At yesterday’s College of Arts and Science’s budget presentation, Interim Dean Darrell Turnidge began his presentation with a light-hearted message to his colleagues.

“It has been said the liberal arts is the sun around which all other disciplines revolve,” stated the first of many slides in his budget proposal.

While the slide evoked laughter from the crowd of nearly 100 administrators, faculty and students gathered in the Moulton Hall Ballroom for the annual budget meetings, the majority of students take LERs in any of the 17 academic departments in the college.

But future Kent State students will see changes in the LER courses they are required to take.

In accordance to state mandate, future graduates will have to satisfy the State of Ohio Transfer Module requirements, which will require students to take a course in math. Turnidge said he does not think the mandate will affect current students’ requirements.

Presently, students can take a foreign language or logic course in place of a math course to fulfill their LER graduation requirements.

“People don’t take math for a reason — it’s a difficult subject for them,” Turnidge said. “It puts more expectation on the student entering college and more expectation on the high schools.”

Nearly 90 percent of LER courses are in the College of Arts and Sciences, and generally 50 to 80 percent of courses taken by new freshmen from all colleges are Arts and Sciences courses.

— Ryan Loew