End-of-Academic Year
Committee Report
Name of Committee
Names of Chair and Committee
Members
List of Committee Meeting Dates and
Times
List of Committee Initiatives,
Directives, and Tasks to Address
throughout the Academic Year
List of Committee Accomplishments
throughout the Academic Year
Faculty Congress General Education Committee
Michael Bitter, Chair
Karla Hayashi, GE Committee Member
Thora Abarca, GE Committee Member
Yumik Ohara, GE Committee Member
Amy Saxton, GE Committee Member
Jeffrey Smith, GE Committee Member
Armando Garcia-Ortega, GE Committee Member
Due to the nature and volume of the GE re-certification
process, the General Education Committee has conducted
it business Online this academic year. Course applications
are received at the Uhhgened web address and organized
and transferred by the Chair to a Dropbox account that is
then shared with all the GE Committee members. The
courses are then discussed via email among the GE
Committee members. As the certification work of the GE
Committee continues until September of 2015, several final
meetings are planned for the summer and early fall of 2015.
These will allow the Committee to discuss and address the
most problematic of the GE course applications and come
to final decisions.
As of May, 2015, the work of the 2015-2016 General
Education Committee is ongoing. At this point, application
materials for over 70% of all GE courses needing recertification have been received by the Committee.
Course applications that have not yet been received will be
solicited for a second time by the GE Committee Chair in
the hopes that all courses needing GE re-certification will
be received by the early summer of 2015. With summer
and early fall, 2015, meetings, the GE Committee plans to
complete the re-certification of ALL GE courses by
September of 2015.
The list of GE courses certified through 2021 will be
finalized by September of 2015, as requested by the
Registrar’s Office. According to a consensus reached
among those involved with General Education over the
years, in the fall of 2016, ALL currently certified GE courses
will be certified until the fall of 2021, placing all current GE
courses on the same re-certification schedule for the
future.
List of Committee Initiatives,
Directives, and Tasks Remaining to
Address for the Next Academic Year
As stated above, the work of the present GE Committee
will extend until September of 2015, according to the
Registrar’s Office schedule for GE certification, and due to
the fact that 30% of applications for GE course recertification has not been submitted to the Committee. A
number of issues regarding the current GE Program have
been discussed this year and will be addressed in a final
report. These include the possibility of designating GE
courses as such in each semester’s Class Schedule in an
effort to avoid student and faculty confusion, among
others. Discussion of such issues with the Registrar’s
Office has exposed the limits of our current UHH
technology when it comes to what appear to be simple
solutions. As it stands, these, and other, issues have very
difficult solutions and appear to require resources and
technology that are not currently available at UH Hilo.
Please attach all meeting minutes or notes, as well as documentation of accomplishments.