Campus Update February 2008
GENERAL EDUCATION UPDATE
February, 2008
The General Education Design Team and Steering Committee continues to meet bi-weekly on behalf of the faculty who initiated General Education renewal in 2006. We encourage faculty and staff who have recently joined us - as well as those who have not yet engaged with the renewal process - to become fully informed prior to the March 28th Governing Faculty Meeting at which time voting will take place on pressing General Education implementation issues.
From Goldenrod to Green
An updated version of the Learning Communities and Effective Citizenship General Education program (green-covered document) has been circulated to all faculty members. This updated version replaces the goldenrod document and includes explicit inclusion of the Fine Arts in the Humanities, Society, Culture and Fine Arts suite area. The Fine Arts were inadvertently omitted from the original, golden-rod document.
The Learning Outcomes, endorsed by the Governing Faculty on December 11, 2007 for approval by each academic unit, are also included in the green document.
Twenty-Four Focus Sessions
A series of twenty-four Focus Sessions on a variety of General Education topics, scheduled for the winter 2008 semester, are underway. Two sessions are held weekly and focus specifically on disciplines within and across suites, governance, the FYE pilots, civic engagement, and pilot suites. Your active participation in these Focus Sessions is critical to the reform work and will inform your vote.
Sub-committees of the Design Team are gathering data and working on recommendations to the faculty on the following aspects of the plan which will be shared in additional Focus Sessions prior to the end of this academic year:
- Capstone Courses
- Civic Engagement
- Implications for Transfer Students
Videos of these sessions are available on the GE website as are written summaries of the proceedings. We are striving to be timely in these posting but are encountering some technical challenges. Information that is not already posted will be available shortly.
Website Alert: General Education Will Soon Have Its Own Website!
All General Education information is being relocated from the Thompson Center for Learning and Teaching to its own website. We hope that this change will occur during the first week of February. An email announcement of the new address will be sent once the change is complete.
Report on December 11, 2007
A General Education Forum and Governing Faculty Meeting were held on December 11, 2007. Acting Provost Vahid Lotfi affirmed the high priority that he and Acting Chancellor Jack Kay (who was ill) have placed on the General Education renewal initiative by increasing the current GE development budget by $30,000. Models for sustainable GE funding are currently under discussion.
During the forum, faculty worked in small groups to respond to the concept of an inter-unit General Education curriculum committee proposed by Faculty Council and AAAC. Ideas were put forward regarding the potential charge, scope, and composition of such a group. Provost Lotfi is now working with appropriate groups to devise a formal proposal based on faculty response generated at the forum.
A meeting of the Governing Faculties, immediately following the forum, endorsed the proposed Student Learning Outcomes for General Education for approval by each academic unit. These outcomes were then sent to each academic unit for official approval. As of this writing, SOM, SHPS[1] and SEHS have approved the document. CAS has yet to report. The document will be further refined as General Education continues to evolve.
Suites of Courses
Suites of Courses are the current topic of discussion in the January and February Focus Sessions. (See videos and summaries of Focus Sessions discussions on the GE website.)
The four pilot suites offered in winter, 2008, have provided interesting insight into enrollment patterns revealing the difficulties in piloting un-mandated General Education elements. Though a few students have enrolled in two of the three courses offered in a suite, no students enrolled in ALL THREE courses in any suite. Nonetheless, faculty are meeting to explore curriculum development ideas presented by consultant William Newell of Miami of Ohio during a site visit November 14, 2007.
Two additional suites are under preparation for spring/summer, 2008
- How Money Works (Economics, Finance, and Quantitative Reasoning)
- Health and Well-Being (Health and Well-being)
An additional suite is being developed in the natural sciences (Science and Technology) for possible offering in fall, 2008.
Faculty who are developing suites will present their work at Focus Sessions held on April 1st ,2nd , 8th & 9th.
[1] Some alternate language for outcomes in Writing was suggested.