Western Civ as a College Requirement?

The Stanford Review has announced that a petition to reinstate the study of Western Civilization as a core requirement for all students has collected 

"over 370 signatures, qualifying it for the spring ASSU elections ballot in April."

The Review‘s petition will be voted on between April 7 and 8 by the Stanford undergraduate population. Vote for Western Civilization!
 

Sure, Western Civilization produced more than weapons. But it got your attention, didn't it?

After more than 20 years without this requirement, Stanford may now return this study, that of our own history, to the curriculum. Nothing occurs in a vacuum, certainly not education.  Whether a student is planning to be a psychologist or a chemical engineer, they deserve to know from whence their disciplines came.  Surely other civilizations played roles in the history of knowledge, but it is through the lens of Western Civilization that we perceive them; as the US is a product and a producer of Western Civ.  


Image credit: Metropolitan Museum of Art http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/34294