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I feel that the current requirements for Bryn Mawr complete most aspects of the mission statement. The first part of the mission statement claims that  "Bryn Mawr teaches and values critical, creative and independent habits of thought and expression." This is elaborated on when the second paragraph says that our community values "learning through conversation and collaboration, primary reading, original research and experimentation." The current requirements require that students complete courses in three different divisions, and also fulfill a quantitative requirement. The Q requirement achieves the need for students to learn through first hand experimentation and the divisional requirements allow students to experience both critical and creative thought. Another benefit to the idea of having divisional requirements is that it created a well-rounded education, during which students must learn from many professors, departments, and other students. This accomplishes the college goal to gain understanding through experiencing many perspectives. However,  the requirements fulfill the college mission is only in an out dated way. This out dated view of the mission statement should be replaced by a modern interpretation that is more fitting with the current world.

The revised requirements that have been proposed to the college really do not change anything or do a better job of creating a modern curriculum. The new distributional requirements have essentially the same rules as the old ones, with only one fewer required class. Like we talked about in class, these changes are all just "fiddling."

So maybe we need to do something more radical. Considering the article I read last week about the effects of service learning in college education, I began to think about how the inclusion of more service learning and community interaction could help our college curriculum adjust to the current world and redefine the part of the mission statement that says that Bryn Mawr wants to "encourage students to be responsible citizens who provide service to and leadership for an increasingly interdependent world."