General Education Committee 2011-12 Final Report
It was an uneventful year. We approved a few new courses and continued to review the
assessment process. This was the first year of the new rotation for SLO assessment. SLOs
in categories I. Knowledge of Human Cultures and the Natural World and II.
Critical and Creative Thinking Skills were scheduled for assessment in 2011-12. The
results of the assessment will not be known until Form B's (due July 2012) are reviewed
in the Fall of 2012. There was good compliance with the new process but it will take
more vigilance on the part of the committee to make sure all courses are assessed once
during the three-year cycle. Some courses are not offered every year so these courses
cannot always assess in the year their SLO category is scheduled. Departments with
courses that have a offering pattern incompatible with the standard schedule have been
told they can assess in any year of the three year cycle but they must assess sometime
during the three year cycle.
A summary of the committee's work is shown below. I want to thank the committee
members, Michael Current, Abdulaziz Elfessi, Ann Epstein, Anne Galbraith, Jean
Hindson, James Peirce, Michelle Pettit and Thomas Pribek (recorder) for their hard work
and cooperation.
A. Charges from the Faculty Senate
The Faculty Senate gave us three specific charges. They (in bold) are shown below with
the actions taken.
Last year a revised set of SLOs were used in assessment for the first time and
departments were asked to revise the mapping of courses to SLOs by the end of the
academic year. Review the revised mapping of courses to SLOs resulting from this
work and report to Senate on whether there are un-assessed or under-assessed
SLOs. If so, develop recommendations to Senate as to whether SLOs should be
removed or whether new coursework should be developed to address the SLOs.
The remap went fine. As a result of reorganization (and elimination) of the SLOs done in
2010-11 there is only 1 SLO that is unused. There are still some under-assessed SLOs but
we are not recommending any changes at this point.
Develop, and propose to Senate for approval, a formal appeal process for dealing
with student waiver and substitution requests in the General Education curriculum.
This process already exists. There is a reference to it on the UWL Web site. The first
point of contact is the student’s College Office. We did not have any problems with this
issue this year. It would be good if advisors were reminded that if a student thinks they
have a case for an appeal the first place to go is to the College Office of the college
housing the student’s primary major.
Review and report to Senate on WE and WIMP.
The primary area of concern is the WIMP program. There is no communication between
the committee and the departments after the programs are approved. Brian Kopp will
contact departments with these programs on behalf of the committee to check their status.
In particular he will ask each department how new faculty are informed about the
program and its requirements and he will ask each department how the program is
assessed.
B. New Courses Approved
Course number
GenEd Category
MLG 204
MLG 304
MTH 135
MTH 136
PHIL 200
Skills B-2
Liberal Studies B-2
Skills B-1
Skills B-1
Humanistic Studies B-2
MTH 135 and MTH 136 replace MTH 125 and MTH 126 respectively. MTH 125 and
MTH 126 will be phased out. The committee also approved counting (retroactively)
MTH 125 for GenEd credit as long as the student completes MTH 126 by the end of Fall
2012.
Submitted by
Thomas Gendreau, GenEd Chair 2011-12