General Education Committee Minutes, 9/19/12
Members present: R. Baker, S. Caro, L. Frey, K. Huthaily, A. Kinney, K. McKay, K. Reiser, N.
White,
Members Absent: J. Gallaway, J. Rabinovitch, F. Rosensweig
Ex-Officio Members Present: E. Johnson
The minutes from 4/25/12 minutes were approved.
Communication Items:

Members introduced themselves and new members were welcomed.

General Education Forms (new or requests for changes to existing courses) are due this
Friday, September 21st. There will likely be several one-time-only experimental Global
Leadership courses submitted for review. The review workload distribution will be
determined at the next meeting October 3rd. Chair White will be out of town on October
17th and 24th. The Committee will likely not meet on those dates to allow the subcommittees
to do their work. Members will be sent various procedures to help them understand the
responsibilities of the subcommittees.

Chair White created a diagram of how to correctly fill out the general education form. This
will be posted to the website for reference.

The charge of the committee as identified in the Faculty Senate bylaws is below.
The primary responsibility of the General Education Committee is ongoing evaluation and
assessment of the appropriateness and effectiveness of the general education requirements
and criteria. The General Education Committee acts as an advocate for general education,
proposes revisions to its requirements and criteria, reviews proposals, and ensures that all
general education requirements are feasible within campus constraints, Board of Regents
policies, and legislative actions.

The four-year rolling review of general education groups began last spring. Ethics, Social
Science, and Expressive Arts were reviewed. Because catalog changes are not accepted in
the spring, the review allowed for a one-year grace period. Several programs did not make
the spring deadline or did not respond to follow-up requests and will submit this fall. This
spring Historical and Cultural Studies, Natural Science, and Mathematics Groups will be
reviewed. During the review, subcommittee members should also consider whether the
group criteria and learning outcomes still meet the goals of the general education program in
relation to the strategic plan that now guides the University.
The deadline for submission will be February 22nd. The committee recommends that the
deadline be sent to all faculty after October 15th. The draft deadline memo will be available
for review at the next meeting.

The election of chair-elect was postponed.

The debate about the foreign language requirement and the symbolic systems exception has
been going on for many years. Due to credit limit mandates and professional or
accreditation expectations many programs cannot fit a language sequence (10 credits) into
their curriculum. Last year the General Education Committee proposed that only programs
with extended major status be eligible for the symbolic systems exception. This would force
several departments currently exempt to require foreign language. ASCRC would prefer an
incentive approach to encourage all students to take language rather than impose a
requirement on a few programs.
The Committee needs to think creatively about what would entice students to pursue a
second year of language. It is hoped that a proposal can be forwarded to ASCRC by the
end of the academic year. One suggestion was to poll the faculty. Various background
documents will be circulated.
The meeting was adjourned at 5: 00 PM.