The Echols Scholar Program is purported to be the one of the highest intellectual honors at the University. Before coming to Grounds, scholars are selected as beacons of engaged, interdisciplinary leadership. All first-year applicants are automatically considered for the program through their CommonApp applications, and rising second-years can apply in. These scholars are afforded two main benefits by virtue of their title — they receive priority course enrollment times and forgo the University’s general education requirements.
While priority enrollment times produce a problematic hierarchy between scholars and non-scholars, the removal of general education requirements spells hypocrisy for a program founded upon the goal of interdisciplinarity. In fact, by requiring no tangible demonstration of interdisciplinary study, this program promotes a version of study antithetical to its stated mission of supporting interdisciplinary scholars.
To understand how the Echols Scholar Program has strayed from their mission, it is important to understand the purpose of general education requirements in the College of Arts and Sciences in the first place. According to the University’s academic policies, students should be introduced to a variety of topics beyond their academic niche. The University requires students to take two rhetorical classes, learn a language for four semesters and enroll in two quantification courses on top of the broader requirement to take classes in seven disciplines.
By creating this framework, the University encourages interdisciplinarity as a means for creating students conversant in topics ranging from literature to global political systems and climate change. In short, the general education requirements are premised on the idea that a well-rounded student begets a well-rounded citizen who can better engage with the world surrounding them.
While there is much debate over what to require in general education requirements, the fact of the matter is that general education requirements exemplify the interdisciplinary study which the Echols Scholars Program purports to hold so dear. Therefore, the exemption of Echols Scholars Program general education requirements — which the University identifies as necessary for all other students — is suspicious to say the least. Despite the program espousing values of interdisciplinarity and intellectual engagement, scholars are not held accountable to this mission. Rather, they are trusted to pursue interdisciplinary study on their own, a process which yields deeply mixed results. In this way, the Echols Scholars Program fails to challenge its students or hold scholars accountable to the program's stated mission.
The criteria for membership in the Echols Scholars Program further undermines the stated mission of the program. According to their criteria, Echols Scholars are not selected for their grades, but rather, their curiosity and intellectual potential. Following these lines, it is argued that removing general education requirements is the only way for these curious scholars to take advanced classes relating to their interests without obstruction. This assumption is patently untrue — the reality is that general education requirements do not hinder non-scholars from double-majoring or minoring in their interdisciplinary interests. In fact, general education requirements often facilitate the process of curious exploration by exposing students to interests they might not have previously considered. In short, by actively removing the very thing which encourages intellectual curiosity, the Echols Scholars Program has actually hindered its nominal mission of enabling curiosity.
The practice of interdisciplinarity is not altogether lost, though, if you are an Echols Scholar with extra time on your hands and an unfounded belief in your ability to create a major. The program offers an interdisciplinary major which is student designed and noticeably punctuated on the page by an extended discussion about a lack of career prospects. This lack of career prospects is likely connected to the fact that student-designed majors are a bit like student-designed grading — that is to say, they are often fairly meaningless.
By entrusting scholars who are not equipped with general education requirements to design competent majors, there is no guarantee that scholars can adequately enrich themselves in interdisciplinary study. Tennis cannot be played fairly without a net, and not all scholars can succeed in interdisciplinary study without tangible requirements pushing them in the right direction.
Tangible requirements for an honors program are not only recommended — they are standard at honors programs across the country. Usually, programs require a four-year commitment on behalf of the student to take advanced general education requirements in addition to writing a thesis. The University of Michigan, for example, requires students of its honors college to create a capstone project in their last two years, the interdisciplinary product of rigorous general education requirements alongside their area of focus. Most of these programs additionally require their students to keep their GPA at a certain level in order to retain their honors status. Expectations like this are notably nonexistent for the Echols Scholars Program.
The Echols Scholars Program should require a limited amount of advanced general education requirements, while also considering the benefit of a capstone thesis for scholars. Afterall, both implicitly further the intellectual and interdisciplinary curiosity which is so central to the Echols mission However, as it stands, the Echols Scholars Program has betrayed this mission. In rewarding its scholars with the tangible benefit of no requirements, this program has overstepped academic boundaries and lost sight of interdisciplinarity. Ironically, the Echols Scholars Program, in refusing to take inspiration from other honors college programs, demonstrates a sincere lack of intellectual curiosity.
Scarlett Sullivan is a senior opinion columnist for The Cavalier Daily. She can be reached at opinion@cavalierdaily.com.
The opinions expressed in this column are not necessarily those of The Cavalier Daily. Columns represent the views of the authors alone.
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