General Education Committee 2012-13 Final Report
There were three primary issues we looked at this year: General Education programs at
other UW System schools, General Education Assessment processes at other UW System
schools, and compliance with the UWL General Education Assessment process. A
summary of the committees work is shown below. I want to thank the committee
members, Colin Belby, Abdulaziz Elfessi, Rebekah Fowler, Ryan Friesen (Fall), Kenny
Hunt (Fall), Gerald Iguchi, Janet Kirsch (recorder), Lisa Kobs (Spring) and Michele Pettit
for their hard work and cooperation.
A. Charges from the Faculty Senate
The Faculty Senate only gave us one specific charge:
The committee is charged with comparing our General Education program to that
of other UW- System schools and reporting to Senate on strengths and weaknesses
identified by this comparison.
A.1 The committee sent a report about UW System GenEd programs to the Faculty
Senate in January. The contents of the report are shown below.
A.1.1. Data collection
We gathered information about the general education programs at UW
System schools from the school web sites. We did our best to understand the other
programs from the online information. We did not contact other schools with
questions. The programs at UW-Oshkosh and UW-Stevens Points are new or
under development so information about these general education programs might
be incomplete.
A.1.2. Items looked at for comparisons
When we started the process, we identified many possible points of
comparison, but for this update we address the items shown below since they are
the items for which we think we have the most accurate data.
Total number of credit hours for the program
Numbers of courses in the program
Types of categories
Number of credits in each category
The information in sections A.1.2a through A.1.2c refer to the general
education programs at the UW Comprehensives, UWL and the UW-Colleges. We
did look at the programs at UW-Madison and UW-Milwaukee. Their programs
are smaller than the other programs (22-30 credits for UW-Madison and 24-36
credits for UW-Milwaukee). We do not have good data on the number of courses
in the program at UW-Madison. UW-Milwaukee has a large number of courses
(680) in their program because any course that satisfies one of the SLOs can be
included. We did not include these schools in the discussion below because they
are significantly different institutions than the Comprehensives. In particular, our
sense is that the colleges at UW-Madison and UW-Milwaukee have more
autonomy than the colleges within the Comprehensives and there might be more
general education like requirements specific to a student's major college.
A.1.2a.The total number of credit hours required by the program.
Seven schools list a range of credits required for their general education
program. The minimums required are in the mid-thirty credits and the maximums
are in the to upper- forty credits (with the exception of Stevens Point where the
maximum is 51 credits and UW-Platteville where the maximum is 58 credits).
Five programs list a single number of credits required. The average of the
minimum credits required is 38 credits and the average of the maximum credits
required is 45 (programs with a single number of credits required are included in
both averages). The reasons some programs have ranges of required credits vary
but are usually associated with either skills courses that are only required if
placement test scores are low or with the use of courses that could satisfy more
that one category (i.e. a student could take one course that would double count
because it satisfied two categories).
UWL's program requires 48 credits. It is one of the larger programs, but it
is not significantly larger. Two of the newer programs, UW Platteville and UWStevens Point, have maximum credit requirements larger that UWL's.
A.1.2b. Number of courses in the program
The number of courses that are included in each general education
program varies from a minimum of 89 courses to a maximum of 512 courses.
The schools with a large number of course offerings generally include upper
division courses in the menu of general education courses. The numbers of
courses we found in each program is an approximation since no school lists a
specific number. We arrived at our numbers by counting courses and looking at
information in the catalog.
UWL includes about 150 courses in its general education program. This is
at the lower end of the number of courses included in each program. Also, UWL
does not generally include upper division courses in the program. Five schools
offer more than 270 courses in their programs with UW-Eau Claire and UWPlatteville offering the most courses (428 at UW-Eau Claire and 512 at UWPlatteville).
A.1.2c. Types of categories and number of credits in each category
There was considerable consistency in the categories listed for the general
education programs. Every school requires some course work in Mathematics,
English, Arts (sometimes grouped with Humanities), Humanities, Social Science,
Natural Science and Diversity or Ethnic Studies. Most schools require Speech.
Except in the skills area, UWL's minimum requirements in each category
are at the low end. In part, this is because satisfying the minimum requirements in
each area requires only a total of 39 credits. Students can take 9 credits of any
general education courses to reach the total required credits of 48.
A.1.3. Assessment Process
We have not spent enough time looking at the assessment process used by
each program. Given the increasing assessment demands on colleges and
universities, we think this is an important area for us to look at, and we will do so
in the Spring semester.
A.1.4. What next?
While there are many small differences among the programs, UWL's
general education program is very similar to the other UW Comprehensives. The
new program at UW-Oshkosh does appear to be moving in a new direction but is
still under development, so we could not find many details about courses in the
program.
In the Spring semester, we will review the assessment processes use by the
UW Comprehensives. If there are specific issues the SEC would like the
committee to look at in more detail, please let me know.
A.2 In the Spring we reviewed the GenEd assessment processes used by other UW
system schools. We gathered information about the assessment processes from the school
web sites and in limited discussions with Patrick Barlow (although the committee is
exclusively responsible for any inaccuracies or omissions in the attached spreadsheet).
In general information about the assessment processes was more difficult to gather than
information about the programs. We gather information about the following items:
The number of SLOs (and number of categories of SLOs)
Is assessment done on course level or program level?
Is a committee or individual responsible for assessment?
Are direct or indirect measures used?
Is the outcome of the assessment used for course or program improvement?
How the results were disseminated?
The timeline of the assessment process
The accompanying spreadsheet shows the results we found. This information is
incomplete. If more detailed information is required the 2013-14 GenEd committee
should continue this investigation. Given the information the committee found it appears
that UWL has a more formal course level assessment process than most of the other UW
System institutions.
A.3 In general UWL's GenEd program seems similar to most other UW System GenEd
programs. The one case where significant differences might be found is in UW-Oshkosh's
program. The program is very new and is still under development but from the
information the committee found it seems to be approaching the issues of GenEd
differently than other UW System programs.
B. Compliance with GenEd Assessment process
2012-13 was the second year of the three-year assessment process. About half the courses
submitted form As in 2011-12 and 2012-13. Since courses can still be assessed in 201314 no course can be considered out of compliance but the committee is concerned with
the large number of courses that must be assessed in the third year of the cycle. We had
some discussion about what could improve compliance but came to no conclusion. It is
important for both the 2013-14 GenEd committee and the Faculty Senate to remind
departments that all courses in the GenEd program must be assessed once during the
three year cycle and to remind departments that have courses that have not yet assessed in
the current three year cycle must be assessed in 2013-14.
C. New Courses Approved
The following new courses and Writing in the Major programs were approved in 201213.
CHI 305 Introduction to Modern Chinese Literature
HED 200 Public Health for the Educated Citizen II.D
PHY 142 Going Nuclear: Navigating Global Nuclear Issues II.C.2
STEP Writing in the Major
English Writing in the Major.