Meeting of the Faculty Senate
General Education Committee
325 Graff Main Hall
December 7, 2015
2015-2016 Members: Colin Belby
Sam Cocks
Nabamita Dutta
Kenny Hunt
Heather Jett
Lisa Kobs
Bryan Kopp
Meredith Thomsen
Mary Tollefson
Geography
Philosophy
Economics
Computer Science
Library
Biology
English
Biology
Music
Present: Belby, Cocks, Dutta, Hunt, Jett, Kobs, Kopp, Thomsen, Tollefson
Consultants and Guests: Patrick Barlow, Natalie Eschenbaum, Michelle Sturm, Peter Stovall,
Kate Parker, Joe Anderson, John Grider, Chris Bakkum, Georges Cravins
1. Meeting commenced at 3:32 pm
2. Review of minutes from November 2, 2015
a. Motion to approve minutes. M/S/P (8/0/0)
3. Discussion of concerns raised by several CLS departments regarding the General
Education Student Learning Objective survey that was emailed to all UWL departments
in the preceding weeks.
a. Historical documents related to the development of the General Education
Program were reviewed. The committee then reviewed their reasons for
conducting the survey of SLOs within the general education courses.
b. The committee discussed concerns related to the survey that were raised by
History and English.
4. Discussion and analysis of the SLO survey data.
a. At the time of the GEC meeting about 50 courses had not yet responded; mostly
those courses housed in departments that had expressed concern with the survey.
The majority of departments had responded to the survey.
b. The GEC had an initial discussion of the results, their significance, and what steps
to take next.
c. Members of the GEC volunteered to work with IR to obtain a sampling of recent
graduates to determine if there were scenarios in which students fulfilled the
general education requirements but had gaps in their coverage of the GEC SLOs
based on the survey results.
5. Meeting adjourned at 4:55 pm.