Building General Education at St. Louis Community College
(continued)
As a first step, SLCC defined general education as courses that
* Broaden awareness and widen horizons;
* Cultivate the intellect and imagination;
* Prepare students to be lifelong learners; and
* Provide a perspective, an overall view of a subject or branch of
learning, and a substantial amount of
background information to
provide a solid background in the arts and sciences.
The knowledge and skill goals delineate the most important components
that support these expectations of general education.
The knowledge goals were divided among familiar general education
categories: Humanities and Fine Arts, Life and Physical Sciences,
Mathematics, and Social and Behavioral Sciences. More innovative, and
reflective of the abilities students need to succeed today, were the
skill goals: Communicating, Higher-Order Thinking, Managing
Information, and Valuing. Each goal was spelled out by competencies.
For example, for Social and Behavioral Sciences, one competency is,
“Articulate the interconnectedness of people, places, and cultures
around the globe.” A competency for the skill goal of Managing
Information is, “Organize information systematically using appropriate
methodology proportionate to the scope of the inquiry.”
FREEDOM AND OPPORTUNITY
The coordinating board left to the individual institutions the power to
craft their own programs that would respond to these eight
requirements. Given this freedom in contrast to the daunting prospect
of overhauling the entire general education program, different public
institutions chose radically different routes with the aim of
presenting students with a general education program that met the needs
of the home institution, yet would satisfy the state requirements for
transfer to the other public institutions.
Some schools rearranged their existing general education courses into
the new categories; one created three new courses: Higher-Order
Thinking, Managing Information, and Valuing. But St. Louis Community
College considered this an opportunity to rebuild its general education
program from the ground up. In the process, it involved scores of
faculty members, ensured that students would be ready for college-level
work when they begin their general education study, and created a
competency-based, integrated program that preserves academic integrity
for transfer students.
First, the process was highly organized and offered the maximum
opportunity for involvement for faculty members. It began with a
general education task force that developed into a steering committee
to guide the entire revision and keep it on track. Then, two committees
were assigned to each of the eight goals. One reviewed how existing
courses might already be meeting the new goals for students. The other
reviewed, modified, and augmented the competencies suggested by the
state.
Each of these committees consisted of about eight people, drawn from a
range of faculty members, and included a representation from the
steering committee as well as an administrator, typically a division
dean. After the committees finished their work, a group of more than 25
members called the “model drafters” developed the outline of the whole
program, incorporating the work of the other committees, and gave it
its coherent shape.
THE NEW BUILDING
Once again, the architectural metaphor applies. This group drafted a
three-level program with a foundation (including a cornerstone), a main
floor, and a capstone. The foundation courses are those that entering
students take first, courses that introduce them to college work and
intellectual perspectives. Chief among these is the cornerstone course,
which fulfills the skill goal of valuing and serves as an orientation
to college courses. Instructors can propose topics or themes around
which to build the course to introduce students to the overall goal of
general education and explore moral and ethical values of a diverse
society; students learn to identify the arguments of others and
articulate their own. In addition to developing their intellectual
skills in argumentation and decision making, students also learn
valuable practical skills such as time management and computer use.
Instructors have offered cornerstone courses with titles such as Meet
Me in Harlem, The Artist in Society, and Computer Hackers and Their
Effect on Society. These interdisciplinary courses have a double
benefit: Instructors can take a break from their usual disciplines to
pursue other interests, and students are introduced to the perspectives
of general education through subject matter that attracts them but that
would not usually be available for study. The prerequisite for the
cornerstone course is college-level reading and writing ability, so
students are prepared for the cornerstone and the general education
courses that succeed it.
The rest of the foundation consists of basic courses to fulfill the
skill goal of Communicating (Oral Communication and Introduction to
College Writing) and the knowledge goal of Mathematics (College
Algebra). Fortified with these fundamental intellectual skills,
students move into introductory courses in the disciplines.
The main floor is the traditional heart of a general education program:
Humanities and Fine Arts, Life and Physical Sciences, and Social and
Behavioral Sciences. These courses, a total of seven plus an elective,
fulfill the appropriate knowledge goal. But the main floor is
innovative as well as traditional. It is here that students reinforce
the communication skills they gained in the foundation courses of Oral
Communication and College Writing. Instead of just adding a second
speaking or writing course, the college made the deliberate decision to
integrate these skills into the discipline courses. Of the main-floor
courses that students take, two must be speaking intensive and two must
be writing intensive. These intensive courses are department-selected
sections of main-floor courses that require students to engage in
speaking and writing activities beyond what is typical in college
classes today.
SPEAKING AND WRITING
For example, a speaking-intensive section would include speaking
assignments with a clear sense of purpose and a defined audience,
assignments that demonstrate knowledge of the course content. In
writing-intensive sections, in addition to addressing the appropriate
audience purposefully and demonstrating knowledge of the content,
students must engage in revision of their writing under peer and
instructor review. A minimum amount of oral and written work is
required in each.
Inclusion of speaking and writing assignments not only develops these
skills in students, but also helps them learn the course material
better. Writing instructors have known for ages that if you can't write
it down, you don't really know it. The same applies to speaking. And in
addition to developing these communication techniques, which they will
need throughout their college education, students are preparing for
their professional and personal lives after college, where good
communication skills are always a bonus.
The final piece of the program is the capstone course, which mirrors
the cornerstone in that it is also an interdisciplinary course based on
a special topic. The capstone course meets the skill goal of managing
information, and therefore requires research and analysis of
information to produce and present a project. It does not have to be
the last course general education students take, but it requires 27
hours of general education as a prerequisite. Sample capstone courses
are The 20th Century Sexual Revolution and Environment Issues: The
Confluence of Science and Literature.
So, students who complete SLCC's general education program not only are
assured of receiving credit for general education when they transfer to
other public institutions in the state, but they also experience the
benefits of a general education program that is not a random collection
of courses. This is an integrated program of courses that build on each
other. As they progress through it, students must rely on the skills
acquired in their earlier courses. For example, the cornerstone skill
of valuing prepares them to get more from their humanities or social
science courses. Similarly, the foundation skills of oral and written
communication improve their performance in every course they take
thereafter. The integrity of the general education program gives
students an excellent introduction to a range of disciplines and sets
them on their way to choosing a major at the transfer institution.
Students who transfer with 42 credit hours in the general education
program get credit for general education at other public institutions
whether or not they complete an associate in arts degree. The college
named the general education program its Innovation of the Year for
2003-2004. It is considering whether to award a 42-hour certificate of
general education to those students.
Ann Roberts Divine mailto:adivine@stlcc.edu is Executive Dean at the
Meramec Campus of St. Louis Community College in St. Louis, Missouri.