Meeting of the Faculty Senate
General Education Committee
325 Graff Main Hall
29 October 2012
2012-2013 Members: Colin Belby
Abdulaziz Elfessi
Rebekah Fowler
Ryan Friesen
Tom Gendreau
Kenny Hunt
Gerald Iguchi
Janet Kirsch
Michele Pettit
Geography
Mathematics
English
English (fall only)
Computer Science
Computer Science (fall only)
History
Chemistry
Health Ed & Health Promotion
Members Present:
Fowler, Gendreau, Hunt, Iguchi, Kirsch
Members Excused:
Belby, Elfessi, Friesen, Pettit
Members Absent:
Guests/Consultants:
Chris Bakkum, Registrar; Amelia Dittman, CBA; Tim Walls, CLS/SAC
The meeting was called to order at 3:42 PM by Tom Gendreau, chair.
1. M/S/P Minutes of 10/15/12, voice vote, no abstentions.
2. UW-System Report on Associate Degree Standards: The committee discussed
the highlights of the UW-System Report. Chris Bakkum noted that, in general,
there did not seem to be any significant changes that would affect our curriculum
at UW-L. Furthermore, the number of Associate Degrees awarded at UW-L is
significantly smaller than the number of Bachelor’s Degrees. The report was
deemed worthy of review by the committee because, traditionally, completing
the associate degree at another UW-System school has been considered sufficient
to satisfy UW-L's Gen Ed requirements. This observation led to a discussion of
whether or not a transfer student could earn a Bachelor’s Degree without having
completed all of UW-L’s Gen Ed requirements.
3. General Education Programs at other UW-System schools: Continuing our
discussion of other Gen Ed programs, the committee noted the following:
•
Members identified the number of courses in the Gen Ed programs at other
UW-System schools. This data is compiled in Table 1.
•
Review collected data for errors
•
We began to compile a list of items to include in our report to the Faculty
Senate.
o
Similarities: Overall, there seems to be a strong commitment to
general education at UW-System schools; the categories of our Gen
Ed program are largely the same as those offered at other System
schools; the number of credits required at UW-L are on the higher
end of the state’s average; approximately half of the System schools
(including UW-L) have a health requirement.
o
Differences: UW-L’s 48-credit requirement puts us near the top of
the System schools; we have a set number of Gen Ed credits, as
opposed to a range of credits, and we are at the lower end of the
number of courses offered for Gen Ed credit; UW-L is one of the few
institutions that appears to offer a formal ‘First Year Experience’
course; some institutions require a certain level of proficiency in a
foreign language (although this might need to be further
investigated); UW-L tends to assess the program more in terms of a
credit-by-exam method (as opposed to something like a student
portfolio method).
o
For further consideration: Tom will follow up with Patrick Barlow
from CATL to discuss UW-L’s Gen Ed assessment in more detail.
We may also want to investigate the use of SLO’s for admitting
courses to UW-L’s Gen Ed program. Chris mentioned that some
institutions appear to include more ‘in-depth’ coursework (as
opposed to ‘breadth’ coursework) than UW-L; this could possibly
affect the flexibility of our Gen Ed curriculum if we were to include
more in-depth coursework in the program.
Table 1: The approximate number of general education courses at UW-System schools
Colleges
Number of
Courses
(all)
Eau Claire
428
Green Bay
La Crosse
Institution
Parkside
Number of
Courses
130
Platteville
512
271
River Falls
142
150
Stevens Point
311
Stout
188
Superior
288
Madison
Milwaukee
680
Oshkosh
Institution
Whitewater
4. The committee was informed of a recently approved substitution for a General
Education transfer credit:
•
HIS 000M, World in 20th Century (3 credits) from Western Technical
College for HIS 101, Global Origins of the Modern World (3 credits).
M/S/P, The meeting was adjourned at 4:36 PM.
Notes compiled by J. Kirsch