UnclUstered General education titles renamed by department

By BRIANNA THWEATT The Breeze

As students enter JMU, they’ll have one thing in common no matter their major: The general education system. But, new students and all fall 2023 class registers won’t be familiar with the same class category umbrellas as past students. Classes in the general education program classes were officially renamed to be the topics of each cluster rather than “clusters” on March 20.

Totaling about 41 credits, the general education curriculum is meant to be an “essential part” of understanding the different colleges around campus, according to JMU’s website. This is done by dividing each college into five separate groups, specializing in areas such as critical thinking, science and health.

In creating this new overview of the different colleges, the university is still dividing classes into five groups, as they are now called. The classes within the program remain the same, the titles of each division have now changed.

While the idea of changing the titles had been discussed over a course of a couple of semesters, it wasn’t until last year’s academic general education program review that the word “cluster” was removed, Margaret Mulrooney, senior associate vice provost for academic programs and equity, said.

“Today, ‘cluster’ no longer has a useful meaning, although the area groupings still make sense,” Mulrooney said. “‘Madison Foundations’ better convey a foundational role of that area’s requirements.”

Mulrooney said she views the new titles as not only a means of conveying what students will be learning but also as working to be a supportive system of programs for students to use now and beyond JMU.

Students don’t necessarily agree with the change.

Freshman Samantha Wong first heard about the title change very briefly from a class. Hearing the news, she felt it was “easier to refer to “cluster 2’,” since the actual course titles are relatively long.

“Cluster means multiple things in a group,”

Wong said. Therefore, she said the cluster title “fits” the general education program as there are multiple classes within each category.

“I think this change will be very similar to upperclassmen calling King Hall ‘EnGeo,’” Wong said. King Hall is the new namesake of what was the ISAT building. “This language of clusters will probably stick around for a little while longer.”

Mulrooney said the process of changing the cluster names was carried out by numerous faculty governance committees. The General Education Council and five other committees each representing a specific area based upon the different majors within the colleges such as the School of Media Arts and Design and Justice Studies were involved in the decision.

Throughout their semester-long meetings, Mulrooney said their main objective was to make the program’s content more comprehensive for both students and faculty.

The committees met and collaborated on advising the program while also overseeing the curriculum, Mulrooney said. She mentioned how the process is similar to how the different academic colleges oversee their majors’ curricula.

Despite the change to the general education program titles, Mulrooney said between course numbers and search codes, nothing’s changed besides cluster titles.

In making this switch, the council and committees have informed the JMU community by uploading the 2023-24 planner, changing the names through MyMadison as well as sending a mass email to the entire JMU campus on March 20.

While this is just one update to JMU’s general education system, Mulrooney hopes that, moving forward, both students and faculty will continue developing the program to suit their needs in the future.

CONTACT BriAnna Thweatt at thweatbf@ dukes.jmu.edu. For more coverage of JMU and Harrisonburg news, follow the news desk on