General Education
Review Committee
Minutes
Present:
Members
Absent: Margo Byerly, Susan Meiers, James Schmidt
I. Approval of minutes
Minutes of
II. Announcements
The Foreign
Language/Global Issues public forum was held on Tuesday, with an estimated 30
people attending.
Members on
CGE were given a handout about IAI; CGE met on
III. Category reports
A
wide-ranging discussion of the Team A and B category subcommittees ensued. Members discussed numerous points:
Portfolios
An
advantage is that it ensures writing exists.
Nationwide, advisors are looking at a portfolio plan, which could
dovetail with a gen ed portfolio.
The
logistics and feasibility of portfolios were questioned. Electronic portfolios exist, and English and
education currently have portfolios.
English collects papers from 100, 200, 300-level courses, with a
reflective paper on the writer’s growth.
To meaningfully assess with 10,000 students, however, would be
difficult; it would involve a huge commitment of resources, probably more than
the previous writing exam requirement.
What is the
purpose of a portfolio? It would assess growth throughout students’ educations,
with students writing reflective narratives of their growth.
One option
is a capstone gen ed course that incorporates a
portfolio; it could include consideration of goals of gen
ed. This would make gen
ed a deliberate, reflective process. But
who would teach these courses? Is gen ed the place
for this experience, or does it belong within majors?
GERC should
get feedback on the portfolio process from departments and schools that
currently do it.
It’s
important to remember that portfolios are not necessarily the same things as
the assessment of student learning.
Upper-level
courses
The reason
for 100-200-level courses was that education should be broad, not deep; it
should provide a foundation. There is
also a historical split between community colleges, which focused on gen ed, and 4-year universities, which specialized in
upper-level courses for majors. Generally, we are constrained by the IAI.
On the
other hand, gen ed learning could occur at all levels. Some students might welcome gen ed courses that were more challenging.
There are
outside (e.g. accreditation agencies) expectations for breadth not depth, so
the issue might be beyond our control.
There could
be a two-tier gen ed, with some lower and some
higher-level courses. This would either
add to the degree program, or require splitting the current number of hours. If the goal is lifelong learning, shouldn’t
there be upper-level gen ed courses to support that
idea?
Foreign
Languages/Global Issues (FL/GI)
Members
discussed making this requirement a university requirement. A WID-like requirement has appeal to some. Faculty in some departments (e.g., Computer Science)
feel it would not work, however, because there are no courses which naturally
fit. Such a requirement would end up adding to degree requirements in these
majors. The other option is a general education category. Category Team B recommended this option. To prevent hours being added to some majors,
students would be allowed to take 1 cross-listed course (e.g., a History of Women
course could meet both Humanities and Multi-cultural categories). Designating some courses as ‘G’ courses could
serve a similar purpose, by allowing a course to both fulfill a gen ed category and meet the G requirement. The ‘G’ could be a university requirement
(which is where Category Team A recommends the global requirement be
placed). If the primary purpose of gen ed is to expose students to different discipline
perspectives, global issues doesn’t seem to fit; it is a content-based course,
reflecting a value or focus of the university rather than a gen
ed goal.
Given that
there are college-level splits (e.g., Business and Technology favors global
issues, Arts and Sciences favors foreign language), it was suggested that each
college should decide what the requirement should be. The problem with a college-level requirement is
that a FL/GI requirement is designed not just for employment, but for
responsible citizenship; that is a gen ed issue.
GERC was
reminded that nothing has been decided regarding the Foreign Language/Global
Issues requirement, because the decision rests with Faculty Senate.
Marty M.
agreed to produce a specific proposal for a FL/GI requirement.
Satisfaction
with the goals
Members
briefly discussed that the category structure is OK, according to both
subcommittees and the faculty survey, but the goals need deliberate
consideration. Team B thinks that
university-wide common gen ed goals are needed to
help determine whether courses fit in gen ed. A problem for CGE has been the difficulty in
deciding what courses don’t belong in gen ed. There
is a sense that we need criteria for what defines a course as gen ed, possibly regardless of level. It was suggested that there are universal
goals, in the preamble to the gen ed section.
Fine
Arts requirement
The chair’s
suggestion for incorporating a fine arts requirement into the humanities
category (one course in category) is acceptable, we will base a requirement on
that suggestion.
Issues
for GERC to address in future meetings:
FL/GI
The W
requirement
Assessment
of goals
Setting
criterion for inclusion of courses in gen ed.
Ensuring
faculty know goals and make central focus of classes
Gen ed
goals – category specific or universal?