General Education Review Committee Minutes

9/14/06

Present: Dale Adkins, Lori Baker-Sperry, Martha Barclay, Steve Bennett, Amy Carr, Jongnam Choi, Judi Dallinger, Annette Glotfelty, Paige Goodwin, Buzz Hoon, David Lane, Martin Maskarinec, Candace McLaughlin, Susan Meiers, John Miller, Kathleen O’Donnell-Brown, Polly Radosh, Phyllis Rippey, Alice Robertson, James Schmidt, Aimee Shouse, Margaret Sinex, William Thompson

Absent: Margo Byerly, Tessa Pfafman, Dean Zoerink

I. Approval of the Minutes

- No corrections to the minutes; minutes are approved.

II. Announcements

- Several items have been added to the GERC website: the quantitative survey results, minutes, agendas, committee reports, charge from Faculty Senate, bibliography, list of peer institutions

- GERC will meet in Morgan 423 from now on

- CGE will still meet in the Cardinal-Oak room

- CGE will meet next week, handouts from Amy Carr will arrive via email; All GERC members are welcome

III. Paul Kreider, Dean, College of Fine Arts and Communication, and Ken Hawkinson, Chair, Dept. of Communications regarding a fine arts requirement in the general education curriculum

- They recommend requiring all students to take even a single Fine Arts course is a desired goal

- They recommend renaming the “Humanities” category as the “Humanities and Fine Arts” category, and require at least 3 hours of the 9 hour WIU General Education requirement be for a Fine Arts course. This will NOT add hours to the General Education requirement

- This recommendation would bring WIU in line with other state universities in the state and with IAI

- Discussion after Paul Kreider and Ken Hawkinson left. The recommendation to support or not support this recommendation was moved to the Categories Subcommittee.

IV. W subcommittee report

- The W Committee had a mix of opinions on whether to keep the “W” or not

- There is a feeling in the Committee that there must be writing in the General Education requirements, though there is not a majority opinion that “W” is the answer

- Alternatives are presented in the Committee Handout

- Discussion by the GERC/CGE Committee:

- If the “W” is removed, will this result in a decrease in writing?

- How would enforcement/monitoring be done?

- Is enforcement/monitoring a separate issue from retaining the “W”?

- Has the quality of writing gotten better or worse over time here at WIU?

- As smaller courses are recommended for better instruction and being more

reasonable for grading of many assignments, will we be able, as a University, to

provide enough seats for smaller courses?

- Why is there a continuing question regarding the effectiveness of the “W” as a General

Education requirement

- Will there be issues with students appealing to CAGAS for not being able to meet their

“W” requirement if not enough seats are available?

- Should there be more of an effort to educate faculty, such as the workshop already

scheduled this semester, to educate current faculty regarding the “W”

requirement?

- Will there be less writing in courses if there is no “W” requirement?

- Does the “W” requirement allow students to think that because a course has no “W”,

there will be no writing in a course.

- What alternative plans have been recommended if there is no “W” requirement (4 were

suggested by the Subcommittee, and are contained at the end of the handout

provided)

V. Category subcommittee reports

A. Team A (Bennett, Carr, Lane, Thompson)

B. Team B (Baker-Sperry, Choi, Maskarinec, Sinex)

- Subcommittee A and B handouts are provided

Discussion will continue next week.