General Education Review Committee
Minutes
March 2, 2006; 3:30 p.m.
Nauvoo Room, University
Present: Lori Baker-Sperry, Amy Carr, Paige Goodwin, William Hoon, Dave Lane, Susan Meiers, John Miller, Polly Radosh, Alice Robertson, Margaret Sinex, Candace McLaughlin (ex-officio), Jim Schmidt (ex-officio), Judith Dallinger (ex-officio)
Guest: Martin Kral
I. The meeting as called to order by Lori Baker-Sperry at 3:30 p.m. The minutes of the February 16, 2006 meeting were approved.
II. Lori announced that she received word that a student has been appointed to the GERC. Hopefully that student will be able to begin attending at the next meeting.
III. Marty Kral, Associate Director of Career Services, commented on evaluations of WIU students made by prospective employers who attend Career Fairs at WIU. Positive evaluations about WIU students included: they are cordial, well dressed, have good resumes, and there are very qualified business students. More negative comments had been received by the Career Services office, and some of those suggested that WIU students: are not prepared for interviews, are not dressed appropriately, do not bring resumes, are not prepared to market themselves orally, have unrealistic expectations, and can’t write well.
Marty suggested that that Amy Spellman in the Alumni Office may have some evaluations provided by employers who had hired WIU graduates. Marty’s evaluations were based on current students who are pursuing jobs at job fairs.
Committee members discussed the possibility of better preparing our students for future employment, noted that this is a nation-wide problem not specific to WIU only, and speculated on the possibility of developing a CD/DVD that could be provided to students including useful information in this area since they would prefer to have education available on demand in electronic format. Further discussion focused on the need for our students to improve their writing and speaking skills, and the fact that these skills (along with other skills and knowledge needed for successful job procurement) are the responsibility of the entire college degree, not just general education.
The committee thanked Marty for his presentation.
IV.
John Miller and
1 b.) attitudes towards a global requirement, and 2) responses to the goals/learning outcomes/philosophy that the committee has developed. Focus groups will be conducted after the survey is completed.
As part of the questioning about a foreign language or global requirement, the survey will ask respondents’ opinions about how such a requirement might be included in our curriculum. Inserting it into the general education will be one of the options listed.
The committee hopes to report to the senate by the end of this semester. If they recommend that we include a foreign language or global requirement as part of the general education, a request for the mechanism for doing so would probably be referred to the GERC.
V. Lori asked committee members to express their preference for recommending to the senate either the “Invitation to Remain on GERC” proposal (previously distributed) or a straight forward “Freeze the GERC membership” proposal (as proposed last semester). Following discussion about how the size of the committee and how including new members who would need to be brought up to date would affect our work, the committee voted unanimously to recommend the “Freeze” option. Lori will distribute proposed language for the recommendation, and committee members should provide feedback.
VI. Lori reminded Jim, Dave and Judi that they are a subcommittee charged with doing further data analysis on the results of the faculty survey. Some specific analyses that the committee would like to investigate include comparisons on satisfaction and adequacy items by a) whether or not faculty teach general education classes; b) college; and c) number of years at WIU. Committee members would also like to examine comparisons of responses to “W items” by whether or not respondents teach W courses. Further questions and/or comments can be discussed via an email discussion.
VII. Committee members made suggestions for changes to items on the proposed student survey. Several items on the number of pages students have written for their classes and on the value of the general education need to be discussed more fully and possibly edited.
The committee adjourned at 5:10 p.m.