With back to school season in full swing, students everywhere are heading back to classes ready to take on another academic year. While artistic programs such as dance often times only fill elective requirements, some may not realize that in some places dance has served as more than just that. Imagine being able to take a Dance Appreciation course – online, and be guaranteed more than just a passing grade, rather dancing your way to an “A”.

For quite some time students attending Rutgers University and other New Brunswick-affiliated schools have commonly referred to courses like Dance Appreciation and Dance Appreciation online course as “GPA boosters” due to the nearly 100% passing rate and the fact that almost everyone receives an “A”. So it should come as no surprise that a large number of students needing an additional required course would choose one with a lesson plan consisting of watching live performances in class then writing reaction papers in response. The rather light course curriculum combined with the assured high marks earned this class a spot on the lists of easy Rutgers courses.

As a result a group of Rutgers faculty representatives known as The Core Requirements Committee voted last December to remove the Dance Appreciation classroom and online courses from their School of Arts and Sciences Core Curriculum after the spring 2016 term. The committee released a statement declaring that that the courses did not meet the Arts and Humanities learning goals, which mandates that students take six credits in two of the three Arts and Humanities learning areas: Philosophical and Theoretical Issues, Arts and Literatures and Nature of Languages.

This curriculum is a requirement for undergraduate students in the School of Arts and Sciences, Rutgers Business School and the School of Environmental and Biological Sciences.However the statement from the School of Arts read, … Evidence did not demonstrate that Dance Appreciation and Dance Appreciation Online significantly increased students ability to meet Core learning goals; specifically, to (1) “examine critically philosophical and other theoretical issues concerning the nature of reality, human experience, knowledge, value, and/or cultural production” [AHo] or “analyze arts and/or literatures in themselves and in relation to specific histories, values, languages, cultures, and technologies” [AHp].”
In a statement to the media, David Hughes, president of the Rutgers American Association of University Professors-American Federation of Teachers, questioned why any school would even want to offer a class where virtually everyone gets an “A”. Ultimately ten other courses were also removed from the list of approved courses fulfilling core requirements along with the two Dance Appreciation courses.Ask yourself, would you take such a course if it were an option for you, or recommend it for a loved one? Why or why not?