As Director of a Learning Center, a faculty advisor, and a parent of two college graduates, I have frequently heard students rationalize their minimal performance in courses by saying, “It’s just a gen ed. ” To faculty who teach general education courses1, who believe in the value of general education requirements and advocate a liberal arts education, those five words raise concerns. General education programs have several goals in common with Writing-Across-the-Curriculum programs. These common-alities, along with several ideas about writing and learning, persuade me that WAC programs, and Writing Intensive (WI)2 courses, in particular, have the potential to effect positive change in student attitudes toward general education courses, and ultimately to effect reform in pedagogy in general education courses. Since 1978 when the Carnegie Foundation indicted colleges and universities for the lack of coherence in their general education programs, slow but steady progress has been made toward reforms in general educa-