Senior Ashley Smith never gave much thought to the flags she needed to graduate. Majoring in Plan II, international relations and global studies, Smith said her coursework mostly aligned with the University of Texas’ flag requirements to graduate.
“At one of my first advising appointments, the advisor told me for Plan II, ‘You don’t really need to worry about this,’” Smith said. “I think all the flags, minus maybe one, (are) built into the Plan II curriculum.”
The flags refer to the Skills and Experience Flags, a set of graduation requirements designed to build students’ skills for career success. They currently mandate that each student complete at least one course with each of the six flags: writing, ethics, cultural diversity in the U.S., global cultures, quantitative reasoning and independent inquiry.
Over the semester, the provost office’s Flag Review Committee has reviewed possible changes to the flag system. Michael Drew, a member of the Flag Review Committee and an associate dean for undergraduate education, said in a March 24 Faculty Council meeting the committee will finish its work in about two weeks.
While the committee has not finished its final recommendation to the provost, the committee published a preliminary report during the meeting that identified what the revisions might look like. It proposes considering a “hub-and-spoke model” where colleges have more control over the implementation of the flag system, while the University keeps some main requirements.
“The flags are administered centrally, but resource and curriculum management generally occur at the college level or the (college, school and unit) level, and that can create tension,” Drew said. “We’ve heard from faculty and colleges who would like more flexibility to adopt flag criteria to field specific needs.”
Noeh Rodriguez, an electrical and computer engineering freshman, said he needed more help figuring out the system.
“It’s very confusing,” Rodriguez said. “I think the advisors aren’t frankly knowledgeable enough about the flags to really help you out and it’s really complicated, and sometimes I feel like I don’t need them.”
The review committee also voiced concerns that the flags in their current form may not reflect what is needed in the workplace today.
“We also recognized that the flags were conceived almost exactly 20 years ago,” Drew said. “We recognize that the curriculum of UT, the resources, experiences and teaching have all evolved in the last 20 years. Also, our ideas about what skills are needed for success in the workplace and beyond have changed.”
Yet some professors, including professor of instruction Gautami Shah, questioned Drew over the motivation behind the changes at the meeting.
“I kept hearing about ‘skills, skills, skills,’” Shah said.“We are a university and we are not necessarily here only to produce skills. We have ethics flags. I don’t think that is really producing skills. … Why is the flag committee focusing on skills and experiences rather than knowledge when our job is the production of knowledge?”
