Committee will not consider lab credits

As a special committee continues to review and discuss revisions to Curriculum 2000, natural science majors and pre-med students are concerned with fulfilling graduation requirements. Although the committee agrees that these students spend more time in class and labs than students not taking science courses, the committee will not consider altering the single-credit aspect of the curriculum, because it falls out of its purview.

Currently, pre-med Duke students or those who major in "hard" sciences such as physics and chemistry, assert that they dedicate more time in the classroom than other students. They spend many more hours each week for one science class than another student may spend in a humanities class lecture--yet both of the classes are worth the same single credit for graduation, students said.

Sophomore Chinedu Okpukpara, an undeclared economics major who is also pre-med, admitted that for his introductory biology and organic chemistry classes, he spends five hours studying and two hours writing lab reports, in addition to five hours a week in labs and two hours a week in recitation.

"I don't think it's fair that [pre-med students] have to take four-hour labs and two and a half hour [recitations] for bio in addition to the lectures, whereas other students only have to [attend] lectures," Okpukpara said.

Crystal Agi, a pre-med and undeclared economics major, is worried about graduating on time under the current requirements of Curriculum 2000.

The credit system Duke uses makes it difficult to differentiate the nature of work put into earning a hard science versus a humanities degree, he said.

"The problem is inherent with the one-credit system--the way that every course is one credit," Roy added. "I've always taught at schools where classes are worth either three or four credits--three for lecture and four for a lab component."

Robert Thompson, dean of Trinity College, sees the issue much the way Roy does.

"The issue of credit for labs is an issue that predated this curriculum, but it's a problem of having one course per credit versus a credit-hour system," Thompson said. "With only a four course load, theoretically a student would pursue a lot of work outside of class, so class time would not be a marker for course credits."

Roy further noted that labs and recitation are necessary and the time a student spends in these components of the class comes with the territory.

"Lab is just as important as lecture, and you're just going to have to spend more time [for those classes]. There is a distinction between being a hard science and a [humanities] major. It may be why you don't see many chem majors," Roy said. "I don't think true scientists who want to go to grad school will mind [spending more time for their science classes]--I'd hope that people pick majors they enjoy."

There are still some students who would like some sort of recognition for the extra time spent in labs and recitations.

Yemisi Ogunro, yet another pre-med and economics major, suggested splitting the lecture and labs into two separate classes.

"It would really be a plus to get credit for all the time and effort spent on labs--something that designates our work as being different from those students who are not pre-med," Ogunro said. "That way, I could get say, a 'B' in chem and an 'A' in lab, [and] it would at least help my GPA."

Although there seems to be general agreement that there should be some way of designating the hard science majors and pre-med students from the humanities and social science majors in Trinity, administrators find it difficult to allot lab courses more credit under Curriculum 2000.

"The assumption in the one course-credit model is that a one is a one is a one. But in reality, is [it]?" Thompson asked. "The answer is no. The difficulty would come if we tried to blend the credit-hour model with a course-credit model.

They're very different."