Thirty-Two PACS Soon to be Required
By Packman06
She Likes Crickets

Many Pomona students have experienced the benefits of the PAC (Perception, Analysis, and Communication) system at Pomona. They have taken courses that they would have never enrolled in otherwise, and have acquired a diverse range of skills. But beginning next year, most (if not all) of the classes that incoming freshmen take throughout their four years at Pomona will have to fulfill a PAC requirement.

The faculty and administration voted this week to substantially revise Pomona’s PAC system. One of the most influential revisions will drastically increase the number of PAC courses that each student is required to complete for graduation. In an effort to “fully liberate students by educating them in skills necessary to succeed,” which is “an essential goal of the liberal arts education” according to Dean of College Gary Kates, twenty-two PACs have been added to the current ten.

“Our experience has been that when freshmen enter Pomona, they are unaware of which courses they will need to enter the adult work force fully-prepared,” explained Kates.

Dean of the Students Ann Quinley added: “it is essential that students acquire the skills that we feel are necessary for them to make valid choices.”

Thus, by choosing their college courses for them, the administration hopes to train students to properly exercise their freedom of choice when they depart Pomona. Each of the skills outlined in the thirty-two PAC requirements has been deemed essential to personal growth and development.

Betty Porter ’04, a student who has actively participated in PAC forums and discussion, finds the revisions to be “absolutely essential to a liberal arts education is supposed to teach us how to think more openly, and how are we going to do that if we don’t have the skills?—Students here need to be a lot more open-minded.”

James Ashland ’05 reinforced the idea that students are ignorant of the knowledge and skills they need to acquire when entering college: “Some people are just too arrogant,” he said. “We need to trust those who have lived longer than us; otherwise, why are we bothering to be educated?”

In addition to the PAC requirements that have been added, the General Education overlay requirements have also been revised. Students must now take at least two speaking intensive and two writing intensive courses while at Pomona, and will also be required to take eight courses dealing with power dynamics in the United States. These courses will include the study of dominant and oppressive powers, as well as the study of those who are oppressed by these dominant powers, in order to compensate for any potential inherent political bias.

“Every student has the obligation to examine power difference in America,” contended Ann Rochester ’06 “Anyone who does not see this as an obligation is just uninformed. That is the goal of this requirement: to teach people to respect variety of thought and belief.”

Her classmate Ryan Bohan ’06 agreed: “Students must shed their uninformed beliefs before they can make valid choices. This requirement simply mandates that they have the opportunity to do so. It’s like having to be put down before you can growÖmaybeÖ or something like that.”

Tim Hokes ’05 agreed that “no one here really has an acute global understanding. Anyone who disagrees with me just proves that people are too narrow-minded.”

In order for students to develop the skills needed to examine differences in race, gender, ethnicity, class, sexual orientation and religion in American society, the “Power Dynamics” requirement mandates that one take courses in pairs. In other words, for every subject taught, students must take a class which explores a counterpoint to that subject.

Some paired course titles include “The De-Masculinization of Men in American culture: Negative Repercussions of the Feminist Movement” and “Black Women’s Feminism in Society,” “Human Sexuality” and “Abstinence and The Negative Psychological Effects of Abortion,” “Oppression of Whites in America” and “Whiteness: Race, Class, and Power,” “The Decline of American Patriotism in the 21st Century” and “What is America? Politics of Race, Class and Gender,” and finally “Feminist Take on the Bible” vs. “The Power of the Protestant: Christianity and its Benefits in America.”