CITIZENSHIP MATTERS. That’s one message to take away from the modest changes to Stanford’s general education requirements for undergraduates, approved by the Faculty Senate in February.

The changes, which will take effect this fall, are designed to simplify the system of requirements and clarify their academic rationale. Techie and fuzzie subject-area requirements will be combined under the rubric of “disciplinary breadth”; students will be required to take one course in each of five subcategories: engineering and applied sciences, humanities, mathematics, natural sciences and social sciences. Students must take courses in two of the four areas that make up “education for citizenship”: American cultures, the global community, gender studies and a new subcategory, ethical reasoning. The freshman-year Introduction to the Humanities program will remain unchanged.

The current system of general education requirements took effect in the fall of 1996. A full review of the requirements will begin in two years.