By Eric Lippe, Magazine Editor
Gettysburg College students and faculty reflect on the college’s fourth hour requirement in light of the upcoming accredit
Gettysburg College’s fourth hour requirement has been a point of contention among students and faculty alike since its implementation in the 2012-2013 academic year. In anticipation of the first Middle States review since its realization, members of the campus community reflect on its origin and purpose, as well as their hope for the future of what the fourth hour requirement might become.
Every ten years, the Middle States Commission on Higher Education (MSCHE) conducts a review on its member institutions in order to ensure compliance with federal accreditation standards. Gettysburg College was last reviewed in 2014 and is scheduled to be reviewed again in the spring of 2024.
Currently, Gettysburg College is in the self-study phase of the review process, where the college is asked to prepare a report to MSCHE communicating “…who we are, what we are, what our strengths are, and what our opportunities for growth are,” according to management professor Christopher Zappe, co-chair of the steering committee that authored the report.
“Middle States gives us seven standards that we have to meet, ranging from the student learning experience to planning and administration and leadership,” said associate professor of anthropology Amy Evrard, the other co-chair of the current steering committee.
One of these standards, the assessment of student learning, led to the development of the fourth hour requirement more than a decade ago.
“When we had our last review, there was a concern that there was not enough assessment of student learning. And that if you’re going to claim to be a first class liberal arts college, you really need to be able to demonstrate that students are actually learning,” said Zappe. “The question is now, have we gone too far? I am not making a conclusion. But I think that’s a question that’s– you know–probably up for consideration. Some faculty members feel, I think, burdened by it.”
Gettysburg College models its credit system on the Carnegie Unit and the requirements established by both federal and state standards. This means that Gettysburg College counts all classes as equal to one credit unit instead of having credits distributed based on the hours of class time that a course meets per week per semester.
“If you were to go to Penn State for example, and take Spanish 101, you would receive three credit hours. At Gettysburg College you receive four credit hours for it, so where the typical Gettysburg College student takes four classes a semester, at other places that have a credit hours system, students are probably more likely to take five classes every semester,” said Spanish associate professor Jenny Dumont. “I think that people would make the argument that Gettysburg classes are more rigorous and that they go deeper.”
According to English associate professor and former vice provost Jack Ryan, the development of the fourth hour requirement began around 2009. At the time, Ryan explained that there was an understanding that there would be “changes that were going to occur with the Middle States Commission on Higher Education because of federal policy enforcement… we had to have proof that if you’re taking a class that didn’t have a lab, or it didn’t have an extra hour registered through the Office of the Registrar, that somehow students were doing things above and beyond the three hours of seat time.”
The result of this change was an amendment to Gettysburg College’s academic course credit policy. The new policy, which was implemented in the academic year 2012-2013, states that “since all full-credit academic courses at Gettysburg are officially scheduled for a minimum of three hours per week, we need to document how each of our courses meets ‘the fourth hour’ and its related out-of-class time requirement.”
This policy is what became the fourth hour requirement as it exists today, informing many of the policy’s strengths and drawbacks.
“People weren’t happy with it. You know, because well, we’re Gettysburg College, but Middle States Commission on Higher Education answers to the federal government,” Ryan said.
For some students and faculty members, however, it is not always the existence of the fourth hour that is the source of frustration but its varied implementation across disciplines and even between individual classes.
“The fourth hour is an actively harmful policy that leads to unfair grading and manufactured burnout and disinterest in subjects, neither the teaching faculty nor the students seem to find any enjoyment or use in it,” said Henry Grinnell ’24.
Other students, like Devyn Wesolowski ’25, echoed Grinnell’s sentiments, stating that there are “classes that just use the fourth hour requirement as an excuse to assign more work that neither the students want to do, or the professors want to grade.”
As a professor, Dumont has a mixed opinion on the fourth hour requirement: “I think students don’t understand the fourth credit hour. I think they think it’s something that’s just tacked on. I think if students get four credits, it should be a coherent experience and not a three credit hour class plus random stuff.”
Despite Gettysburg College’s official policy on the matter stating that fourth hours must be “structured so as to serve the declared learning goals of the course,” per the academic course credit declaration form, it is the often tangential nature of the requirement that leaves students unsatisfied or unhappy.
However, the fourth hour requirement also lends itself to many notable benefits that would be lost by an attempt to outright remove it.
“I have taken some classes at Gettysburg with fourth hour requirements that have actually been really interesting and helpful, for example a few of my art history classes have either visited museums, or the art gallery on campus, or special collections as our form of a fourth hour requirement,” said Wesolowski.
The structure of credit units also lends itself to the liberal arts goals of Gettysburg college in a way that credit hours would not.
“I think making all classes equal is a good idea. You know, I personally believe that Spanish 101 and 102 is just as important as the class for a major, because it’s not just Spanish– it’s critical thinking, it’s being global citizens, being engaged members of the community,” said Dumont.
Ryan explained his thoughts on the positive for a fourth credit hour.
“Used properly, the fourth credit hour can expand the student learning experience, and expand that experience in a way that promotes curiosity, and doesn’t suffer from traditional evaluation,” said Ryan.
In addition to labs, lectures, and other experiential opportunities, some departments choose to use their fourth hour requirement to educate students in more direct ways. The Spanish department, for example, works with the Center for Public Service to have students volunteer with the Gettysburg and Adams County community.
Despite many fourth hour classes causing students to engage with learning goals in unique ways, many students continue to feel frustrated by requirements that appear to waste their time or do not meaningfully contribute to their education.
“While I do think in concept, they’re good, I think the fact that some classes require them, some don’t, some make up 20% of the grade, some make up 5% total– that because there’s no universal model for how the fourth hour credits work, it makes for a really, really sloppy workload,” said Elliott Wakefield ’26.
Students and faculty alike appear to wish that the fourth hour requirement needs to be standardized for all classes to meaningfully use them to contribute to their learning goals.
“While it was standardized for a while there’s been a lack of consistency in expectations, and I think that some people have looked at it as something they just have to do on paper for accreditation purposes. And so I think that the campus would benefit from creating standardized expectations that go beyond just 14 hours of extra work that will be graded,” said Dumont. “Gettysburg College students are paying for– and expecting– an education that’s equivalent to other institutions or even superior and we need to deliver that.”
This article originally appeared on pages 12 to 13 of the December 2023 edition of The Gettysburgian’s magazine.
