The CC faculty voted overwhelmingly to eliminate the college’s Critical Perspectives requirement, the West in Time, at its April faculty meeting. The Curriculum Executive Committee proposed the change after multiple requests that it review and reconsider the requirement. Students had voiced concerns in recent years that the requirement put too much emphasis on Western culture and civilization while neglecting or marginalizing other bodies of knowledge, ideas, and experiences that challenge the centrality of Western thought.

The West in Time as a general education requirement was adopted during the 2005-06 academic year. Each West in Time course was a two-block, two-unit course that covered the Western experience over a significant period of time, for example, the Middle Ages to the modern period. The Curriculum Executive Committee is in the midst of a general education review and redesign, assessing general education requirements and exploring new models, and currently there is no replacement for the West in Time requirement. Some of the courses that fulfilled the requirement are still offered; only the requirement itself was dropped.