Committee on General Education

Academic Year 2022-2023

Overview

The General Education Committee met a total of 10 times during Fall 2022 and Spring 2023. We agreed
to hold all meetings on Zoom to accommodate members’ schedules.

Committee Members:

Co-chair: Ansari, Suanne - Accounting and Legal Studies Co-chair: McCorkle, William - Teacher
Education

Grace, Carmen - Hispanic Studies Kattwinkel, Susan – Theatre and Dance

Chadwick, John - Geology McCune, Blanche - Classics

Meena, Purushottam (PL) – Supply Chain and Information Management

Student member: Howell, Bradlee

Quesada, Gia - ex-officio, Academic Affairs

Smail, Karen - ex-officio, General Education Coordinator

Major Activities of the Committee

  1. The committee reviewed 19 proposals;
  2. We had discussions and met with APC to discuss GEC’s role regarding REACH act FDR course proposals.
  3. The Math Logic Alternative (and Foreign Language) Subcommittee continued work from the 2021/2022 GEC efforts. See the report below.
  4. A new subcommittee was formed; the Subcommittee on General Education Assessment. See the report below.

Math and Logic Alternative & Foreign Language Alternative Subcommittee;

Carmen Grace and Karen Smail

During fall 2022 and spring 2023, Carmen Grace and Anne Osowski, the Center of Disability Services director, exchanged emails about the situation with the Foreign Language Alternative courses. Anne proposed that the General Education committee reach out to all department chairs and ask them to review the courses applicable to their department. The GenEd committee agreed to wait for Anne’s feedback to see if the courses offered for the Lang Alt are working for students. Carmen Grace emailed this resolution to Anne. Therefore, when the GenEd committee is ready to check what classes are no longer offered, the members will reach out to chairs to remove them from the Center for Disability Lang Alt list. Submitted by Carmen Grace.

Anne Osowski agreed to collect information on the applicability of the Math Alternative course selections based on student experience.

Subcommittee on General Education Assessment, 2022-2023:

Susan Kattwinkel, John Chadwick, Blanche McCune, Purushotta PL Meena, Karen Smail

The assessment subcommittee began a conversation about two aspects of Gen Ed assessment:
  1. How to deal with non-compliant Gen Ed courses (meaning faculty who regularly do not submit
    artifacts for assessment or whose signature assignments are consistently deemed insufficient by the
    Gen Ed reading group). Before deciding on procedures for moving forward we wanted to see data
    regarding non-compliant classes. Due to Karen Smail’s sudden office move we were unable to obtain
    that data. We suggest that next year’s committee continue this discussion.
  2. How new graduation requirements that are technically not part of General Education (i.e. the
    Founding Documents requirement and the REI requirement) will be assessed and receive faculty
    oversight. The General Education committee has been serving as a stand-in for these requirements,
    but our formal charge does not include requirements that fall outside the General Education
    description.
    1. The REI requirement has a temporary committee that has been doing assessment and pre approving courses before sending them to Gen Ed for approval. We suggest that the committee be made official and assume those duties permanently, and that Gen Ed be bypassed on the course approval route.
    2. The Founding Documents requirement does not have any faculty oversight at this time. Course
      approvals have been going through the General Education committee, but they technically fall
      outside our charge. There is no assessment being done, and it is not clear what kind of assessment the faculty wants to conduct. Subcommittee chair Susan Kattwinkel met with the college-wide Assessment committee, and they agreed to take up the discussion of Founding Documents assessment. They were not sure if that falls under their charge. We encourage the next General Education committee to be sure that the conversation regarding what counts as General Education and who has oversight continues, both within relevant committees and at the Senate level.

Looking forward to 2023/2024:

We recommend that next year’s committee focus on the following items:

  1. Continue the work of both the Subcommittee on General Education Assessment and
    Math and Logic Alternative & Foreign Language Alternative Subcommittee