Iowa State think they know gooder then we student’s how much, like, writing instruction too do.

Count the errors. If you get eight, then maybe we’re wrong about this. If you didn’t get eight, read on to understand our apprehensions about curriculum changes at Iowa State.

The ISUComm Initiative, which (generally) is a replacement for the English 104/105 sequence for new students, has slowly moved through planning phases and pilot classes in recent years. It’s a project designed by English faculty and other communicators, so it’s no surprise to find a copious amount of words have been written on the project. The best succinct summary of the project’s goal? Improve the skills of ISU students in written communication, oral communication, visual communication and electronic communication.

It’s true that jobs require more knowledge of desktop publishing, presentation preparation and general computer knowledge than they used to. And neither the university nor any college requires much in the way of practicing oral skills. It makes sense to add lessons on all those topics — no dispute there.

But please. Not at the expense of writing. We beg you. ISUComm, as it’s currently planned, would see all students take a three-credit course during their freshman year. During the sophomore year, they’d all take another three-credit course. In other words, it’s the same amount of time committed to communication education as the current 104/105 sequence.

That’s the wrong way to go.

The planners of this project could say anything they want about how ISUComm will produce a greater emphasis by faculty on communication teaching at Iowa State or that the courses will be taught better. But qualitative assertions like that seem shady and aren’t particularly helpful when we’re trying to determine the efficacy of a policy. ISU students — and ISU graduates — are, in general, poor writers, like most college graduates. How can we say this? We read — we peer review in classes, we edit the letters you write to the Daily, we get out to that first job and see the offensive strings of letters that often count for writing in the writing-intensive fields of … well, almost all fields.

If oral, visual and electronic communication are important — and it’s fair to say that they are — the solution is adding and redefining courses, not squeezing important things out of current offerings.

Yes, adding university-wide requirements would cause all kinds of Soar in 4 and degree planing headaches. We’ll deal with it. That problem is far preferable to routinely graduating students who can’t write a memo.

Writing matters. The curriculum should reflect that.