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TEMPE — The state's three universities are turning out students who know nothing about global warming and other key issues of the day, the vice president of the Arizona Board of Regents said recently.

"What universities need to do is undertake their primary mission of fully educating our students so that they realize that they have challenges ahead," Ernest Calderon said in a speech last week. "It'll be their generation that probably has to solve these challenges."

Calderon said faculty members worry more about time off and salaries than ensuring students get the well-rounded education they need.

"You have the power now, faculty, to make a change," he said. "Teach something in this university that every student has to learn."

Calderon said all incoming students should have to take at least one course on issues — and not limited to global warming.

He said most students are ignorant of the tenets of Islam despite the religion's rapid growth. And he said students should have at least a general background in other pressing issues, like DNA.

All three university presidents were cool to the idea of a specific course. But they conceded students may need more breadth in their education.

For example, University of Arizona President Robert Shelton said his bias, as someone who taught physics, would be to require everyone to take more science, "not to do quantum-chromodynamic calculations but to understand how mag-lev trains work, understand how solar panels work, semiconductor physics, to understand radiation and how overhead power lines are not going to cause cancer."

All universities require students to take "general education" courses to provide a broad background, Northern Arizona University President John Haeger said. But some universities do more.

Portland State University in Oregon organizes its entire freshman year around problems of the city, ranging from housing to government, Haeger said. "It has a marvelous impact on them and drives them quicker to their chosen specialty," he said.