Council on General Education

Minutes

3:30 p.m. January 19, 2006

 

Present:  Amy Carr, Dave Lane, Dean Zoerink, Martin Maskarinec, Polly Radosh, Lori Baker-Sperry, Paige Goodwin, Buzz Hoon, Margaret Sinex, Alice Robertson, Steve Bennett, John Miller, Johgnam Choi, Susan Meiers, Candace McLaughlin (ex-officio), Jim Schmidt (ex-officio), Judi Dallinger (ex-officio)

 

I.  The meeting was called to order by Lori Baker-Sperry.  Minutes from 12/1 meeting were approved with minor corrections. 

 

II. Announcements

      Welcome back Margaret Sinex!   

 

III. Old Business

  1. Update on Foreign Language/Global Issues subcommittee:   Dave Lane reported that there is no new information.

 

  1. General Education survey:  Amy Carr asked committee whether or not it might be beneficial to add a further description of categories to the general education survey.  Discussion ensued.  Jim Schmidt encouraged GERC to limit any additional information to the survey itself, avoiding a link to an off-survey site.  Marty Maskarinec suggested a pop-up.  It was decided that either a link to or (preferably) a pop-up of the “Philosophy and Goals of General Education” would be added to the survey.  Once completed and sent to Baker-Sperry, it will go out for final review by GERC.  Once responses have been gathered, Tere North will be given the okay to go live with the survey.

           

  1. Recommendation concerning IAI:  Baker-Sperry has been invited to the Faculty Senate Executive Committee meeting of January 30 to discuss in further detail the GERC request for inclusion in the process of articulation of non-IAI general education courses.  Baker-Sperry indicated that she is limited in her understanding of the process to correspondence or discussion with Joan McEneany and Vicki Nicholson and requested committee feedback and recommendation concerning her invitation to the meeting.  Discussion of the process ensued.  It was determined that Baker-Sperry might encourage the Faculty Senate to also invite Paula Rhodes to the January 30 meeting.  Jim Schmidt was also encouraged to attend if his schedule allows. 

 

Some discussion followed concerning the need for CGE involvement.  Radosh indicated that in her experience as Chair of Women’s Studies, she has not felt that there were glaring problems with the process.  She indicated that she felt that those involved erred on the side of caution and were diligent in their treatment of the issues surrounding the comparison of courses. She also indicated that there were multiple options when considering a course for transfer credit, such as giving partial credit or allowing a course to count as an elective but not as general education.  Jim Schmidt indicated that his experience differed from Radosh’s in the type of cases he received, as Associate Dean of Arts and Sciences.  He indicated that he was concerned about the appropriate level of consistency in determining credit, and that sometimes there might not be the same amount of time or seriousness given the process by all chairs.  He believed that the admissions office is concerned with two issues in particular: overly restrictive procedures and timeliness of the process.  Given these concerns, Schmidt indicated that he felt that faculty in general, and CGE in particular, might have slightly different interests than those currently making the initial decisions about course articulation.  Judi Dallinger inserted that CAGAS currently deals with many admissions-related issues and reminded the committee that they meet weekly through the summer to complete their work.  Marty Maskarinec asked about the prevalence of questionable cases: how many cases of each type are we talking about each year?  Alice Robertson offered her experiences as Director of the Writing Program—and described a situation where the issue was the number of course credits to allow. 

 

Baker-Sperry suggested the CGE representative work at the point in the process where the ‘problem’ cases are routed to deans’ offices.  Radosh suggested that, if there are areas or departments where articulation is not taken seriously, that we start there.  A member raised the question of pressure for those involved in admissions to pass courses to retain students or support cost guarantees.  The question of whether those involved in the process are also encouraged to or facilitators of such initiatives was raised and discussed. 

 

It was determined that Baker-Sperry would notify the Senate Executive Committee and request our recommendation of January 16 be tabled in order for us to invite Sarah Jo Guy and Paula Rhodes, credit analysts, to come and talk with GERC about whether or not they perceive a problem.  This would provide GERC with more information with which to determine the number of courses and issue involved. 

                       

 

Meeting adjourned at 4:28 p.m.

 

Most respectfully submitted by

Lori Baker-Sperry, Chair