.
“It's definitely a lot of advocacy work … just a lot of conversations in regards to how students will adapt and feel about the requirements,” said Chao.
Chao is hopeful that students will appreciate the flexibility and autonomy this new plan gives.
“I think that when students are given autonomy into their degree in terms of what they're taking, it's a lot more meaningful,” she said.